I used to think I wasn’t a very competitive guy. I was mellow, made friends by helping them with schoolwork and casual games, and usually just went through life satisfied with my own progress and happy for others in their successes.
Then I realized I enjoyed overcoming challenges (I’m going to drop the grad-school-application tone now), and that whether I wanted to compete, others felt they were competing and more often than not I was ahead, usually taking a natural position as the teacher or mentor and sometimes I obtaining “big brother” status from cute girls. I’m not even good at many things; I just refuse to do things I suck at.
As for not trying things I suck at, a bit of thought and self-reflection made it increasingly clear that I’m pretty bad at losing. Specifically, I hate it when I lose when I’m supposed to win (e.g., letting a lower-ranked opponent beat me) or when I lose by a huge margin from a giant gap in skill and play (i.e., getting destroyed). I also don’t take much enjoyment in destroying opponents, but at least I can console myself with the win, whereas the bitter aftertaste of sound defeat lingers in the mind.
So recently I read a book by David Sirlin, a former Street Fighter champion turned game designer and game critic, called Playing to Win. Talking from an elite player’s standpoint, he stressed the idea that honor on the battlefield is best left for movies and war stories. Outside of outright cheating and exploiting rules obviously not meant by the designer, any move in a game is legal and a “cheap” tactic (that is, one that is much harder to stop by an opponent than for you to learn to use) should be applauded for its effectiveness. He also talked about “teacher” elite players are naturally respected by the community, but “merciless kill anything they see” elite players also have merit in their consistency, always playing their best instead of letting their opponent’s skill dictate their actions.
That was precisely my problem. Engrossed with the teacher mentality, I found myself willingly tone it down for a lesser opponent (in pity? in hopes of garnering respect?) and artificially making games close. When I lose these games it’s all the more frustrating knowing that I am a better player, but only that I miscalculated the opponent’s skill and dumbed myself down enough for him to beat me. I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve said, aloud or to myself, “good game, but I should have played better”. So I’m simply going to play better and ignore the difference in skill; I either beat them hard and move on, or they beat me hard and earn my respect, or hopefully we just have a good close game.
Oh, and I should note that while I’m talking in the context of unimportant “games”, I also find life itself to be quite a grand game, coming with a set of rules but lacking well-defined victory conditions. I’m not sure what it takes or what it even means to “win” at life, but we’re all active participants and, well, let’s hope it’ll be a good game.