With all relationships, I know there are some Golden Rules. Like share, compromise and don’t go to bed angry. But I also know that there are rules unique to each couple.
For me:
Do not fold his underwear.
Do not go into the kitchen while he’s cooking because I will just feel flustered by the mess, despite his amazing meal.
For John:
Do not tell me what to do.
Do not try to feed me breakfast.
Do not wake me up before my alarm clock.
However, our Golden Rule is: DO NOT PLAY GAMES!
We are both highly competitive people. And it does not matter that we love each other dearly. We will do everything in our power to win and rub it in each other’s faces, which in turn will make the loser throw the biggest hissy fit known to mankind, which in turn will make the winner even more smug and patronizing, which in turn will cause the loser to throw insults, which in turn will … well, you get the cycle.
You see, back when Guitar Hero was new, I challenged my lovely man to the game. He scoffed.
John: Do you really think you can win? I play the guitar as a profession.
Me: Bring it on, sucka.
I won.
So he bought the stupid game and played it every day for hours. When I went to visit him in Glasgow, he forced me to play it for HOURS. He beat me every time, except for once. I was playing on the easy level and he playing on medium. He of course throws this in my face and challenges me to play on medium and see who’s better then, forgetting he has already beaten me about 6,000 times.
That should have been our first clue.
But I’m kind of slow and so is he. When I returned home to New York, I challenged him to a game of Scrabulous, a Scrabble application on Facebook. He kicked my ass and continued to do so for days. All I had were vowels and one-point consonants. The best I could come up with was FAT. And then out of nowhere, I won with the word ARF. John argued that ARF is not a real word. I argued it’s the sound a dog makes. He called me a cheater, I called him a sore loser and he hung up on me on Skype.
Two days later, we decided to have an adult conversation about this and established our Golden Rule: Do not play games. EVER.
