TVM

I grew up poor, but my parents never made me feel that way. It's just small things that I remember now that all add up. Like how my parents almost never gave us money to buy lunch at school, and my friend Rebecca would always buy me something from the tuck shop. Or how when we went to see George of the Jungle, for Joanna's birthday, and all the other kids handed her mother money for their ticket, and I didn't know what to do since I didn't have any, but she just came up to me and said she had a 2-for-1 ticket voucher that I could use. We had consoles and games, because my dad loves them, but most of our toys and clothes were hand-me-downs. Even my primary school uniform - I was forced to join the same house as my cousin so I could wear his old sports uniform.

But as I said, I never felt like there was anything that I really wanted, but couldn't have - so we can't have been that poor. I had tennis lessons, swimming lessons, piano lessons, karate lessons, all while living in commission housing. I don't know how they managed, but I realise now that my parents must have given up a lot to be able to provide all of those things for us. We never went on holidays, and very rarely ate out at restaurants.

I think that growing up like that has meant that I never really learned to appreciate things like fine dining, or high fashion. Give me a place to sleep, food to eat, and something to occupy my mind and that's all I really want. But things have changed since I was in primary school. Even though my family's financial situation hasn't improved that much, mine certainly has. Work at the supermarket saw my income increase from nothing to around $100-200 per week. Work at the casino saw it increase even more. And then the bank even more. I remember Graham telling me that it's very difficult to keep your spending at the same level as your previous income once your income increases. However, I've found that my personal spending as probably gone down compared to how much I spent in my supermarket days. Well, that's if you don't count rent.

Looking only at the things I buy for myself (so ignoring joint/household stuff like rent, internet bills), my weekly expenses come to something like: $50 for lunch at work, $18 for gym membership, $15 for my phone bill and $3 for my World of Warcraft subscription (which I'll probably cancel now that MrMan5.5 and Olek have lost interest). Every now and again, I'll buy myself a DVD of whichever show happens to catch my fancy.

Given that I definitely have the means to be spending more than I am, why is it that I've suddenly become so frugal? A part of it is that I don't really have the energy or time to do any shopping. Working 40+ hour weeks means that when I'm not working, I just want to relax, and I've never understood the appeal of retail therapy - you're even more tired from all the shopping, and all the more poorer for it.

But the biggest part of it is that every dollar that I spend is one less dollar going towards buying a house. My ultimate goal in life is to be able to buy a house for my parents so that they don't have to pay rent or live in commission housing anymore. My motivation for that is pretty childish, but it's something that has taken root in my mind, and being the control freak that I am, it's one of the few things I feel like I can do to fix things with my parents.

I can't remember how long ago it was now, but my parents had a huge fight. Bigger than any fight I have ever seen them have. My mum ran out of the house and she was standing in the car park across from our house crying. Over and over again, she kept asking why my dad didn't go to university (when it was free), why my dad didn't buy a house, why my dad didn't get a better job like his other siblings did. My grandfather (my dad's dad) was actually quite well off for a while, but a few bad business decisions and it all went down the drain. My aunts and uncles took that time to go to university and buy houses, but my dad decided to travel the world instead. So when my dad came back to marry my mum, he had nothing.

I don't blame my dad for what he did - how could I when I had a happy childhood and never wanted for anything? At times I even wondered if I was a spoiled brat. But I know my mum resents him for it. I can't make my dad go back to university (and it's definitely not free anymore), and I doubt I'd be able to get him a high-paying office job before he hits the retirement age, but I feel like if I'm able to buy them a house, then maybe mum won't resent him as much and they'll be happier.

I want to do for them, because they won't accept any other forms of financial aid from me. So I haven't told them about my goal, because I know they'll tell me that I shouldn't worry about them. But it helps me stay fairly frugal since the one thing I've learned from my intro to finance course is that compound interest is a very powerful force, and that every cent makes a difference.

Let the Wookie Win?

Julian: 

3:58 PM ronnie, some other guys and I were at a friends house

  and we owned him

  and he banned me from playing

  and said I needed the glasses of something (a card which let you see other people's decks) to look at any of the cards

3:59 PM me: hahaha

  never went back?

 Julian: I'm not sure when we stopped being friends

4:00 PM but it wouldn't surprise me if it was that night

  haha

  gotta let some people win

 me: do you think that's bad in the end though? Reinforces the fact that if they rage, they will win (even if it means people let them win)

4:01 PM a bit like giving in to the customers that yell until you give them a discount

 Julian: nah you gotta let them win

  without them realising you let them win

  or what's the point

  so then there's no reinforcement

 me: surely they must know deep down

 Julian: that depends on you

4:02 PM I think I can be convincing

 me: unlikely that you will go from getting owned to winning

  unless it's a luck based game

 Julian: most competitive people have big egos

  so they can convince themselves you got lucky before

4:03 PM or they improved fast

  whatever story they want to make

- discussing this thread, "What is the funniest instance of "rage quitting" you have ever experienced?"

I'm of two minds about the whole letting people win thing. I'm fairly sure that people have let me win in the past, especially when I was a child. I was also a pretty sore loser in my earlier teen years, but I don't think many people let me win then. All that came from being a sore loser or a bad winner was that people didn't really want to play with me and I never got the chance to play the games I liked. So over time, I learned to take wins and losses graciously (or at least I think I do).

One thing that this helps me do, is that in "srs business" (to quote darkpast) games like DotA 2, I am less likely to blame others for losses, without attributing specific things that I think that did/didn't do. This avoids the unhelpful, "YOU'RE A NOOB FEEDER, GO UNINSTALL AND HANG YOURSELF" comments. And it also means I can look at things that I need to improve in my own play style. 

We played a game with darkpast today, and he copped a lot of abuse from our two other teammates because he's new to the game and we lost. Olek had a good reply, in that if they were being matched in the same game as darkpast  they can't be very highly skilled either. It's something that has never occured to me, and I think it's something that gets forgotten in the heat of the moment. I've been in a lot of games where someone is complaining in All chat (always All chat, never team chat, for some reason), that they are always put in a team with noobs. Some people might be over/underrated while they're still new and the matchmaking system hasn't found an accurate rating for them yet, but if this happens to you game after game after game, don't you eventually think that this might be because this is your skill level?

I messed up this post, as I'm starting my anecdote now, rather than at the start. =(

I think one of the turning points in my relationship with AG was when I brought my PS2 over to his house for a games night. We ended up playing a DDR-type game with dance mats, which he had never played before, and I had obviously played it as I owned it. So of course I beat him. And kept beating him. He started to get really worked up, and even his housemate was looking a bit worried that he was going to explode. So I managed to score a little less than him in the next game and suddenly he was so happy. He wanted to keep playing because he "got it" now, but I said I was tired and didn't want to play anymore.

It doesn't make sense to me at all why he thought he'd be able to beat me at DDR. He thought that gaming (with the exception of chess) was a huge waste of time, but knew that it was something that I put a lot of time into. It would be like if I challenged a professional archer to an archery competition. I would have no illusions about winning. Although now that I think about it, he probably either thought that even though I spend a lot of time playing games, I am bad at it, or that he's just so much better than me that even though he lacks the hours of experience that I have, he can find the "secret" that will let him beat me. To be honest, either of those justifications aren't very positive.

By letting him win, did I just reinforce in his mind that there is some "secret" or that I only got lucky the first few times? What is going to happen if he takes another girl out and tries to impress her with his mad DDR skillz only to fall flat on his face at an arcade because fail mode is turned on? OK, I'll admit that it doesn't hurt to be a winner - it feels good, in fact! I am not saying I advocate not letting someone win for purely selfless and enlightened reasons.

I advocate not letting someone win because I believe learning to lose is an important life skill. Unless you are blessed in life, chances are something will not go your way. You can accept it and work with it/around it, or start screaming like a child and end up on r/TalesFromRetail where you might have gotten your way, but you've gone about it in a way that makes everyone around you feel terrible.

As an aside, I think that working in retail or hospitality really gives you a good perspective on how not to treat other people like crap. Or at least how not to treat other retail or hospitality workers like crap.

Back to the topic, I haven't addressed the letting ragers win part. Obviously, if you think the person is going to go completely crazy and maybe stab you or something like that, then let them (the wookie) win. If you think that they are irrational ragers who constantly blame others, and look like they will never learn, let them win or lose, it doesn't matter, but slowly edge them out of your gaming circle. I've found that once I stopped playing with Baddie #1, my overall gaming experience has gotten better. Sometimes he still gets invited because one of my friends seems to enjoy playing with him, and I am zen. I let it wash away, get it over and done with, and move on. Working full time really makes you appreciate what little time you have left to have fun, and I really don't want to waste too much of it thinking about rager friends. Maybe if they ever stop to realise that nobody wants to play with them anymore, they will change their ways, but I really doubt it. 

Reasons not to let people win:

• It gives them a false idea of their skill level
• their incorrectly perceived skill level may lead to them embarrassing themselves in front of others
• once they believe that they are "pro" their mind will start to close to advice from people they perceive as "noobs"
• They never learn to lose graciously
• Your own fun will be diminished because you have to worry about playing convincingly, but still lose (which you can see as a challenge to your own skill, but I think it won't be fun for very long)
• They will pick up bad habits
• Neurotic people like me start to get self-conscious - did I really win, or did they just let me win?

Reasons to let people win:

• If they never win, they may lose interest in the game and stop playing
• on this note, maybe rather than letting them win, just don't beat them as crushingly as you possibly can?
• It makes them feel good
• this might actually improve their performance once they aren't worrying so much about being bad
• They are your significant other
• if you beat them at a game, they will be sad and beat you elsewhere... (no, this isn't a reference to me! I'll admit, when Nev had his "Ask Nevhan" thing on his blog, I asked him what it was like to date a gamer, because I wanted to know if that happened, but he dodged my question - his reply was to ask who asked that question)