Single File: Women playing games

DEAR SUSAN: I agree that the timing of a phone call is just the beginning of the game-playing that women use with men. I'd like to expose some of the more serious games they play -- games they may think are cute but that, in reality, are stupid and potentially dangerous, often with lasting effects.

There's the "I'm pregnant" game, sometimes a ruse and sometimes a faked accident. If it's a ruse (after getting the desired feedback), they proceed to fake a miscarriage or disappear for a few days to "have an abortion." Timed properly, this game can tie in with their menses, which can masquerade as miscarriage or abortion. (I saw this happen to a friend, but I was too naive at the time to realize what a miscarriage looked like.) The faked "accident" is accomplished by deliberately "forgetting" to use birth control and conceiving and then pushing the man to marry in a desire to get a baby and a license so they can stick their hand into his pocket.

There's the mind-reading game, in which a man is supposed to know what she wants. She hasn't told him but sure will punish him for not doing or buying what she wants.

Sexually, she wants him to be a kind and considerate lover, yet she will withhold sex as punishment, deciding what is and isn't proper -- refusing to give him what he desires or, in some cases, denying it to him altogether.

From the Single File blog

DEAR BLOGGER: Speaking of bed games, you won't believe it (a friend swears it's true), but there's one I know in which the wife allows her husband 15 minutes of sex a week. No more. It's an unwritten rule between them. She puts an alarm clock on the night table and clocks his activity -- to the minute. Then, there's the wife who telegraphs her willingness to have sex by lying on her back on their double bed. Not a sound is heard. It's the woman's sign language, signaling her OK to him to go ahead and do his duty. To this day, I still can't believe these situations exist. But they seem to have stood the test of time. I'm doubtful their marriages did.

But yes, there are game players out there, in and out of the married group. Male and female players are plotting their games as we speak. Fun, they aren't. Neither are their games. I can just imagine the people who buy into this kind of lovemaking -- inhibited, afraid of their own bodily urges and restricting their partner to the tamest sort of physical expression. If you meet one of these, run for your life.