Mind-Games :: Defined as :: psychological tricks (reverse psychology, etc..) used to gain an advantage on one's adversary.
At any point in a relationship there can be any sort of mind game going on. Granted i know a lot of people who hate such mind games as do i. In an engaged boyfriend/girlfriend relationship there are instances where each party tests the other on certain things. I would say that it goes for both sides of a relationship where the guy or girl will throw questions/tests at the significant other to see if they are "dedicated", "committed", or any of those major needs/wants in an ideal relationship. It usually sucks to be put in these kinds of situations, and you also can usually get that little clinch in your mind saying "Oh crap what's the right answer??". Obviously you will know the "right" answer, but your instinct answer may not be that "right" answer and you find yourself shunned for a bit. It sucks to put it plainly. And I don't know who gets the worse end of the spear, guys or girls, but as a guy who's experienced such "tests" it's never something to look forward to. So why do we do such things? As the definition of "mind-games" says :: "used to gain an advantage of one's "adversary"" Does putting a significant other into a situation where you want to hear a certain answer or they're being "insulting/mean/insensitive/etc" fair?? Since if they are wrong you then have an "advantage" over the situation and thus they are stuck in whatever direction you throw them in. Now you may say "that never happens to me!", but if you really think about it there is always a point where you are either the victim or the one playing the "mind-game" with the significant other. You may not realize right now since some people are really good with their words and can hide the intentions behind each question along with hiding their reaction to your answer. It can almost be like constant reverse psychology (in the extreme cases that is). Back to the question of whether it's fair or not, and obviously it isn't fair at all! Thankfully though not everyone does it to the extent of hindering a relationship, but there are those people who want to always have the upper hand in a relationship and will keep their significant other on a leash without them even realizing it! I've met people who LOVE mind-games and when 2 mind-game addicts come into play it's like a never ending cycle of messing with each other (i've witnessed this happen). On the other hand situations where there are constant mind-games usually never work out, it's all just fun and games until someone gets caught up in it too much and gets hurt. There are situations that call for mind-games, where a significant other needs to probe the other person's life to make sure things are alright, but these are sort of a normalized thing in relationships I'd say. The bad thing is when a small "test" is given and the tester over reacts to it, but that's going off-topic i think...
Mind-games aren't just in relationships. In the "dating" scene there's probably more and more of it. To take a template/example :: Guy and girl go out on a "date-ish", it's great and all, date ends and the "3 day rule" passes (for the guy to call or w/e). Girl over reacts and thinks the guy is a "jerk" for not calling her or talking to her after 3 days since clearly by tradition if the guy really likes her genuinely he would have. This is where mind-games are seen as the stupidest thing in the world. By the standards of the "3 day rule", which is a mind-game in itself for both guys and girls, the guy is labelled as a "jerk", that's unfair right? Then say 6 days pass and the guy wants to meet up again or "hang out". Here's where mind-games fail and ruin opportunities. For the guy he might be thinking, "I wanna take things slow and get to know her a little better before getting too involved..." Ok... and for the girl, "What the heck took him so long? He must not be interested..." and from there on in both the guy and the girl are completely confused to each other's intentions. Ok, i know that was a totally isolated example (since the roles could also be reversed and "thoughts" still applied to both sexes), but i hope you see what i'm getting to, which is that in this day and age we are almost "wired" to think there is a hidden intention behind certain actions done by the opposite sex. In a sense we think that any interaction between someone we "like" and us is some sort of mind-game where in reality it may not be at all! So now we're sorta stuck in the middle where we accept it as a mind-game and play along or just take things as they are and don't over think it. In my opinion :: I think it's always best not to complicate things and just go with whatever comes into our lives without over thinking things too much (keyword :: "too") Mind-games are easily avoided if you just go with what you want to do! So take for example, I like to get to know a potential significant other to a fair extent before i even consider take it to the next level per say. No mind-games on my end, but the problem with this is if the other person thinks there's a mind-game involved! Epic. Fail. So where does this leave us? With the fact that mind-games as inevitable as they are... just plain suck since everyone is different in their own "game" ( and i say this in the most relative definition being your ability to interact with the opposite sex ).
So i don't really know what a good conclusion statement would be. I guess I'd suggest to never assume things in your interactions with people especially with significant (or potential) others. Assuming is a big part of mind-games and is bad in general haha -enough said.
Life is life and we all live it.
Thanks for reading,
DYung
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