Why Do People Argue, And Play Games, Control Games?

1 One word sums up a specific control game, one upmanship. The Singaporeans call it Kiasu or getting ahead. (Kiasu activities include motorists overtaking you and pulling in front sharply even when you are the only two cars on the road. This is to my mind pointlessly going out 'looking for a fight'. I presume they think they are keeping in training, practising keeping constantly alert in a competitive society in a tiny over-populated city-state where they have no natural resources and rely on a combination of brains and pushing to get ahead at work and in housing and everything. )

2 I don't like games because I feel they are insincere, based on saying the opposite of you want. Like playing hard to get not because you are respectable but to tease the other person and extract favours which ought to be freely given. And never saying I love you. What sort of basis is this for a long-term relationship? I had devoted parents and ultimately my ideal is that I would like the same. But some argue that it is a question of order and timing. You don't put the cart before the horse. Start slow and only talk about commitment and commit when you are both ready.

3 What bothers me about games is that a game is not only setting ground rules - start as you mean to go on - but a game may be only the first rung in a ladder competition. As soon as the opponent has one this round, he has the confidence to go on and pick a bigger opponent. He is merely practising his (verbal or physical ) fighting technique on you in order to enter a VIP competition with somebody more important.

4 Men are taught to be tough and macho because a proportion of the population has to defend the others and out in the world on the road, the marketplace, the street. You might get attacked by loonies. So the person who is older, taller, broad-shoulders, protects the smaller ones. 

A graphic example of this is in a film about Poland and the holocaust. A group of Jewish orphans sent to a new school are set upon by the old-timers (watched covertly by teachers - but that's a different issue). The oldest boy of the beseiged group takes charge and gets them to stand facing outwards in a circle. He shouts to the vulnerable tiny ones to get in the middle protected by the bigger boys. Really smart to spot the danger while still time to make a plan, to have figured out battle formation and defence without prior thought and to make an instant decision.

To go back to scenarios of people 'fighting' verbally. These people seem to think the best form of defence is attack. Over to you