Gathering
I love boardgames. I always have, and I have been playing them my whole life barring a year here and a year there that can only be equated to dark nights of the soul or brief periods of desolation.
My best friend and I would stay up for days and nights at a time playing Risk, and Axis and Allies, and Fortress America during our golden age of boardgamage, between the lame-o period of The Game of Life, Monopoly, and Stock Ticker, and the advent of Dungeons & Dragons and Magic the Gathering. Not that D&D and Magic are lesser games, but there is something inherently wonderful about sitting down head to head with a friend and becoming enemies for a while over an agreed upon set of rules and conditions that you’ve used before and doing it all over again, and again, and again……
I haven’t played Axis & Allies for decades, which is fine with me because I don’t recall ever winning that fucking game, but I still enjoy Risk pretty often.
In my childhood I really didn’t win very often, if ever. In my early teen years I didn’t win very often, if ever. However, in my 20’s and 30’s, on the rare occasions that I played boardgames, I didn’t win very often, if ever. In my late 30’s and early 40’s I began playing with my kids and won even less because my kids are ruthless and didn’t mind becoming enemies for that short period of time in order to do what needs to be done, which is, of course, win.
The love of my life is to figure things out, and the plague of my existence is to ignore or avoid the use of the knowledge gleaned from the experience. I buy games because I want to play them. I want to figure them out, sometimes I’ll open them and play them by myself going over the rules step by step and play both sides, becoming my own enemy so that, when I have someone to play with all will flow smoothly and I can teach and show how it’s done because I’ve been there. It’s fun for me. It makes me happy, happier than most things.
But I lose.
I’d like to say that I don’t care about winning, but that’s not true. If that were true I wouldn’t get upset when someone does some well deserved gloating after smashing me in my favourite game. I do care about winning, just not enough to become your enemy for that short amount of time. I have a hard time separating one thing from another sometimes and what is less important becomes too important, like a sting to the ego after losing to someone that you taught way too well to lose to you. On the other side of the coin there is the situation where I will NOT go for the kill, will not break your North American bonus because I’d rather lose than possibly make you sad even if it wouldn’t because it’s just a game.
I get lost in things and I love it. It’s never just one thing, it’s all of the things. I’m never just playing a boardgame, I’m playing with you, and you are more important than me.
I feel like it’s the only way that I know how to play.
Maybe I feel that if I win, if I play hard, go for the kill, become your enemy for that short period of time, that you want to play with me anymore, and thus, play myself.
And lose.
I haven’t played for a while. I ran out of people to play with.
I don’t want to quit playing though.
I don’t even want to play different games.
I just want to learn to play better.
It’s time for me to win.
