“The Game” has been a part of my life since middle school, and I’ve lost on and off for about 15 years without winning once. The Game is simple: if you think about The Game, you lose and you must announce that you’ve lost The Game. Any other rules are house-rules, and there is no real way to win The Game, except by not knowing about it (a.k.a. not playing in the first place). Apparently there are some actual psychological study origins of The Game, but I was introduced to The Game as nothing more than a playful trick, and at this point, I apologize for indoctrinating you into The Game (cue War Games).
I first heard about The Game in middle school, which means that I was inadvertently participating in the game the first time I kissed someone (else), and during endless hours of FIFA games with my friends (this hobby extends into the present, of course). I was playing, and losing, The Game when I was playing in hockey tournaments around the country, and when I got accepted to college and left home.
In undergrad, I went through a period where I would lose the game nearly daily, if not multiple time a day, much to the chagrin of my roommates. Interestingly enough, this coincided with my largest period of cross-wording. Although I might be reading too much into it, I do think that the passive background thinking you exercise when solving crosswords bled into my constant remembrance of The Game. While my brain was subconsciously trying to remember the actress who played Marion in the Indiana Jones franchise, I was simultaneously torturing myself into losing The Game with very high frequency. Luckily though, I never lost The Game during a test or during a crew race– I was a purist and would have admitted my defeat at the consequence of flunking an exam or catching a crab during a race (catching a crab is not what you think it is, it is this glorious fail that all rowers experience at least once).
Nowadays, The Game sits somewhere in the back of my mind, like a seemingly random distant memory triggered by a unique smell. And luckily enough, I’m catching a whiff of the basement my grandparent’s cottage by the lake more than I think about The Game. At this point though, based on how linked different parts of my brain seem to be, I worry that eventually “winning” The Game might mean I lose those memories. Maybe there’s some funny poetry in that sentiment, in the ways that I picture Shel Silverstein and Edgar Allen Poe interacting if they were trapped in a room together.
And maybe I’m writing a super short article about The Game so I can process a current feeling of nostalgia and homesickness– there’s simply no way of knowing.
I definitely miss my friends and can’t wait to go home again soon, though.
Recess 014