“You’re playing games, Brie,” my dating coach said to me a couple of weeks ago.
I was gobsmacked.
Me? Playing games?!
I didn’t know what to say. And not just because I couldn’t help but hear the chorus of BSB’s “Quit Playing Games With My Heart” repeat over in my head (Millennial baby here!) but because never once in my life have I been accused, nor even considered, that I was someone who would ever play games when it came to matters of the heart.
You know what I mean. When guys play hard to get. When they say one thing but mean another. When they’re not being totally upfront with how they feel or want. (“He be frontin’” also comes to mind! #2000s)
But wait.
Wasn’t this what I was exactly doing with someone I was texting with?
Yes. Yes I was.
Some of you might remember that I have a dating coach. Her name is Stacy and she’s pretty cool. Anyway. We meet every other week for an hour and we work on my stuff, aka the baggage I carry when it comes to dating and relationships, which, for me, centers mostly around vulnerability and communication because your girl has trouble with both, let alone integrating the two.
Here’s what happened. I was relaying a story to Stacy in which I was texting a guy who I found attractive, and I was telling her how I had been basically “waiting” for him to make a move, say the thing, do the thing — essentially behave and act the way I wanted him to — so that I could actually reveal what I wanted or how I felt about him.
“He texted me a few days later, so I didn’t respond to his text,” I said.
“Is that what you wanted to do?”
“No, but I guess I didn’t want to come across as needy.”
“So you’re not being honest with him either,” she said to me. “You’re playing a game.”
WHAT?
“You’re not saying what you want or making it clear where you want this to go, so you’re not being your authentic self with him. Therefore he doesn’t know the real you or what it is that you want with him.”
So, what you’re telling me is…I BE FRONTIN’?!
I didn’t make the correlation that by hiding my intentions or desires (or by keeping them under wraps temporarily) I could be the one accused of playing games with someone’s heart. But what Stacy was saying made a ton of sense.
I was definitely hiding how I was feeling and my natural impulses because I was too invested in gauging how he was going to react to whatever I put out there.
“You’re giving him a lot of power,” Stacy said. “Your power.”
She made a good point.
I was putting all the power — all of MY power — onto this guy to make me feel safe and secure. I was second guessing how I instinctively wanted to engage and interact with him because I wanted him to respond back to me in a way that felt good to me, that made me feel okay (or safe) to put myself “out there” like that. But as Stacy pointed out to me, I can’t control someone’s actions or behaviour. (which I know, we all know that, but for some reason we all still think it’s possible.) We don’t know how someone will choose to show up for us, but does that mean we don’t bother taking a shot and show up for ourselves?
“What kind of game do you want to play?” Stacy asked. “Think of it like that. You can’t know how he’s going to choose to engage or respond to you but you can take control of what you want and decide the way you want to show up in this dynamic.”
I liked that rephrasing. Not necessarily because I want to play a “game” with anyone, which I think typically infers something inauthentic and nefarious, but I liked thinking of choosing a new story to infuse our interaction with. One that was built on authenticity and honesty, and fun.
“If you want to text him back a few minutes later, do that. Let him know this is the type of ‘game’ YOU are playing, and he might respond the same way or not. But it gives you information as to what works for you.”
Yes, Me. NOT HIM.
How many of us push all of our natural instincts and wants and desires aside in fear that the other person will not respond the way we want, or essentially NOT give us what we need? TOO MANY.
And by doing this, my friends, we are playing a game, and I think mostly with ourselves.
I’m a competitive person. I like playing games. I like winning. So if you’re like me, why not engage with a game that makes you feel like a winner no matter what the result?
We can’t control how someone will show up. We can’t know if they will respond the way we would like them to, or even choose us in the end. But we can choose ourselves, and when we do that, we choose how we would like to show up in the world. No matter what the outcome might be.
Because THAT’S FREEDOM. THAT’S AUTHENTICITY.
So I guess what they said is NOT true.
Because, in reality, we should really “Hate the player, NOT the game.”
(I mean, don’t HATE someone for not showing up the way you want them to…but I think this phrase can take the burden off FROM YOU, especially if you’re showing up the way you want, creating the type of engagement that makes you proud, and if they can’t reciprocate…yeah, let that clown go.)
YOU KNOW WHAT I MEANNNNN.
Thanks for being here!
Love, Brie
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