Tuesday, June 14, 2011

The Wii and Me

I am an extremely competitive person.  I hate losing, and well actually I just hate not being the best at everything.  Second place sucks.  Even when I'm playing some pointless game, I still get super into it and feel like if I don't do well, I'm a failure at life.  This happens a lot when Rick and I play games on the Wii.  I don't play a ton of games on that system, but the ones I do play mean a lot to me.  If I lose to him, I will usually throw a fit.  The following is a brief list of the kind of crap my boyfriend has to put up with on a regular basis.  He must love me a lot.

1) Mariokart

So basically, I love little cartoon racing games like this and always have.  I have also always been good at them, so when I introduced Rick to this game, I thought, "This is gonna be awesome.  He has never played this before, so I will kick his ass and feel like a champion!"  My plan worked for a while, and I still beat him about 90% of the time.  Every so often, though, I'll screw up or he'll get lucky or happen to just race really well on that course ... and he will win. 

If this happens one time, I'm usually ok about it.  I can keep my rage to myself and smile at him and be all, "That was good, babe!" even though it's really never a sincere remark.  What happens after that, though, is I keep thinking about the fact that I lost, and it affects my gameplay for the rest of the night.  I start driving my little character off cliffs or crashing into walls. 

At this point, all sanity goes out the window, and I begin blaming the game for my actions as I lose more and more.  I become convinced that the game is cheating and wants me to lose.  Or I feel that the game is giving Rick an unfair advantage:

- "You're getting all the good items!  Even when I'm in LAST PLACE all I get is a fucking BANANA to use!"
- "Ok, I was turning as hard as I could, and I still fell off the course.  Your controller is working better than mine!"
- "I mean, whatever.  I don't care anymore.  This game is like racist against my character or something and has decided to never let me win ever again."

So, I end up stopping.  Wii Sports games are even worse ...

2) Bowling

I swear, Wii Bowling is a scam.  I'll get a strike one time, and then throw the EXACT SAME WAY on my next turn and knock down like 3 pins.  I know you're thinking that my arm is probably twisting slightly and moving the controller a little bit and that's why it's messing up, but you are wrong!!!  I am not at fault!  I'm telling you, it's the damn game.

Anyway, when Rick and I play this, it usually doesn't end well.  When he rolls a bad frame, he has a normal reaction like, "Damn it," and is then completely over it.  I get furious every time I don't get a strike.  I feel like if every frame isn't a strike then I'm horrible at the game.  Do I realize how stupid and irrational that is?  Of course ... NOW.  But, when I'm in the moment, I can't think rationally.  I really do feel sorry for Rick, now that I'm sitting down thinking about this.  Oh well.

Here are some of my reactions when I don't get strikes:

- "God DAMN it, why did it go off to the LEFT?!?!  My arm was STRAIGHT!!!"
- "What the FUCK?!?!  That was a strike the last time!!!!"
- "Why the hell didn't that pin fall over?  LOOK AT THE REPLAY!  THAT OTHER PIN CLEARLY HIT IT!"
- "Great, I'm glad this game lets YOU get strikes all the damn time, and when I do the same thing you're doing, I end up with a fucking SPLIT!"

3) Tennis

Ok, this is by far the game I'm worst at, and therefore this game brings out the worst in me.  Rick is pretty good at it, so I don't know why I bother playing with him at all.  I'm sure I psych myself out right from the beginning thinking about how much I suck, but I'm crazy, so I keep trying and hoping that one day I'll magically be able to beat him every time.

As soon as I hit my first bad shot, I start to freak out.  From there, just like in Mariokart, once I start to lose, I just play worse and worse.  I begin sighing angrily and scowling at the tv.  If I get REALLY pissed off then I'll start losing on purpose by either not swinging my racket at all or swinging it super hard and hitting the ball into the crowd.  At that point, I usually throw myself onto the couch and punch the cushions.  Rick always tries to talk me down, but it never works:

Rick: It's ok ...
Me: It's not ok!  Why do I suck at this?!?!
Rick: You don't suck; you just hit a couple bad shots.
Me: Well, why do I keep doing it?  I mean, what is WRONG with me?!
Rick: Ashley, nothing is wrong with you.
Me: Fine.  Then you tell me what to do to fix this.

In the past when I have asked for Rick's advice, he would give me what he thought were helpful tips on how to improve my game.  As soon as he said them, I would get pissed that he was telling me how to play ... even though I had just asked him to.  I would think, "Oh he thinks he's SO much better than me and perfect at this game.  What an ass."  Then I would try his tips, but at that point I would be so worked up that they wouldn't work for me.  Although, I usually only tried them once before slamming back down onto the couch again.

Me: I'm doing what you said, and I'm still SUCKING!  Obviously your advice didn't help!
Rick: That last one was better.  You just have to work at it and practice.
Me: No because I keep messing up the exact same way!  No matter what I do, I don't get better!  I mean who does this?!  Who keeps playing the same game and gets progressively WORSE at it?!?!

That's when Rick stops talking and walks away to let me calm down on my own.  It takes me a few minutes, but eventually I start to feel like an idiot and go apologize a lot.  He now never gives me advice on how to improve because he knows I will throw a fit and blame him for my poor performance.  I think that whenever I say, "Let's play the Wii tonight!" he secretly wants to respond with, "Fuck no, I'm not playing with your psycho ass ever again," but, he's a good boyfriend, and has been dealing with me for two years, so he always says yes.

I keep telling myself it's going to be different next time, and I will be able to remain completely calm and play like my life doesn't depend on winning.  I'm sure one day I'll be able to do that.  Like maybe when I'm 90 years old and my vision is too bad to see that I'm in last place.

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