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Kristen, prompted

September 7, 2020

Are you competitive?

That depends on who you ask. 😉

I have three siblings, and two of them are extremely competitive.

Kristen and her siblings
The one in front of the cake: even less competitive than me

As a result, I always felt rather non-competitive as a child. And compared to my two siblings, I truly did have a pretty laissez-faire attitude about winning.

However, I now live with a household of mostly non-competitive people. In fact, Lisey is so non-competitive, she will sometimes purposely lose just so she doesn’t have to keep playing anymore.

In comparison to someone like her, I am massively competitive.

But in comparison to my sister and my older brother, I’m barely competitive.

Connect Four checkers

I would say that I do really like to win, but at the same time, winning is not the be-all, end-all for me.

I usually find myself hoping that other people will do well at the game too. I want us all to win, impossible as that is.

(So, that’s a check in the not-so-competitive column.)

And if someone is going to feel bad or sad about me winning, I am actually prone to losing on purpose to protect someone else’s feelings.

(Another check in the not-so-competitive column.)

However, if I get to play with someone who can handle me winning, I will happily go all-in. I like playing games with my one friend’s husband because he is really smart, quite competitive, and he’s not about to be mad at me if I win.

And also, I can pretty much always beat him at Connect Four. 😉

It just occurred to me that I answered this question as if it was only about games.

But it also occurs to me that my answers are similar if I think about other kinds of competitiveness in life: I like to do well for myself, but I want other people to do well too.

Wins for all! 😉

Are you competitive?

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Sara P says

    September 7, 2020 at 11:12 am

    Definitely. But only if it is fair. I love a challenge. I like games and quizzes and competitions. I have fun entertaining the county fair baking competitions mostly because of the 90 something year old judge critiques everything to the “t” so I have learned so much! Sadly the fair was canceled this year due to the pandemic.

    Reply
  2. Molly F. C. says

    September 7, 2020 at 11:15 am

    HA! I am very competitive in most things.
    I try, ahem, to be a gracious loser in games but I always play to win.
    When our children were young, we established a rule that the winner of the game was the person who cleaned up. That helped to cut down on hard feelings.

    Reply
    • Ruth says

      September 7, 2020 at 12:42 pm

      That’s a genius idea!!! The winner cleans up. Wow!

      Reply
  3. Karen. says

    September 7, 2020 at 1:23 pm

    Nope, but by decision. I’m not a gracious winner or a gracious loser, so I generally choose not to play. No one likes me playing, so that’s no fun.

    Again with the prompts that reveal things not to my credit! I should not answer. lol.

    Reply
  4. Joanne says

    September 7, 2020 at 4:30 pm

    Oh my days I’m so competitive it’s untrue, particularly with games. My youngest son is a poor loser, my DH doesn’t have a competitive bone in his body and my eldest son is a carbon copy of me so games don’t happen often at our house!
    I don’t play sport (I’m unfit and carrying a little too much lockdown padding) but even if I play garden football I ‘have’ to win. Perhaps it’s fortuitous I’m not involved in competitive sport!!

    Reply
    • kristenprompted says

      September 9, 2020 at 9:51 am

      You need to join a board game club!

      Reply
  5. Ruth T says

    September 10, 2020 at 10:38 am

    Not nearly as much as I used to be. I used to be highly competitive. The decrease is probably because I’ve mellowed with age in many things and also that my husband coached a college volleyball team that by the end of his 3 years they won their first conference match in 10 years. I had to learn how to bed happy in spite of losing.

    Reply

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