Sweet Jesus, I Hate Solitaire.

In my mind, the set of actions that make up the human experience can, with few exceptions, be split into two seperate camps: the world of games and the world of stories. For the topic at hand, games will suffice.

The definition of a "game" is malleable, but I will describe it thus:

A negotiated formal set of constraints, whose outcome is arbitrated by a set of finite decisions interacting with other similarly constrained agents.

In this way, one could say that all of life is a game - school, writing, love, Mortal Kombat, climbing the corporate ladder, Chutes & Ladders, harvesting honey RUNNING FROM BEES et al.

Why yes, I am white bread. What tipped you off?

The Management has looked upon Bea & Honey's kerfuffle about cheating in the world's worst game, and thus he spoke:

Bea and Honey aren't playing the same game at all. Sure you've got the same overlay of row upon dreadful row of WHY ARE YOU PLAYING SOLITAIRE but when we look at the structure of a game, we can see that the rules (however strict or loose) are always negotiated - the first rule of any game is that all players agree to play by the communally understood rules. Because solitaire is A HORRIBLE GAME that is only played by a single agent, the rules are essentially whimsy. QED Bea is not cheating, she's just playing Beataire.

Which is still a terrible fucking game.

Show Me in the Text

Alright. ALRIGHT. Time to get serious here, before Management makes us go on a weekend retreat to get us to talk about our feelings, and have us do trust exercises. I really don't want to do trust exercises with Bea because she'd probably be too busy making deals with herself to pay attention to the fact that I was falling down, and then when I broke my wrist she'd be all "Well, if you didn't want that to happen, you should spoken up about it, but since I didn't make an accord with myself to be trusted by you, you mostly deserve it."

Bea states the point of the game is to see you can get from the beginning to the end. (Probe This, Jerk line 30, 2011).  Once I reach the end of a game,  I think to myself, in exactly these words, "Oh, looks like this particular instance of 8.06581752 × 10⁶⁷ possible card combinations just wasn't felicitous! Nutter butters! But I guess its a good thing that my self worth is not contingent on how this algorithm, whose outcome is primarily determined by statistics and probability rather than any sort of skill or observation on my part. Oh, look! This slight alteration to the order gives me yet another instance of this playing field, which will allow me to continue to execute a play."

Bea on the other hand probably thinks something like this: "Oh, looks like this particular instance of 8.06581752 × 10⁶⁷ possible card combinations just wasn't felicitous! Life just isn't worth living if I can't beat the math!" She then probably commences to read depressing or non-sense poetry. Or watch Vampire Diaries, which I assume is just some weird form of self-flagellation. Something I assume she needs to do because she needs to punish herself for all of her lost games of solitaire. 

Now, if you argue about something pointless enough long enough, two things happen: First, someone brings up Nazi Germany. Two, someone looks something up on the internet.

<sup>Well, I went to the internet to see if I couldn't get this thing settled. And I forgot exactly what my point was going to be about solitaire is a futile exercise in busy work you do to keep yourself occupied, and  arbitrary rules, and how to cheat at a cigarette, but I actually found websites that have programs you can download to win digital solitaire every time. Now, I think both of us would agree that THOSE people are definitely lying to themselves, and are all sorts of trampy. 

I have a really hard time imagining what would drive someone to work that hard to do something that is so meaningless. I get why psychologically and anthropologically people cheat. It sort of makes you a dick, but if it helps you gain prestige, and therefore a mate, hey, that's your evolutionary right. But no one will have sex with you if you win at computer solitaire. Its not like they wouldn't not sleep with you either. But if you cheat at computer solitaire? You might as well just hand in your genitals</sup>

probe this, jerk

What actually happened is this: After we finished watching Dexter over the phone Honey casually proffered two questions – 1. Can a person cheat at solitaire (since the stakes don’t really matter in the first place?) And 2. When Bruce Wayne hooks up with Selina Kyle while their alter egos are also concurrently getting it on, is it cheating? I answered yes and no respectively, while Honey answered no and yes. And then four hours and some name calling later, we stopped talking about it.

If you haven’t already guessed what my response might be to Honey’s thought provoking query of “Who the hell derives a sense of a accomplishment from a game of solitaire??” My answer is obvious, “ME. DUH!!!” I also like drinking alone, what of it?

Honestly, at this point if I were the type of person who said “maybe you’re right,” I would maybe concede that cheating at solitaire is referring to the situation in a somewhat harsh manner. Honey thinks that it’s not cheating if it doesn’t affect someone else, and that there has to be some gravity to the situation in a larger sense for it to be considered cheating. I personally think that the solitaire instance speaks to how a person would react in larger circumstances because of how one holds him/herself personally accountable. Now, I realize how ridiculous that is, but my brain has an old-timey gentlemen's agreement with itself to always keep it's word. As a gentleman your word is all you've got, unless you have more than 10,000 pounds a year, in which case, go you. And for the record I should probably mention that when I play solitaire on the computer or gadget of some sort, I don’t cheat, but I do constantly reset the statistics so it doesn’t get too depressing for me. I might have forgotten to mention that in my discussion with Honey. (I am totally allowed to do this though, because as I was too busy reading Jane Eyre and studying conspiracy theories as a child to frolic about with other youngsters and attempt to punt the football past the goalie, this is my little way of giving myself a pat on the back and a participation trophy even though I am a total and complete loser). And even if the amount of mattering falls in the “none more” category, I still play solitaire better than Honey because I get the point of the game – to see if you can get from the beginning to the end! If you can’t, the game is over. I really don’t see how that is too many rules to follow. If you simply rearrange the cards until they get to a more satisfactory placement, you are playing some weird, childish obfuscation of not solitaire.

I can’t get too worked up about the Batman/Catwoman scenario because all four of them are idiots and as I was once about to say “the relationship drama of fools bores the fuck outta me.” Seriously though, it’s not cheating.

If you're probing, you're going to get probed

Bea and I had our first fight. Now, I might be willing to take the blame for starting the fight, but only if she concedes that she was making no sense at first, and that eventually I won. That victory came at a heavy price. But, here is the result of that fight:

1. One of us is being a douche. (Its me.)

2. Bea has lost all respect for my personal integrity.

3. You can't reasonably break up with someone for hitting you, if you didn't inform them previously that physical violence is a deal breaker. 
And, finally

4. Things only matter if they matter.

Now, I'm a little hazy on how we came to these conclusions, because I am entirely convinced that I am right all of the time, and everything I think about everything is a fundamental truth of the universe that can only be expressed as semantically null tautologies, i.e. "rules don't count, because they don't count!". Because of this, I am very rarely drawn into discussion or arguments, and rapidly become exhausted at so staunchly sticking to my irrational guns that usually I just shrug and say, "Maybe you're right!" This seems to sate most people enough to give them a sense of victory and let me drop the conversation. Bea probably does the same thing, and would know that's what I was doing. You can't use your robot defenses against your robot buddy, turns out.

Regardless of how we got here, the whole thing started because I asked a question. In light of my complete inability to relate to anyone on a meaningful emotional level, I have come up with a set of questions that I think give me a way to understand how people think and feel.

The particular question this time around was: "Is Bruce Wayne cheating on Selena Kyle, when he makes out with Catwoman as Batman?" Its not as though I am looking for an one particular answer, but how you answer is really revealing of your world view. I especially recommend asking it on first dates.

Bea came back with a solid "No." Now, I am not sure what happened next. But the long and the short of it, according to Bea is this: the sort of person you are is determined by whether or not you shuffle the deck completely once you run out of moves in solitaire. The natural extension of this is that because I rearrange cards when I come to the end of a game, rather than completely restarting, I derive a false sense of accomplishment, lie to myself, and am something of a tramp.

Trampiness aside, my counter point is simple: Who the hell derives a sense of a accomplishment from a game of solitaire??

I find it interesting that this whole topic dissolved to the conclusion that how you feel about something matters. And by "how you feel" I mean how we feel is what matters. Turns out, the only opinions we care about are our own. So, yes, I might be cheating at solitaire, and I absolutely refuse to be judged for it. I made a deal with myself long ago with the understanding that whether or not I've dealt myself a solvable hand of solitaire, my value as a person will remain the same. Bea apparently did not make this deal.

Either way, Bea and I came to a mutual understanding our thoughts and feelings (i.e. that they ultimately don't matter all that much), and I think we've come to a better sense of what our relationship means, and how we can move forward in our old timey love affair.  And in a certain sense, doesn't that mean we both win?

But in another, more accurate sense, I won.