I find your post and questions ironic, given the posting rules. Last year I was castigated for telling a poster that her horrible attitude toward her husband made her sound like a jerk.

I was essentially told, “Be nice or leave!”

With all due respect, Erin, a blog is different than a marathon or a swim meet. It’s not a competitive environment—a place where, hopefully, a community is being formed and nurtured. Being polite, even when you disagree, is expected and appreciated. Context is everything.

This post focuses some thoughts from last week’s elementary school spelling bee. My daughter was a finalist. Every time someone else got a word right, she would glare and gnash her teeth. She would beam every time someone messed up. I was so embarrassed. Then she came in second, and I thought, “Wow. We should have studied just a little harder.” I felt bad for the recipients of her poor sportsmanship, but I don’t think it occurred to me to wish she hadn’t done so well.

So…perhaps that’s back to the “graciousness” discussion.

I am trying to be more mellow about it, but it’s in my DNA as my mom and uncles are the same way.

I have to admit that certain games are banned in our house. In less than a year of marriage I had banned Risk as my husband got so upset over being slaughtered regularly. I do know my limits and generally won’t play games in public even with close friends. This year I gave in and allowed my 11 year old to receive Monopoly for Christmas, you cannot imagine the agonies faced over that desicion. As I said earlier there is nothing wrong with a killer instinct as long as you can lose graciously, we are all still working on that one.

Apart from anything competetive I believe I am generally well behaved and liked by others.

So I’m curious, Shelah, was it because you lost your shot, because you wanted to be nice, or because maybe what mattered to you was something different? It seems to me there could be a variety of motivations to not push your hardest for 26 miles — not the least of which is that it’s probably not wise physically.

I guess I just wonder if sometimes there is more to our motivations than just a binary of ‘win’ or ‘be nice and lose so someone else can win.’

The people trying to win are the people who have a reasonable shot at winning, or at least those who think they do. Girls (and boys) are competitive or not competitive at different things they think they can win at. In a way, a lot of what you describe is girls trying to “win” at social games even if they are losing at sports. Sports aren’t the only competition out there! Lack of aggression in sports doesn’t mean the girl isn’t competitive, but by that same measure girls who are sure they rock at soccer aren’t going to be the ones letting other girls out in front of them! Those girls will be out to prove they can win!

I think it’s this way on the discussion boards you were talking about. Men may be trying aggressively to “win” an argument whereas the women may be trying to “win” the even more difficult game of disagreeing with someone and remaining friends at the same time. They don’t have different levels of competition, they just have different things they value and want to succeed at.

There are some out there on both forums who simply lurk because these are games they don’t want to play, or games they don’t think they’ll “win” at. There will also be some who will post without knowing the “rules” a particular group has, and that lack of knowledge will cause them to lose–even if they don’t realize it.

I guess what I’m trying to say is it all boils down to your priorities. What is most important to you might have something to do with what you perceive your strengths and weaknesses to be. Solidarity with other swimmers isn’t a bad goal, but being the best swimmer isn’t a bad goal either. You may have chosen swimming for different reasons that the girls who thought they could be the best. But when you ran the marathon you stopped trying because you felt you’d lost your shot at winning.

As for advising girls–and boys for that matter–just tell them to go for what they think is important, and be there to comfort them when they can’t always be the best.

I guess it’s because I have spent way too much of my life playing that game. I never even knew there was an option to dissolving into a puddle of tears when I missed a spelling bee word or a basketball shot (and I was a sports girl in a big way). In the end, I feel like I want my kids to be more wise than I have been in that way. While they (I, we) have to exist in this world (which is, by definition, competitive), ultimately, I think if at the end of the day a prayer can be said that “I did my best” then it has been a good day. To me, that is what the gospel message is ultimately about – not about beating the person next to us but about progressing within our own sphere.