I’ve played competitive trading card games pretty much continuously since I was a kid.

Especially during my young adulthood, I struggled with many difficult emotions even at very low-stakes/casual tournaments. I recall one evening during a tournament, with absolutely no stakes, and I felt the beginnings of a panic attack (which is wild to think about now; I could’ve just gone home and watched TV!).

More recently, I’ve had similar issues around playing soccer. Again, there are absolutely no stakes, but this competitive setting seems to trigger something in my brain.

Part of the issue may be conflict and people (both myself and others) behaving in rude and unhealthy ways. Examples:

  • In a recent (low-stakes but competitive) match of the card game Flesh and Blood, I was certainly losing the match but I was managing to hold on for dear life. My opponent became upset when time in the round was called and I didn’t concede to him. (I later learned that the rules actually forbid asking opponents to concede, and there are harsh penalties attached to doing this.)
  • In a recent (absolutely no stakes) soccer match, an opponent got very upset when I kept tackling her off the ball (an entirely normal and legal part of the game), and she didn’t shake my hand after the game. My gut feeling is that there was some transphobia underlying this exchange.

I’ve certainly done similar things myself! I do my best not to, of course, but sometimes the heat of the moment wins out.

And that’s kinda my point; in both of these cases, I think if you took me and the opponent in question and put us in a doctor’s waiting room or a conference networking hall or something, we’d probably get along very well; we even share hobbies!

Especially in soccer, I find myself reflexively thinking thoughts that, upon reflection, I certainly do not endorse.

So what is it about the setting of competitive games that causes conflict between people who would otherwise probably get along great?

This reminds me of the famous psychology studies where researchers can trigger in-group/out-group dynamics just by arbitrarily assigning participants to “the red team” and “the blue team”, even when the participants know that this assignment is entirely arbitrary!

I currently don’t play card game tournaments, in part for this reason. I was also intending to give soccer a miss next season, in part for this reason. (Casual games with friends are still great though, as this problem doesn’t seem to manifest.)

But card games are fun, and soccer is fun! They’re fun to play, and there are many concrete benefits that can be derived from both (in particular, I find immersive recreational activities and socialisation very important given that my job can sometimes be pretty intense and emotionally challenging).

So I guess a solution is just to be mindful of the fact that competitive games and my mind interact in this unconstructive way and to simply not be a dick?! And perhaps to understand that other people seem to have this issue too, and to use this as an opportunity to practice just chilling the hell out in conflict situations!