GAME PLAYERS

GAME PLAYERS
C 2009 JoJo

I don’t know about your folks, but I read “Dear Abby” every day. In today’s column, a woman who called herself “Heartsick” asked advice about a relationship she was having with her ex husband. She said he knew she was still in love with him, and dropped by to see her on a regular basis for sex.

The reply to “Heartsick” was: “You’re not “in love” with Brad (I’m sure the name is fictitious). You’re in love with the fantasy of who you would LIKE him to be.”

In other words, as far as Brad was concerned, his relationship with his ex was purely about sex whereas for her, it was the fantasy that what they still had together was love and a relationship that, while fragile and fractured, was still viable. The fact that Brad still wanted and desired her sexually, led her to believe there was hope that maybe one day, he’d come back to her and they could, once again, be together in a committed relationship.

Which brings me to the subject of online affairs. I preface this article by saying that online affairs can end up hurting both men and women equally.

Does this sound familiar? This is especially true of online relationships, where the glib, game players can really dupe one into believing their sincerity and convince even the most skeptical that it isn’t “just about sex,” it’s because you are the most attractive, cultured, intelligent and interesting person on the site – if not in the universe!

Of course, there are sincere and wonderful intimate relationships that develop online, I don’t dispute it, but I’m not talking about those, because they are relatively few and far between. The other type predominate and somebody always ends up getting hurt.

What I especially despise are the game players – you know the ones I mean, who delight in playing the cat and mouse game.

I must admit that, although I love all animals, (well with the possible exception of skunks!) I am not a cat fancier. I just don’t care for the cats’ inherent characteristics. I once watched a cat that had caught a mouse. It knew the mouse couldn’t get away, and delighted in playing with it, allowing that poor creature to think it had a hope in hell of escaping. Every time the mouse made a dart to get away, the cat grabbed it and dragged it back, continuing to play with it until the cat tired of the game, and finally delivered the coup de grace, by killing it.

There are men and women like that. They delight in keeping the other party guessing; they say they’ll come online at a specific time, then they deliberately don’t call until several hours later. The one who’s waiting for that call, is usually pathetically grateful it came through at all, even if it was three hours late.

These game players actually take a pride in being “elusive, unavailable, and unpredictable,” never considering the pain they’re causing the object of their desires. It is a huge ego booster to them, and they relish the power they have to jerk their victims around emotionally. In their own eyes, it validates their worth as being sexually desirable, that a member of the opposite sex will actually sit around and wait for hours to get that all important summons to talk. It never occurs to them that these sorts of games are what high school students go in for in their teen years. It is childish, immature and unbelievably unkind. And the ones who practice it are in it purely for the sex. Their ardour, sweet words of love and their entire courtship is just a means to that end.

Goodness knows that in real life, it’s hard enough to separate what is fantasy and what is reality. This goes double for online relationships, where it is, by necessity, purely fantasy. In a cyber world, a person can depict him or herself as being someone quite different to what in reality they are, and the sad part of it is, what is said online, has to be taken on trust – and that trust is so often violated.

Online affairs are not for the woosies. It takes courage to engage in it and it is fraught with misunderstandings and upsets. Because all there is to go on is the written word which, in the wrong context, can so easily be misinterpreted, causing anguish, heartache and great misery. So can waiting for that message that never comes through.

Then there are what I term the “trophy hunters.” Men and women for whom the chase is the whole ball of wax. Having won someone’s heart, having the satisfaction of knowing that the object of their temporary desire is well and truly under their thrall and is emotionally bound to them, they then move on to hunt down newer prey in their endless quest to get yet another scalp to attach to their belts.

These then are the pitfalls of online affairs. But as I have said earlier in this article, there are online relationships that are sincere, honest, wonderful and long lasting. But I do think it’s wise to go into such a venture, with ones eyes wide open, and above all, not to be wearing rose coloured spectacles!