The General Rules #2 - The Necessity of "The Game" (Part 1)

"Could I trust you with my heart if I was sure you wouldn't break it?" (Yes, I just quoted myself).

This is a touchy subject and I am quite positive that I won't handle it as delicately as most of you would prefer. I also want to re-emphasize rule #1 when I started this segment. There are exceptions. Some of us know people who fell in love at first sight in High School and have been together ever since. This is not that story. This is what happens to the rest of us.

I start by quoting a sage Professor Young of BYU, "Our hopes are not always fulfilled. That, we have been told, is the nature of our existence here. And though good things can happen to us, though peace and joy are assured us according to our faith, the good things must often come through a process of struggle and disappointment and patient waiting." I'd like to take this idea a step further, and suggest that, "struggle, disappointment and patient waiting" are essential to the process of finding "true love."

We all have the same story somewhere in our early childhood. For me it was a CD player. For others it may have been a bike or a video game or a Barbie. I wanted a CD player when I was 12. It was a Philips 45 second anti-skip jogproof CD player and it was $25. It was this one:

Beautiful isn't it? But the problem with being 12 is that you have no money. Or job by which one may ascertain said funds. So I saved. I begged. I mowed lawns. I did extra chores. And slowly but surely I saved enough and the day came when I triumphantly marched into Target and bought my prize. I took amazing care of this thing. I kept it clean, avoided dropping it, and never went jogging with it. And it rewarded me with TEN years of faithful service before being irrevocably replaced by my iPod. (Which is still running strong after almost six years.) The point of this story is that I worked for this CD player. I put sweat and long hours of waiting and daydreaming into earning this CD player. I treasured it because I earned it. And it rewarded me by going the distance.

Most of us also have a sad story that runs in an opposite vein to the story above. It goes something like this: we asked our parents for something and they got it right away for us, and we played with it for a total of twenty-four hours before the infatuation rubbed off and it sat in a box somewhere for years only to be sold for 120% off at a garage sale. Horrible isn't it?

Before I get into the meat of this post, I'd like you all to remember that old cliche that reminds us, "We all want what we can't have."

 Like my CD player, boys and girls will obsess about each other. We will wait for months or maybe years harboring a small, flickering hope that that special someone will eventually want, need, or even notice us. We all have that hopeless crush. That original person that never knew we existed. Oh Megan, how your flaxen locks will forever haunt me. Ironically, the thing that keeps this perversely ridiculous hope alive is the fact that it will never be fulfilled. Read that last line again. I'm proud of it. Why do we do this to ourselves? Why can't we be happy with what is given to us? Why can't we be satisfied with the toy our parents bought us on a whim? Why can't we be satisfied with a "game-free", simple, no-nonsense, straightforward, forthcoming, easy relationship?

The answer is pride. We simply view ourselves and our worth as humans kind of like a university is rated by how many applicants it turns away. There is something grossly satisfying about turning away applicants for our love and affection. It makes us feel wanted. Important. Worth more than we actually are. From this elevated self-view we draw our lacking self-esteem. No one, I repeat no one, wants to be easy. We want to be more complicated than we are. We want to feel as though we are the best around. In love we do not want to be cheap recipients. Nor do we want to earn the love of someone else at no cost. For, in either situation, we feel like less than we are worth. No one wants the cheaply attained gift. We want the challenge. We live for the challenge. When all is said and done and love is deemed mutual, neither party wishes to look back upon the road leading to this junction and think, "My, that was easy!" because this would inevitably lead into thoughts of, "Why did I end up with this person no one else wanted? What is wrong here?" And like many things, at that point we will create the evidence to support the belief. We will start making things up in our minds to get out.

To avoid this thought process, "The Game" was invented. Its very name is laughably ironic. Because the nature of a game usually includes fun. And this Game is only fun if you are winning. And I will tell you right now, in this specific game, there are very few winners. Though the Game is hard and confusing and at times wrenches on our heartstrings. It is a necessary evil. For it alone will help us look back upon our road and be able to say, "I did it. I did it when no one else could. I am in love with a person who is in love with me alone. And while everyone else wanted what we have, only I got it. Now I can trust this person with my heart. Because I know for a fact that they can break it."

[Keep following parts 2 and 3 are coming soon to an internet near you.]