When the singer of the 1970s band Foreigner Lou Gramm sings the song Head Games he puts the emphasis on the word GAMES like he’s angry. I get it, I played head games too. Like the night Susannah E- came knocking at my bedroom window drunk and giggling instead of letting her in I said you should go home, you’re drunk. When I could have let her in and offered her a glass of water, or more. Before there were cell phones we had land lines and answering machines and I would sometimes save messages from women I was fond of and replay them trying to hear what I wanted in their words or tone. I did that with one of her messages. She sounded like she really liked me but it was hard to tell. She often didn’t return my messages or had other plans.

Of the women I chased Susannah was a real player. She oozed sensuality. You saw this going out with her how other men and women looked at her. And that inflated my ego because she was with me.

The combination of mid-90s alternative music and being in the south of France in the spring with my best friend Mike feeling so young and alive. Drunk on local wine and filled to the gills with seafood. Emerging from the station to Amsterdam, pedestrian-only roads, watching women in their underwear from behind tall windows framed in red.

When I came back to Seattle spring was in full force and I was still single. Three weeks had passed with no exchange between Susannah and me. We’d started dating in February after meeting the prior November. I think she had wait-listed me and then decided she wasn’t interested. The night she came by drunk I turned her away out of spite. No one wins playing games like that. I don’t recall seeing her again.

I hated the game but played it too. I was at times terrible and reckless with women, a real child. What you don’t understand at the time is how you’re messing with other people’s identity and sense of self. In one of their most vulnerable moments, emotional and physical intimacy.

Now Lily (20) is dating and often calls me asking for advice. I try not to identify with or advocate for the guys she’s dating; I advocate for her. It’s less about hurting them and more about helping her establish her set of values, what she wants and needs.

It should be fun and it is a game but if that’s all it is one side will always lose. Both might too.

Categories: Creative Nonfiction, Memoir

Tags: Creative Nonfiction, Nostalgia, parenting