My New Game

Originally Posted:  September 20, 2007

"The ball is in their court."

You may have heard the phrase tossed around a bit. I've been hearing it quite a bit recently. I used to think nothing of it. I've been doing some thinking and I've realized something. If you're just throwing the ball in someones court, you're playing the wrong game. What you should be playing is the dating version of football. 

Just merely rolling the ball in the other person's court is fine if you don't want to take any initiative or responsibility for what happens. But if you are playing the game correctly, somthing people rarely do, you have to do more than that. 

Throwing the ball is often the first step that people take. But often times people will just throw the ball and hope that it is caught. You have to give some sort of incentive for catching the ball. 

Occasionally the other person will be playing the same game as you and they want to win. That's incentive enough for them. 

Sometimes you may have to throw in some bonus for number of receptions and receiving yards. That would be the equivalent to a free meal, flowers, or various other gifts. 

Other times the other person may just like playing catch. Those games can be fun, but in the end you're left unfullfilled. 

There is times when it doesn't matter what you do. They just don't catch the ball. You have to examine the missed catch to dermine whether or not it's worth it to run an other play. Perhaps it was just a bad pass. Maybe outside distractions such as crowd noise or a great defender played a part. Maybe your play call was all wrong and you need to try running another play. And sometime you may just need to concede that the game is a lost cause. You can continue, but you'll just look like a jackass. This is one game where it is ok to just quit. 

Let's say they catch they ball. Many things can happen at this point. They can decide you suck and just fumble the ball. They can be tackled. At which point you will have to run another play. Make sure you give them the opportunity to be the quaterback this time. Perhaps they are able to run after that catch. Don't expect them to run it to the end zone by theirselves though. You gotta run up field and lay down some blocks. Maybe make a lateral pass or two. 

If you aren't ready for the big game you can just play catch. Get a feel for things. But still, you can't just throw the ball and hope they go get it. You have to give them a reason to catch it and throw it back. And if they are bad at catching, or you're a bad passer, you have to give them a reason to go get the ball and throw it back.

So quit just throwing the ball over and saying go get it and throw it back if you want. If you do you're both just going to sit there and look at the ball, thininking about how fun it would be to play catch. 

Now that I got that dreck out of the way, I can now move on to a comment Nate rececently made.

I wasn't really paying attention, but he said something about some girl telling him that he could get any girl he wanted. 

She told him this because there is a girl he wants, but maybe he can't have. She was trying to boost his confidence I guess. But how is that boosting anything? 

Telling someone they can get any girl they want because there is a girl they want that they are not getting isn't helping anyone. It's making it worse because appearantly they should be getting the girl they want. 

It may not be boosing their confidence either, but what you should be saying is, you can get 10% of any of the girls you want. At least that is true. 

Stay tuned tomorrow for my Kid Nation review. It's going to be good, nothing like what you just read.