the love game

Love: strong affection for another arising out of kinship or personal ties

: attraction based on sexual desire

Games: activity engaged in for diversion or amusement.
: a procedure or strategy for gaining an end
: a physical or mental competition conducted according to rules with the participants in direct opposition to each other
: any activity undertaken or regarded as a contest involving rivalry, strategy, or struggle
: animals under pursuit or taken in hunting
: willing or ready to proceed

When reading the definitions of games they seem to sound a lot like love. Do we not engage in relationships for enjoyment, amusement, companionship, etc. ? Don't we have strategies for finding someone? Examples being flirting or how we get dressed up for a date or to just go out with friends. We are in a mental competition with the others to look better, be better. There are unspoken rules that everyone knows. There is rivalry and struggle for attention. Aren't we considered as animals and don't we pursue each other? We have the term cougars. We joke about people being on the prowl for someone. We are willing are ready to proceed with relationships, companionship, sex. Isn't that pretty much what the definition of love said.

Also with love there are winners and losers. So why play the game?

5 Reasons Love Sucks "First, the expression most commonly used with love is “falling in love.” There is no better word to describe it. It is indeed “falling” in love, and that’s what sucks about it. You are tricked into it like an addictive gambling game, and then you are tripped, and you fall, and you keep falling in a seemingly endless spiral. And, like everything that falls, you eventually hit a bottom, and it will be hard and painful. Falling in love only gives you an incurable ache when you reach the end."

Why do people put themselves through that ache over and over again? Why risk it?

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.”
— C.S. Lewis

When we open ourselves up to be loved we also open ourselves up to be turned down. We will be disappointed and broken.

"Trust is like paper, once crumpled it can never be perfect again" - unknown

Just like in games there is playing in love. People play with your emotions, your mind, your heart. They make you feel like your so special one moment and the next your nothing at all. People lie and break promises. Once your trust in someone is crumpled it can never be made whole again. You can try all you want to straighten it up but there will still be those wrinkles reminding you that they've lied or they've broken their promise before. Those wrinkles fill up with doubt. Are they telling the truth? Will they lie again? Why should I trust them? Do they really mean that? Will they actually follow through with that promise?

" love is like a butterfly, fluttering for a moment and as though it'll last forever" a little twist on Dr. Carl Sagan's quote, “We are like butterflies who flutter for a day and think it is forever.”

Love fools us into thinking that something can last. Nothing ever really works out though. You just fail a little better each time.