Sexy Time: You Wanna Play “The Game”?

[For many of us, sex and college go together like Uggs and snow - you can’t have one without the other. So, we brought in one of Berkeley’s finest sex columnists, Elizabeth, to start a dialogue about the topic (and act) that is very near and dear to our hearts. Every Thursday she will get your day goin’ with a little somethin’ somethin’ that’s on her mind.]

My roommate Jeanenne thinks I don’t play “the game” enough. According to her, the only game I play is “let me drop my pants for you.” Yeah, ouch. After such an accusation, I decided to go out there and see what this game was all about. I wasn’t really sure what that meant – or why I needed to play if I was doin’ pretty well without it – but boy did I play that game.

I went out and started partying at 10 AM like any normal (game) day, and vowed to be “coy,” “mysterious,” and “un-slutty” – basics in “The Game,” but pretty odd concepts in my book. What this essentially meant was me going out, getting wasted, and not talking to any guys. (Okay, so I did talk to guys, but I didn’t heavily mack on them per usual.)

And you wanna know what happened? I didn’t get hit on. Not once.

After my experiment, I analyzed all of my data trying to make any sort of sense out of this outcome. Not to toot my own horn, but I’m pretty used to getting hit on fairly regularly. This left me incredibly confused. Did I not get hit on because I appeared unavailable? Or am I just “that girl” that thinks that every guy wants her when he is really spending the entire evening trying to pawn her off to any guy in the general vicinity?

After much pondering, I had a crazy thought: maybe the game is more of a process than an act. Maybe you have to plant the metaphorical seed and wait for the sexual tension to grow. Many times in the past I have had ex-boyfriends call me after years of non-contact. Was I playing the game and not even realizing it? And if so, does that mean I have to wait years for my object of affection to realize how gorgeous and amazing I am?

Seeing as my attention span is far too short for that nonsense, there must be another answer. The Game must be a general approach to life rather than a conscious decision. I don’t mean to be all gung-ho preachy, but I’m starting to think that The Game is a direct result of something known as self confidence. You have to believe that you’re sexy and don’t need to waste your time throwing yourself at losers that don’t realize it. Once this is achieved, the length of time for said losers to realize your amazingness is inversely proportional to the amount of time you’ve been playing the game.

But my friend Rachael disagrees; to her, The Game is when “…each person tries to act like they don’t care (but they do), to try to get the other person to let down their guard first.” That’s a pretty damn good definition if you ask me.

I guess this whole experiment taught me that what “The Game” actually means depends on your individual viewpoint and experiences. Maybe I was playing it all along…

What do you think? Is the game a means to get them to let down their guard, or just a way to bring the boys to the yard? And what are your best game strategies?

Keep me posted.