i hold that i am not a competitive person.
the other day, i played taboo with a bunch of friends and it was an exciting game. we played in "innings", best of 7. an inning was a round, where everyone took a turn.
my team got pounded the first round. we lost 8 to 2. there were 3 people on each team, meaning in a total of three times guessing, my team got 2 points. 2. TWO. (suck).
anyway, that's when we decided to play in innings, because the other team took pity on us and said we could "start fresh" with a new inning.
they still won the next 2. so here we are, down 3-0. however, we started to warm up and got better at clues and guessing. we proceeded to win the next 3 innings.
so, we're tied 3-3. the 7th inning, we tied 9 to 9. it was an epic last round, with my teammate churning out the clues, and we needed 5 to tie....and we got our 5th correct answer literally a half a second before time ran out. it was amazing, and i was so excited, i was jumping up and down, shaking, pacing...totally adrenaline rushed, palms sweating. but only because it was so fun! anyway, we decided to go another inning to tiebreak, which we ended up winning, and it was so epic and awesome and fun. but that's not the point of this post.
then, i was called "competitive." and it was weird because i've never thought of myself as a competitive person. tom then backed me up and was like, "no, she's really not."
so how do you explain how excited i get when playing games, but am not competitive?
i realized, i am competitive against myself. i don't have the winning spirit. i don't have the desire to win, i don't hate to lose. when you watch professional sports, you realize that the reason why they are so good, why they play so hard, is that these guys have the psychological makeup that is different from the rest. not only are they amazing athletes, they LIVE to win. they HATE losing. they HATE it with an unfathomable passion. i don't have that feeling. i remember when playing soccer, i realized i coudl never be a striker, because i just didn't have that hunger to score. if i saw an open shot, i might take it, but i don't have the "dammit, i'm putting this ball in the net if it KILLS me" feeling that is required for a brilliant striker.
what i hate is when i don't do what i think i could have done. but losing, while i don't relish it, is really not a big deal to me. so, when i get all excited when playing, it's because i'm having fun, and trying to do the best i can, and competition is exciting, but if i lose, i wont' lose any sleep - unless it was becuase i screwed up, and not because i was honestly beaten.
the other reason i don't think i'm competitive is because if someone on an opposing team has a misfortune, i don't experience schadenfreude. i don't rejoice when there is a penalty called on the other team, or if they have an injury, or if whatever. i think if i really were competitive, i would secretly be pleased by their misfortune because it would give me a better chance to win. but i don't care if i win, so that's probably why i don't have this feeling.
finally, when i go running, if someone runs faster than me, it gives me like no incentive to run faster. i'll just keep running however fast i'm running because it does nothing to my pride to see someone go faster than me, i just don't care.
QED.
additionally, as a point of contrast, the next day i played tennis with tom, and for the first time ever, i told myself that i really wanted to win. i WANTED to win (i was a little annoyed with him). i talked to myself as he prepared his serves saying, "you WILL win this point. just win this point, do what you need to do." and with that singular focus....i did beat him, 6-4. i have NEVER beaten tom at tennis, even though i think we're relatively well matched...but i never won. so, i think this whole "desire to win" thing works...and it was a novel experience for me. it was pretty cool...we were always either tied or one game ahead or behind...and finally we're 4-4. and then i held serve to take it to 5-4. and i remember thinking that generally, this is where i choke because i just don't have the chutzpah to close it out. but this time, i said, "you freakin win this game, because you can, and you will, and you want to." and i totally put it away, it was cool. :)
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