>The way I approach "the game" is I am not looking for the player, but the person that doesn't see life as a game. I look for a potential partner that will be an equal to me, and treat me as an equal and will stick with me. But am I going to go up to him and ask him to marry me? Nope, I have to play the game and see if there is interest, determine if there is chemistry, go out on dates and see if there is a connection. One has to start with flirting and build up to conversation, and to kissing and to a relationship.

Why do you have to "play the game"? This is what I don't get. I like to spend time with people. Talk to them. Get to know them. I'm a very social person (even if I'm kinda shy, seriously). The bad thing is I often "decide" I like someone after some time. But no, "the game" requires us guys to play moves quickly. Why? because otherwise here comes the dreaded friendzone, and before you know it you're the very cool guy everyone likes, and yet without relationship. See what I mean?

Okay, story time. After my last romantic screw-up (waited too long, got too close without "playing" the girl, and she ended up with a player friend of mine), I decided "oh hell no never again". I think this is where the "I have to" entered on stage for me. For some time, I started almost every encounter with scheming - subtle inner workings of my strategy-inclined mind - and considered almost every new girl I met as a potential partner. Then two things happened. First, I realized that it was a different way to adopt a comportment I've been forbidding myself to have: manipulation. Although it was in the frame of "playing the game", I was doing not much more than playing with attitudes, words and so much more with the only goal of manipulating people.

And then, I realized that it didn't work well for me. Because as much as I liked the idea of having people in my pocket, I knew that they didn't like me as I, deep down, would have liked them. When you "cheat" a feeling, it doesn't bear much value, does it?

So now, I just do the minimum, and don't care much about the rest. The sad thing is that a lot of people and, worse, the very concept of a relationship have lost a lot of value in my eyes in the process.

Yeah, I think I'd like a world where you can just hang around people, and when you'd feel you like them a lot you could just tell them knowing it could work. But as you said... In our time and place, it doesn't work like this.

Oh well, I might be doomed to friendzone for life. At least I feel I'm honest with myself. If it's the price to pay, so be it. Don't throw me stones if you find me apathetic and a bit cynical about relationships now. And if, as it happened to me before, a female friend asks me "I don't get it, why doesn't a guy like you have a girlfriend?", now I know what to answer: "Because I despise the game". This probably sounds arrogant, but it's not my problem.