I Have No Game.

I was in the car with my roommate the other day and we were talking about what guys normally talk about - booze, video games, and broads.  I was telling him about how I met this very cute French girl through a yoga class and how I had just asked her out, to which he replied, "damn son, you just go for it don't you?"  I guess I do.  Later on in the conversation, we were recounting our sexless college years and why we did not (or could not) live the hedonistic college lifestyle of our peers.  He spent too much time in his dorm room playing online role playing games, while my explanation was, "I just had no game back then." 

His response surprised me and was a little off putting.  He told me, "Dude, you still don't have game.  You just don't give a fuck anymore."

Self-improvement has always been a big deal to me.  I was born with a great many talents and abilities, chief among them is my intelligence as well as my natural ability to make friends and connect with people.  I was not, however, born with any sort of innate ability with women.  Much of this blog has been recounting my adventures in dating as a single guy, and a lot of it has to do with "success stories."  Like any other guy, I get rejected far more than I get accepted - it's the nature of the game.  I also, in my life, started from a point of deep insecurity when it came to women.  It wasn't like starting from zero - for me, it was like starting from negative 100 when it came to my ability to relate romantically with the opposite sex.  I have done just about every "wrong" thing in the book when it comes to women - obsessed about girls who I didn't even talk to, tried to "friend" my way into relationships, took rejections as an indictment not just on my abilities, but my character.

I've done a lot of work since I was in my teens, not just with regards to my love life, but with regards to my life in general.  There was no epiphany moment - just a series of small improvements that led to a life of greater satisfaction and self-esteem.  But when my roommate told me he didn't think I had "game" I took it a little more personally than I thought.  One of the more abiding fears I have is that I am still the same awkward gangly teenager that I was before and that I haven't moved forward at all.  The thought that I was still as "bad" at "the game" as I was in my teens got at a core insecurity of mine.

But then I began to reconsider.  What, exactly, is "game?"  I found this question surprisingly difficult to answer.

In my roommate's conception of "game," it's a man's ability, using some combination of his innate characteristics and some verbal jousting, to get a woman become sexually interested in him at a higher rate than the average guy.  Indeed, there is an entire pick-up industry dedicated to teaching men lines and routines aimed to do exactly this.

And, my roommate is right - I do suck at this stuff.  I'm really bad at verbal jousting and "adversarial" flirtation.  I'm awful at being coy.  Maybe it's because I'm a really bad liar, but it doesn't really come naturally to me.  I'm terrible at saying something while implying something else.  I'm just no good at that wink and a smile stuff, and trust me, I've tried it.  The results have been awful.

But on the other hand, if we judge our "game" based on our results, then the story shifts.  If you want a guy who'll charm the socks off the hottest girl in the room, I might not be that guy.  But I am perfectly comfortable approaching a good looking woman and asking her for her number if I find her interesting.  I'm also, on the whole, happy with the kinds of women I've attracted in my life.  At the end of the day, isn't this the only thing that matters?

I love sports analogies.  I don't think that any professional basketball player will tell you that they emulate their "game" to mirror that of Michael Jordan.  They instead tailor their game to their strengths, through a lot of trial and error and practice.  Steve Kerr, the Chicago Bulls' deadly outside shooter from their championship years, couldn't play like MJ; in fact, he would likely fail and fail hard if he tried.  Instead he perfected his 3 point shot and became a key piece on a championship team.

Continuing at that analogy, I have long given up any notion of becoming a certain kind of "player archetype".  I can't do the bad boy thing - after all, I'm a nerd, and, at my core, I'm a genuinely nice guy (which must be distinguished from the "Nice Guy" archetype that assumes being nice is enough to get into a woman's pants).  I'm also, for better or worse, emotionally attuned.  Trying to be someone I'm not only further disassociates me from who I am. 

But getting out into the world and facing rejection also helped me realize that there were certain things I was good at.  Verbal jousting wasn't my thing, but, given my level of emotional awareness, I could reach deeper and get to know her on a more intimate level in a shorter time period than most people I know.  What also felt more natural to me was my ability to express desire without regret, which, after much rejection and a lot of time spent getting bruised in the dating game, has come to be something I do more naturally now. 

Connection and desire - those are the two things I'm good at, and those are the two things that I rely on as my bread and butter with all the women I'm interested in.  Does it work with all the women I am interested in?  Absolutely not.  And maybe I don't have "game."  But I do okay for myself, and that's what matters.