Most of my game playing came with my high school friends when we played penny poker, or Casino or Monopoly pretty regularly.
There was no cheating, lots of good-natured swearing, plenty of kibbutzing and mostly fun.
We also went bowling a lot which was much the same.
Some of my friends were more competitive and took losing harder, but we could usually just needle them about it.
It was a tricky adjustment going from my high school friends to my college friends. My HS friends were all quick witted and sharp tongued, and giving each other shit was a form of affection. The formulation being sort of, "I know you and your flaws and I love you anyway." Whereas my midwestern friends in college would look hurt at a quip which wouldn't even draw blood in HS.
My immediate family is aggressively good natured about board games. We apologize for conquering people in Risk. It's weird.
At Christmas, we played Scrabble with my 7 year old 1st cousin once removed. I was his dictionary, so he didn't try to lay down words that weren't. But we explained to him several times that his game-play had to improve significantly before he started talking that much smack without sounding completely ridiculous
I very often get bored by games (and usually can't be assed to have a strategy, which makes them all the more pointless) so I will make up rules to entertain myself. This works well with a 7 year old trying (& so far failing) to learn how to cheat. But I refuse to play with those who take games seriously, because I am simply no fun for them.
Hubby and I love a game called Chronology, where you have to place events in their proper place on the time line. It's great for history geeks. The game says to go until you have 5 cards in the correct order. Hubby and I agree that this is what wimps do and play to 20 cards. We just need to find more people to play it with.
I will note that my bad-sportness is solely related to board games. Take me bowling, or to a bar for an evening of darts or pool, and I am happy as a clam despite the fact that I'm mostly pretty crappy at all three (except for the occasional improbably perfect throw or shot, executed flawlessly, that would cause a titled expert to break out in hives, promptly followed by at least three displays of risible incompetence). I'm cheerfully fascinated by people who are good at them and positively chuffed to be trounced by a great player.
Whereas my midwestern friends in college would look hurt at a quip which wouldn't even draw blood in HS.
I don't think you can attribute that to being midwestern. Lots of midwestern people quip. In a razor-sharp manner, even.
I have this really weird thing where I cannot unscramble letters well. just don't see words in masses of letters unless they are already in the right order. I am horrible at scrabble, boggle, newspaper jumble puzzles and any other game like that. It used to bother me a lot, too, because people always expected me to do really well at those games because I knew a lot of words. I am so bad that when we had to unscramble words for homework (in high school, whatever) I would take the list of words we were supposed to end up with and count the number of 'e's and then try and match the words up that way.
I don't think you can attribute that to being midwestern. Lots of midwestern people quip. In a razor-sharp manner, even.
Well, some of them were from Pennsylvania. That doesn't count as midwestern, right?
Dadgummit, don't tell me that midwesterners aren't nicer. I know they are.
Dadgummit, don't tell me that midwesterners aren't nicer. I know they are.
"Nice" and "razor-sharp wit" are not mutually exclusive, my dear.
