A Song of Vice and Ire

*This is the first part in a series of ridiculous rants. Read at your own risk.*

Part 1: The Game of Hoes

Mornings that I can only drink water and cannot possibly fathom the idea of coffee... are typically bad mornings.

This was one of those mornings.

As I sat at my computer, desperately trying to ward off unforgiving nausea and a severe case of the shakes, I thought back on the conversation that had ignited a series of drunken epiphanies.

A friend and I had been arguing over the politics of love, life and sex. Mostly sex, though, with a little "love," mixed in.  She made the rather audacious proclamation that it's all merely a game. And you either win or you lose.

Taken slightly aback by her simplifying, Charlie Sheen-esque antics, I immediately disagreed with her.

"How can you possibly define love or sex or anything in such black and white terms?"

Alright, I may not have posed it quite that elegantly at the time nor do I remember exactly what her response was, but it was something along the lines of, "Think about it. It's all a game. And you can win or you can lose."


I think deep down I had always kind of assumed that when you played the game of love, or more importantly, when you played the game of hoes, everyone loses.

Speaking of hoes...

It's all a game.

Maybe it was the margarita, Sauvignon Blanc and Guiness trifecta-of-death combination coursing through my veins or perhaps it was the fact that it's been so long since I've been "in love," that I'm starting to think I don't even know what the fuck it means, but something about the way she said it the second time just made... sense.

There's winning and there's losing and there's not really any in between.

(And if you think you're "in between," you're more likely in denial of losing.)

The only real difference between the game of love and the game of sex is that the former relies upon a balance of two individuals, a back-and-forth, an even combination of openness and communication that results in equal "winning," or crashes and burns into equal "losing."

(And then begins the battle of the exes, where we all know there's a clear winner and a clear loser... I'm looking at you, guy-who-used to date J. Law)

But the latter... well, the latter, to me, is actually a bit more complex simply because it relies nearly entirely on the individual. I mean, I think we can all agree that in both cases, "winning," basically just means being happy. And in the game of hoes, as long as you're happy doing what you're doing, well who cares, right?

Well, sort of. The complications stem from questions of insecurity and vulnerability. See, when you're not in a relationship, you don't have that significant other to rely on; instead, you rely on yourself. Your happiness, therefore, depends entirely upon you, not your girlfriend, not your boyfriend, not your fuck buddy... you.

And if you're not winning, you have no one to blame but yourself.