Tonight I challenged my boyfriend to a few games of ping-pong. I didn't decide to play this game on a whim. No, I knew before challenging him to any game that I had to walk in with some amount of confidence. If not I knew I would be setting myself up for humiliation. Which in my world would be the definition of losing. And losing is not acceptable.
Or is it? Did I honestly care that he won 3 out of the 5 games, making him the overall winner? Ironically, no. I cared more about the possible fact that perhaps I didn't deserve to win any of the games and the two that I did "win" were won only because he let me. What's the point in "winning" if it isn't won fair and square? That's still suffering some small sense of humiliation, isn't it? Which, again, would be losing. It would just be losing obliviously. I didn't want to win out of pity. I wanted to win because I was better.
Better. There's a word that needs to be thrown around carefully.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not out to prove that I am better than my boyfriend. In fact in most aspects I would say he's better than me and I prefer that. I mean, wouldn't you want to be with someone who is better than you? Someone you feel you don't deserve? Someone who makes you a better person? For me, yes, and that's exactly how I feel.
But it doesn't mean that I never want to be better than him in something. And by something I mean a game, or a sport. In most sports, there's no competition. Running, biking, playing ultimate, (and I'm sure the list can go on) there's no point in even trying because we both know he's gonna win. In some aspect it has to do with the whole "he's a guy, I'm a girl," situation and that's fine, I can accept that. But you know when that theory applies and when you're just plain awful at something. You know the difference between losing from gender differences and losing because you suck. And to be honest, in most sports/games I could play against him, I would lose not because I'm a girl, but because I really do suck.
Except ping-pong.
Not to sound arrogant or boastful but I have a fair amount of confidence when it comes to this mini-version of tennis (which, by the way, I'm sure is another sport I would successfully fail at). My parents bought my sisters and I a ping-pong table when I was in my pre-teens and I grew up challenging my sisters and my dad. I learned mostly from my father, of course. In most cases, I would lose. But every now and then, I would strike just a bit of luck and prevail. It was glorious.
Coming here to college, of course, there are plentiful opportunities available to play ping-pong. And last year, my first year at Ball State, I played against a few guy friends. I won. Finally, something I could have a little bit of confidence in. Something that I could challenge to someone in without feeling like a fool. Something to "save me from humiliation and gain a small amount of respect." Something to win in.
So tonight, I had a small amount of hope that I could prevail again. Not to show up my boyfriend, but to prove a small point. To prove that I am good at something, even if it is just ping-pong. And maybe I didn't win the majority of the games, but I did win two. Maybe I proved to him that there is a game out there that perhaps I can challenge him in.
But until that point is proven, I say, rematch.
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