The Game

I was chatting with my colleague just yesterday. We were talking about work initially and the topic started to veer towards relationships. He was telling me about this book that he was reading "The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists". Being single , naturally I was interested in the topic. So I asked him what were some of the tactics that he learnt so that I may also benefit from his reading too. And he told me that the book explores the art of picking up girls as a science. Through repeated observation and testing, the author finds out what works and what does not works to win over the opposite sex. And it is all presented as a form of "art".

While all these ideas are interesting, it did not sit in comfortable with me. The title already is disturbing - "The Game". It makes relationship out to be like any other game we play. The goal is no longer to love the other person as they are , but to win over another person's heart. I was listening to Don Miller's "Rethinking Relationship". He was pondering on the significance of why Adam and Eve felt "naked" after eating the apple. He made an interesting observation that we humans are very self-conscious of our nudity. Forgetting to wear our clothes is not like forgetting to bring our wallets or house keys. We feel uncomfortable being naked in front of others. The only time we may feel otherwise is when we are in front of a love one. Someone who would love us for who we are, when we do not fear rejection, when there is a certain trust. And this concept of making relationship to be a game undermines trust. In any kind of relationship, we do not treat people as objects or pawns which we use for our own pleasure and purpose.

However, even as I am against this idea of treating relationship as a game, I am also acutely aware that i am also guilty of doing it sometimes - be it consciously or sub-consciously. Like we always complain of office politics , how much we dislike it but unknowingly, we also contribute to the office politics. It is a case where we think we are fighting the dragon , only to realise that we are the dragon.

Anyway, I don't think I would pick up this book. It disturbs me too much just to look at the title. But I may change my mind if it comes under the guise of a different title ...