Asklemmy

43826 readers

845 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy 🔍

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

Open-ended question
Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

Lemmyverse: community search
sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
[email protected]: a community for finding communities

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_[email protected]~

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

130

Sore Losers of Lemmy: What Helped You Start to Lose with Grace? (lemmy.sdf.org)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

51 comments fedilink hide all child comments

EDIT: Thank you all so much for your thoughtful input. It means so much to me.

Hi, all. I'm looking to change my nasty tendency to be a sore loser, particularly when playing games. I tend to personalize losses that are of no consequence. When the game starts to shift against me, I often stop trying as hard because it feels hopeless. My partner is much more proficient at board games than I am, and I don't want this toxic trait of mine to make games less fun for us. What are some things you all tried to lessen this train of thought, if you've experienced it?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Two approaches. Mixed success with both.

Choose games that don't make you feel bad. This can mean playing more cooperative games, or it can mean offering to referee or sit out games you know will just piss you off. For me, the chance of winning isn't appealing enough to outweigh the chance of ruining the game for someone else. It helps to identify what exactly it is about losing that makes you so sour. I have a hard time with games like Cards Against Humanity because the card combinations that are funny to me usually aren't funny to anyone else because they didn't go on the ADHD field trip with to make those connections. It starts to feel like a popularity contest that I'm losing because my brain is wired wrong, and it's hard not to take that personally.
Set different goals in the games you're playing, and define 'winning' for yourself based on those goals. I used to get annoyed every time my friends pulled out settlers of Catan. I would do what made sense to me each turn, but I'd always lose anyway either to random chance or just not having enough RAM in my brain. Even on the rare occasions I won I often wouldn't have fun with it because I spent so much of the game being frustrated. So I decided the only thing I cared about in the game was getting one of the bonus goals, usually 'longest road'. That was much easier to focus on, and it took all the pressure off me to win. After a while it became kind of a running joke.

It's not perfect, and it doesn't happen in a vacuum either. Sore losers often have anger issues they're not dealing with (I know I did!) and figuring that stuff out will help in more areas of your life than just board games.

Your mileage may vary.

Good luck!