Relationship Advice Help Book

You can read much of the book Train Your Mate - How To Have The Relationship You Want, here, to see if it is for you!

Train Your Mate - How To Have The Relationship You Want

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I now "knew" what to do. Ever after, I was clear that, if I saw it as a contest, winning was important and losing was bad. No matter what was happening, if I saw it as competition, I was geared to win. I "knew" what was important in any competition. Relationship wasn't important, encouraging and supporting other people wasn't important, getting ahead and beating the others was. I didn't think about it in those words, but that is the emotional lesson I had that day.

Non-competitive games like see-saw and swinging and merry-go-round would never quite be the same again, never as exciting as things where competition came into play. Contests could provide Praise, Attention and Acknowledgment - or Rejection, Failure and Oblivion. And of course, with many males, over time

Every interaction with another or others can become a competition.

The point is that in various ways, boys get the idea of competition, and this becomes a central theme. This is my first recollection of understanding what competition was about, but most all of us males get the idea sooner or later (usually sooner) and then we orient our behavior so that winning, avoiding losing, trying to beat the other guy becomes "normal." (It's no longer a game!) It all felt right and natural to me! Girls, on the other hand, do not seem to have that same level of competition imbued in them.

Yes, girls play competitive games too. Many of you even played King of the Mountain a time or two if you were around some boys, but the way you related to it and the importance and value you gave or had attached to it was different. If you got punched, kicked, pulled and tossed aside you likely either ran home crying or quickly decided to avoid such games in the future.

If you lost a game you were told (verbally or nonverbally) that it was okay, it wasn't important, you weren't expected to win, after all, you were a girl. Even when you really wanted to win and were REALLY disappointed that you didn't, you likely got nonverbal and verbal communications from those around you that it was okay in a way that males didn't.

The way women relate to competition is different than men.

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