The Long Game: Classic Or Dud?

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Romantic pursuit over an extended time period. Can it work? Has it worked for you? Is it healthy? Is someone chasing you? Are you chasing someone? And how long is too long?

― Tom, Wednesday, 2 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

Apols if "the long game" has not acquired the quasi-scientific meaning among your circle it has among mine. But you know what I'm talking about.

― Tom, Wednesday, 2 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

= the only game i know

scene: a pillar of obsidian, a thousand miles high; every thousand years an angel appears and gently wipes the top surface with a silken cloth; if [proejct x] is not finished before the pillar has entirely worn away, then it is perhaps a *bit* too lackadaisical

― mark s, Wednesday, 2 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

Cricket is a long game. Anything that takes longer than cricket is dud.

― Trevor, Wednesday, 2 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

Christ I don't know. I think it's working.

I've been on and off with the same girl for almost 3 and a half months now, er thats probably not that long to many of you, but to me it seems like forever. I am chasing her I think, it's sort of hard to tell. I would have said before it could never work chasing someone for ages but I kind of suspect we may eventually end up together. It's not very healthy in my situation because we keep having random snogs and then "deciding" that we won't pursue it. I think it's gone on too long but I can't really stop it either, I'm too weak to actually give an ultimatum or even play it cool for a while.

Some day it will all work out fine.

― Ronan, Wednesday, 2 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

I spent the first two years of college pining after two women, one each year, both of whom I could not have. The first because she had a boyfriend, the second just wasn't interested.

And I lived those years in a form of melancholy that in retrospect I realize I fetishized and enjoyed. Pursuing them still on the periphery of any kind of perceivable sense by just being the 'good friend' and 'shoulder to cry on' ... hoping that one day love would prevail.

Of course, my naive hopes were crushed. And it was a good thing, I grew up a bit and realized some things about desire versus 'love' (although coming across a copy of Neil Gaiman's Sandman book "The Doll's House" helped tremendously). So I'd say classic in that sense -- what would romance and courtship be, not to mention poetry, if we all hooked up immediately and everything was nonproblematic?

― Chris, Wednesday, 2 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

she will be mine, oh yes she will be mine. Is sorta my catch phrase, hell it's a long game...kinda like breath of fire.

Is someone chasing you? This happens? :)

― james, Wednesday, 2 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

Chris has drawn up quite clearly the ways in which the long game fails: if it becomes bogged down in unrequited crushes, with "romantic" intentions unctuously concealed behind that damp shoulder for crying on, and all of it aestheticized into holy suffering. Nothing wrong with that approach, except for the fact that it never gets you anywhere except for therapy.

I'll try to work out a "Details" type how-to once the particulars of the long game I've presently playing have resolved themselves. One thing is sure, though-- keep a few games going at once, or risk falling into the moon-eyed pining that ends the game, set, and match right there. So much cathexis becomes an unpleasant habit.

One other thing that is clear from the last couple months (and a denouement is certainly nearing): the only time I nearly lost was when I got a nonsensical "let's be friends" speech, which I laughed off. ("I think you need to know I have quite enough friends already, thank you.") It was a cop-out, pure and simple, one that kept her from making a real choice by pretending that one was already made, as she acknowledged as soon as I pointed it out.

― Benjamin, Wednesday, 2 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

I've never felt like anyone was chasing me. I don't feel like I was ever worth the chasing.

― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 2 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

Aw, Ned, cheer up.

Seriously, to me, it's Dud. The boys I've liked have pretty much liked me back right away. I've never experienced a protracted courtship, and honestly can hardly imagine it.

― Sean, Wednesday, 2 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

Wait five years until people from your past start tracking you down and telling you they've been listening to the mixed tape you made them an age ago. What does this mean? Who knows? Then you will know what the long game is all about.

Ned, you are probably on several people's five-year plans.

― felicity, Thursday, 3 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

*BLUSH* For both of you, I thank you. Had a bit of a dark moment there...

― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 3 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

The long game is rubbish.

― N., Friday, 4 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

it has its charms

― Ronan, Friday, 4 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

you're not old enough to have played the long game.

― DV, Friday, 4 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

YOU ALWAYS TREAT ME LIKE SUCH A CHILD.

― Ronan, Friday, 4 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

Where we talked about THE LONG GAME before

― N., Friday, 4 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

ronan wasn't even born then!!

― mark s, Friday, 4 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

yeah and just think by the next time we discuss it you'll all be dead and I'll be going round in my flying car.

― Ronan, Friday, 4 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

two months pass...

I think that dedication and the pursuit of the Long Game is a good policy when it comes to careers and cultural pursuits. However, it is a manifestly awful idea when it comes to pursuing relationships.

Sadly, I'm great at the latter and have no sticking power when it comes to the former.

― N., Thursday, 7 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

My post above seems silly now.

― Ronan, Thursday, 7 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

That's what made it so cute.

― Nicole, Thursday, 7 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

I meant the one just above where Nick revived this thread, just in case you thought I meant the serious one way above near the top, which doesn't seem silly, just amusingly the same.

― Ronan, Thursday, 7 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

No, I like flying cars is all.

― Nicole, Thursday, 7 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Don't we all.

― Ronan, Thursday, 7 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

eight months pass...

I think I still feel the same way now, but for different reasons.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 14 November 2002 15:50 (twenty-two years ago) link

Dear Lord of all the threads to revive!

― Tom (Groke), Thursday, 14 November 2002 15:53 (twenty-two years ago) link

Funnily enough I'm sure this thread came up for discussion when Pete was in Bristol last week, although I can't remember the context.

― alext (alext), Thursday, 14 November 2002 16:33 (twenty-two years ago) link

you mean this doesn't have to do with golf or football?

― g (graysonlane), Thursday, 14 November 2002 16:38 (twenty-two years ago) link

or even Long Games!

― felicity (felicity), Thursday, 14 November 2002 19:01 (twenty-two years ago) link

I have never had any sort of relationship that came about as part of my pursuing the Him of the moment, and I'm experiencing yet again those fears of never being loved.

― j.lu (j.lu), Thursday, 14 November 2002 20:50 (twenty-two years ago) link

You mean you still like flying cars Ned?

― Ronan (Ronan), Thursday, 14 November 2002 22:58 (twenty-two years ago) link

this should have been about risk

― keith (keithmcl), Friday, 15 November 2002 02:05 (twenty-two years ago) link

oh, but it is.

― felicity (felicity), Friday, 15 November 2002 10:12 (twenty-two years ago) link

five months pass...

I've been given a momentary setback in my long game. Good thing the short game is rockin'.

― hstencil, Wednesday, 30 April 2003 04:17 (twenty-one years ago) link

Just when I thought I had quit, I find ima still playin'.

― felicity (felicity), Wednesday, 30 April 2003 11:04 (twenty-one years ago) link

I don't know why I keep going back to it, but I do.

― rosemary (rosemary), Thursday, 1 May 2003 04:03 (twenty-one years ago) link

the long game is king. I've been playing since high school. Anybody who finds the long game 'dud' must have totally missed the last five hundred years of cultural artifacts. Uh, yeah. You go from Homer to Shakespeare to any number of modern writers - the long game is one of those things which all of us are wholly involved in, regardless of the era or our age - if you give up the long game you give up the very thing that makes you human*.

*That urge to fight an unwinnable battle, against all odds, against all reason, regardless of the outcome.

― Millar (Millar), Thursday, 1 May 2003 04:14 (twenty-one years ago) link

the only game i know, as above. the object of mine (well, maybe i have two) recently came back to playing. and now i worry that i'm moving into the position she was in a few years ago when she told me she never fell in love with me the way she thought she was going to.

― gabbneb (gabbneb), Thursday, 1 May 2003 04:17 (twenty-one years ago) link

*cue "To Dream the Impossible Dream" from Man of La Mancha*

― hstencil, Thursday, 1 May 2003 04:19 (twenty-one years ago) link

Truly it is these topics on which I am inclined to be the opposite of practical, in every manner possible - romance is just one of those practices which I have a weakness for, regardless of my attitude towards death and suffering otherwise. In fact I should say that my attitudes towards romance reinforce my attitudes in political issues- possibly to the extent that my arguments in such arenas achieve nothing less than redundancy and nothing more than destructiveness, at least in the present term.

― Millar (Millar), Thursday, 1 May 2003 04:30 (twenty-one years ago) link

would like to note that Millar is on a roll this early AM

(tho my attitude towards these things may be changing. should i be a material girl? do i have a choice?)

― gabbneb (gabbneb), Thursday, 1 May 2003 04:36 (twenty-one years ago) link

my question is, what do you do if you're playing more than one long game?

― hstencil, Thursday, 1 May 2003 04:38 (twenty-one years ago) link

What about one long game with a side order of a couple of short games?

― rosemary (rosemary), Thursday, 1 May 2003 04:42 (twenty-one years ago) link

i don't know what's with you people and your long game obsessions!

― Mary (Mary), Thursday, 1 May 2003 04:47 (twenty-one years ago) link

i'm good at driving, however when I get stuck in the sand it only complicates things.

― Ronan (Ronan), Thursday, 1 May 2003 07:38 (twenty-one years ago) link

We can't all be players, Mary.

― rosemary (rosemary), Thursday, 1 May 2003 15:22 (twenty-one years ago) link

holy shit. What do they put in this stuff?

― Millar (Millar), Thursday, 1 May 2003 22:41 (twenty-one years ago) link

I just crush a lot.

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Friday, 2 May 2003 01:11 (twenty-one years ago) link

I just tend to think that if it's been years and nothing is happening there's probably a reason for it -- feelings probably aren't strong enough on one or the other side or both -- I'm sure there's exceptions -- but I don't see anything inherently romantic about playing the long game. It could even be that it's as much as a security crutch as a relationship in its own way.

― Mary (Mary), Thursday, 8 May 2003 01:43 (twenty-one years ago) link

well, what if long refers to distance as well?

― gabbneb (gabbneb), Thursday, 8 May 2003 01:49 (twenty-one years ago) link

the extra innings double header...

hstencil writes:
I've been given a momentary setback in my long game. Good thing the short game is rockin'.

we shall see about that! ;-D ¡hee hee hee!

― gygax! (gygax!), Thursday, 8 May 2003 02:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

no games here: i am happy as a trappist in my seven storey mountain.

― gygax! (gygax!), Thursday, 8 May 2003 02:04 (twenty-one years ago) link

perhaps i have misunderstood what this is about, in re mutuality. or are there different kinds of, or a spectrum of, long games?

― gabbneb (gabbneb), Thursday, 8 May 2003 02:16 (twenty-one years ago) link

Dud until the day she falls for me.

― bnw (bnw), Thursday, 8 May 2003 02:28 (twenty-one years ago) link

I think I must be playin' the Long Game at the moment. Maybe someone else who knows me can tell me. I have no idea anymore *cries*. See there's this guy, and I've known him six months, and everyone makes jokes about how we act like a couple because we always hang out, talk every day, have a lot of physical stuff goin' on, but every so often he kinda freaks out and says "I feel weird we have to stop this!" ("this" being gettin' jiggy and the like) and then a week later its all happening again.

At the moment it's reduced to just hanging out and cuddles, but I swear to god he'll be back eventually. And I like this, I just keep hoping he'll wake up and smell the damn coffee some day... (yeah right). Sigh.

― Trayce (trayce), Thursday, 8 May 2003 02:37 (twenty-one years ago) link

wtf? gygax! I guess you're not up to speed on what I've been up to lately.

― hstencil, Thursday, 8 May 2003 02:40 (twenty-one years ago) link

easy tiger!

what i'm wondering is if i'll find out from the proverbial horse's mouth next week?

is that the long or the short (game) of it?

haha, i thought i was "still going to do our l'il wink-wink surprise, right?"

i'd ask you to return the favor but my nyc crush went and got engaged to some east village restaurantier... :-(

― gygax! (gygax!), Thursday, 8 May 2003 02:49 (twenty-one years ago) link

restaurateur

― gabbneb (gabbneb), Thursday, 8 May 2003 02:52 (twenty-one years ago) link

o the irnoy

― gygax! (gygax!), Thursday, 8 May 2003 02:54 (twenty-one years ago) link

the irnoing is delicious

― electric sound of jim (electricsound), Thursday, 8 May 2003 02:58 (twenty-one years ago) link

sorry bro to hear that.

yes, the object of the long game needs you to buy her a bourbon and say "from Joel because you couldn't make it to the Derby."

The object of the long game does not need to hear about the date I'm going on tomorrow night, either. Or herself referred to as the object of the long game, for that matter.

― hstencil, Thursday, 8 May 2003 02:59 (twenty-one years ago) link

ROGER LOUD AND CLEAR AMIGO

LOW PRO DOWN LOW

― gygax! (gygax!), Thursday, 8 May 2003 03:07 (twenty-one years ago) link

I wish I was still drunk!

― Millar (Millar), Thursday, 8 May 2003 03:08 (twenty-one years ago) link

I played it for 3 years once, but gave it up... and now there's a new one sort of, but it's not really because the long game part of it hasn't even really started yet, but I feel it coming.

― luna (luna.c), Thursday, 8 May 2003 03:26 (twenty-one years ago) link

Isn't the essence of the long game that if it ever became a now game all the charm and fantasy would be lost?

That said I don't think I've ever had a long game. Except for the droll cowboy in my head who greases his hair and plays surf guitar. I have a weekend in Marfa booked with him. Whenever he decides to show up.

― That Girl (thatgirl), Thursday, 8 May 2003 03:41 (twenty-one years ago) link

Except for the droll cowboy in my head who greases his hair and plays surf guitar.

what a wicked game to play

― gygax! (gygax!), Thursday, 8 May 2003 03:49 (twenty-one years ago) link

Tch, you just did a bad, bad thing...

― Trayce (trayce), Thursday, 8 May 2003 03:54 (twenty-one years ago) link

Marfa? "A farm" backwards... ?

???

― donut bitch (donut), Thursday, 8 May 2003 04:16 (twenty-one years ago) link

ur, "A fram", sorry

― donut bitch (donut), Thursday, 8 May 2003 04:17 (twenty-one years ago) link

Could someone please define the long game? Is it just persistence? How short can it be and still be considered a long game?

― Mary (Mary), Thursday, 8 May 2003 05:40 (twenty-one years ago) link

Could someone explain why Dang missed out on cracking the obvious "long game" joke?

― donut bitch (donut), Thursday, 8 May 2003 05:42 (twenty-one years ago) link

Lady, if you have to ask....

― rosemary (rosemary), Thursday, 8 May 2003 14:28 (twenty-one years ago) link

Marfa=city in west Texas known for it unexplained lights in the sky and the filming of Giant.

― That Girl (thatgirl), Thursday, 8 May 2003 14:38 (twenty-one years ago) link

And Donald Judd's Chinati Foundation, hence flood of art tourists (I'm researching a piece on Marfa RIGHT NOW, actually - my friend J went there and did a photo story a few months back).

― suzy (suzy), Thursday, 8 May 2003 14:41 (twenty-one years ago) link

Suzy, let me know when the piece is published. I know naught on the 'rebirth' of Marfa.

― That Girl (thatgirl), Thursday, 8 May 2003 14:49 (twenty-one years ago) link

two years pass...

i played this game for a decade!

i mean, things happened in the meantime, but you know.

― amateurist0, Thursday, 23 February 2006 20:10 (eighteen years ago) link

i'm coming up on ten years, but it's probably been 2 since I got off the crutches

― gabbneb (gabbneb), Thursday, 23 February 2006 20:30 (eighteen years ago) link

i recently learned of someone who had a crush on me for TEN YEARS. apparently, we met when i was in fourth grade and he's crushed on me since then. we didn't even go to the same school most of the time, so i don't know how valid this crush is. i have a suspicion he still fancies me, too. yikes.

― killy (baby lenin pin), Thursday, 23 February 2006 20:32 (eighteen years ago) link

or did I just get a new crutch?

― gabbneb (gabbneb), Thursday, 23 February 2006 21:03 (eighteen years ago) link

Hah. I am hypothetically romantic enough to play a long game, but I am not NOT patient enough, and I have this smallness of spirit where being thwarted makes me bitter. So probably not Classic for me!

― Laurel (Laurel), Thursday, 23 February 2006 21:52 (eighteen years ago) link

seven months pass...

I thought this thread was one that had a huge influence on me, but clearly it was another on the same subject (does anyone remember similar threads from 2002? My search skills are lame). "The long game: dud" certainly became my mantra in late 2002 as a result of ILX, anyway, and I still bore people on the subject to this day.

― toby (tsg20), Sunday, 22 October 2006 20:51 (eighteen years ago) link

― If you fuck with Jimmy Mod, you call down the thunder (The Famous Jimmy Mod), Sunday, 22 October 2006 20:56 (eighteen years ago) link

:-(

― Steve Shasta (Steve Shasta), Monday, 23 October 2006 03:46 (eighteen years ago) link

dud when 18 months are wasted on it going nowhere. dud++ when your best efforts were just based on false hope anyway.

― H2-H4 (H2-H4), Monday, 23 October 2006 04:34 (eighteen years ago) link

There's a thread here.

my roommate sarah believes

― ailsa (ailsa), Monday, 23 October 2006 16:20 (eighteen years ago) link

i dont have the patience for this shit

― and what (ooo), Monday, 23 October 2006 18:46 (eighteen years ago) link

Long game players, take a drink on me. I have played it and won against all odds. You never know when another fish in the sea will teach you for a day. I would totally smooch all of you guys who are not on anyone's dance cards.

― Abbott (Abbott), Monday, 23 October 2006 22:04 (eighteen years ago) link

ethan otm

― electric sound of jim [and why not] (electricsound), Monday, 23 October 2006 22:34 (eighteen years ago) link

Haha, about like, 3 days after my last post in this thread, my flatmate ran off with that guy. Good riddance to them both, he was a real waste of my time in retrospect. And now I'm with a guy who held a minor torch for me for 2 years before we got together so go figure.

NB he did not pursue/pester/ask me at all tho. If he had, Id've run away very fast.

― Trayce (trayce), Monday, 23 October 2006 23:07 (eighteen years ago) link

This thread makes me feel sick to my stomach. I just can't handle the idea. Though it can make for a nice story or song.

― Casuistry (Chris P), Tuesday, 24 October 2006 01:29 (eighteen years ago) link

I find several posts on this thread to be hilarious!! I've never read it before! I can't play a long game, I am easily bored and feel trapped by just about any kind of committment, even just one I've made up in my head about some crush object, so there it is.

― Allyzay lives aprox. 200 feet away from a stadium (allyzay), Tuesday, 24 October 2006 14:56 (eighteen years ago) link

― If you fuck with Jimmy Mod, you call down the thunder (The Famous Jimmy Mod), Tuesday, 24 October 2006 22:14 (eighteen years ago) link

OK... seriously.

― If you fuck with Jimmy Mod, you call down the thunder (The Famous Jimmy Mod), Wednesday, 25 October 2006 00:41 (eighteen years ago) link

why do you keep UHing? You didn't even post on this thread originally.

― Allyzay Eisenschefter (allyzay), Wednesday, 25 October 2006 17:02 (eighteen years ago) link

eleven months pass...

I played it for 3 years once, but gave it up... and now there's a new one sort of, but it's not really because the long game part of it hasn't even really started yet, but I feel it coming.
-- luna (luna.c), Thursday, 8 May 2003 03:26 (4 years ago)

― gershy, Wednesday, 17 October 2007 04:52 (seventeen years ago) link

how illuminating your boredom is for all of us

― El Tomboto, Wednesday, 17 October 2007 05:21 (seventeen years ago) link

how illuminati your board is for all of us

― gershy, Wednesday, 17 October 2007 06:08 (seventeen years ago) link

Robert Anton Wilson died for your sins.

― kingfish, Wednesday, 17 October 2007 06:28 (seventeen years ago) link

http://darkforces.jediknight.net/graphics/bestmod.jpg

― gershy, Wednesday, 17 October 2007 07:06 (seventeen years ago) link

I liked it when Ronan made his joke about flying cars.

― Alba, Wednesday, 17 October 2007 07:46 (seventeen years ago) link

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