Shallow Be Thy Game

Published April 29, 2008

By Mark Dougherty

Sketchy, Funny, and Douchey may sound like the long lost three of the Seven Dwarves, but in reality they make up the three schools of what the average UVM male likes to call “game.” Every year, mid-April rolls around, and with it comes beautiful weather. The sun is shining, flowers are blooming, and the elements of attraction are in motion. Female students sunbathe innocently on the campus greens as young men half-heartedly take part in games of ultimate frisbee and football catches. At night, girls get dolled up in their best makeup and spring outfits before subjecting themselves to the calculated motives of their male counterparts, who have just ironed out their favorite old collared shirts themselves.

Unable to bridge the gap of conversation and social fluidity with their own sparkling personas, the young men of UVM retreat to the lowest form of human relation, game. Game is the process by which a young male projects an artificial personality that is seen as being universally relatable onto the opposite sex with the intention of attraction. These three schools utilize some of the most basic aspects of human nature to achieve the common goal of “slaying mad biddies.”

Sketchy, one of the more challenging and risqué of the schools relies on the neglect of social norms, especially those pertaining to character and moral quality, for the satisfaction of more basic human desires and curiosities. The sketchy gamer doesn’t know you or your friends, but sees no reason for that to obstruct the flow of good times to be had. It was the sketchy gamer who coined such cliché phrases as “So, do you come here often?” or “So, are you two sisters?” The implementation of the word “so” seems to define this gamer’s persona completely. To use such a word in initial conversations can almost be interpreted as saying “So what if we don’t know each other, want to talk to a stranger?”

The sketchy gamer is more than willing to cut through social red tape and head straight for the finish line. He can be found in the hallways of residence halls intercepting girls on their way to the bathroom or back to their own dorms. Casual unthreatening conversation leads to questions like “So do you guys want to come chill at room 265?” What type of prey might find themselves entranced by a sketchy gamer? The answer is, of course, sketchy girls. Sketchy girls can be found anywhere from dorm hallways, to wandering the streets of downtown Burlington looking for a place to rage.

They are notorious for their skimpy dress and inside jokes that suggest other sketchy activities such as doing hard drugs or having other sketchy encounters with other sketchy guys.

As a school, Funny is the most innocent and straight-forward of the three. The funny gamer is goofy, lovable and endearingly self defeating. He doesn’t come right out and toot his own horn, but breaks the ice with an unconvincing joke at his own expense. He doesn’t approach those he has no business talking to, but instead seeks the friends of his female acquaintances.

The funny gamer targets the aspect of human nature that seeks emotional fulfillment. His lovable, unselfish appeal allows his potential hook-ups to feel as if they have truly met someone they can appreciate as a person. The type of girl drawn to the funny gamer is typically more wholesome and less sketchy, or at least that is how they would like to be perceived by both themselves and others. The wholesome girl’s infatuation with funny, lovable guys is not always fabricated but oftentimes can be used to solidify their moral superiority over the sketchy girls.

The third, and most arrogant school of game is Douchey. The douchey gamer, known plainly as “The Douche,” can be seen at parties hanging around female friends of his friends. Overwhelmingly self confident, The Douche sees no reason for any lady in the room not to be flustered by his splendor. Spewing facts, stereotypes and numbers at his prey, The Douche lets young women know what exactly it is that makes him so awesome. Maybe it’s the horsepower of his car, or wattage of his system, but the unsuspecting douchette cannot help but be enthralled with what kind of car he drives, and why. Naturally, The Douche targets more materialistic female students who are relived to be able to stick a price tag on their own lives according to their material possessions, a far easier task than spawning personalities or original thoughts.

Just because these three schools of game are utilized on a weekly basis, however, does not mean the good students of UVM are doomed to an artificial existence of unsatisfying relationships. The very existence of game simply serves the purpose of providing a social platform by which people can break the uncomfortable restraints of their unfamiliarity with those around them.

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