Queer Love 411: Don’t Listen to the Advice ‘Treat Dating Like a Game”

Picture circling the streets in search of a parking spot. You’re in a neighborhood where they’re known to be notoriously hard to find. You’ve been at it for a while. After much circling, you spot one from afar. Gratitude fills you, but only for a moment—because hubris quickly sweeps in to replace it. Emboldening you, it downplays the importance of a spot that moments earlier you’d sincerely wanted. A spot you’d maybe even bargained with a higher power for. It’s actually not that close to the restaurant, the ego’s voice downplays now. You can do better. So you pass it up. Leave it for someone else to grab.

Minutes later, you’re back in the same scenario with a twinge of discomfort at the thought of never finding a spot. You’re bargaining with a higher power. And, just like the time before, you eventually find one only to pass it up once more. What you want changes; the process of securing it becomes a constant bartering, with the value of a spot higher in moments of scarcity, only to plummet the moment the sought-after object becomes available. The cycle repeats, and repeats, and repeats until the evening draws to a close. This is the way some people date.

Love, for them, has been reduced to a casino, with every dating prospect a slot machine.
What if you’re tired of being the slot machine? What if you don’t want to treat dating like a game?

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A woman I dated one summer many years ago seemed (ironically) more attracted to me back when I was less healthy and available. She chased me when my walls were up, and I was behaving more aloofly, hung up on a recent ex. V liked the chase. She liked me when she couldn’t fully have me.

I’d like to think a healthy person isn’t turned on by unavailability. Insecurely attached people seem interested in me so long as I act avoidant. So long as I keep them guessing. So long as I show just a little bit of interest. And I’m not interested in acting that way anymore. I’m not interested in game-playing. As someone who’s more secure and available now, I want to act in accordance with that. I want to act authentically to who I am and where I’m at now.

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I’ve always disliked dating advice like, “If you return their interest too quickly, they’ll lose whatever interest they had in you.” It felt similar to the advice, “If you have sex too quickly, the guy will lose interest.” If you want to have sex, have sex. And if your goal is a healthy and reciprocal relationship, then it’s against your best interests to act in a way that keeps a person “hooked” (ie, providing intermittent reinforcement, channeling apathy or indifference towards them).

You should never feel like you have to barter and make yourself scarce to increase your “value” in the eyes of a prospective partner. There are quite simply people out there who just aren’t ready for healthy and mature love. They push it away. They find things wrong with the person available to give it to them. They have little reason to change because they benefit from operating in this way.

The way I see it is, if you’re looking for real, healthy, and sustaining love, the prize of winning “the game” isn’t even one that will fulfill you. It isn’t a rewarding outcome. The game’s primary participants are the ones running from their intimacy issues, which means the prize is… more time spent playing in the game. Do you choose to put energy into mastering its rules? Or do you leave the board entirely in favor of the lush open fields where real love can be found? Where an actual shot at a healthy and reciprocal relationship awaits?

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The authors of Attached have expressed similar qualms with the “play it cool and treat dating like a game” advice. What they’re advocating is that you ignore your needs and let the other person determine the amount of closeness/distance in the relationship. The avoidant person can have his/her cake and eat it too, so to speak. By being someone you’re not, you’re allowing another to be with you on his or her own terms and come and go as they please. 

I think in a world with fewer people turning away from their deeper feelings, there’d be far less game-playing in dating. This idea of “play hard to get to win his attraction” would cease floating around. Rather than listen to the conventional dating advice of “Just play the game” (ie, act disinterested and go along with whatever), I like to say this instead:

Heal yourself. Take amazing care of you. Notice when you’re stepping onto a game board—and draw back. The more you focus on these things, the less attractive this behavior will be to you, and the less tempted you’ll feel to chase when you notice it first starting to happen.

Love in its purest form isn’t a prize in a game, auction, casino, or any other kind of contest. It’s an “I see your light from day one, I feel the person you are, and I’ll continue seeing her. Your availability won’t shake my interest. It’ll make me want you more.”