You have to stop playing the game to win.
But I don't play to win, I just play to play. Wanting to win is for people who give a shit, I'm just here to amuse myself.
Related story: the mother of my best friend in high school loved to cook but I never found her cooking to be very good. However, everyone else in the world seemed to love her cooking and my parents always taught me to mind my place in the world so I would always play along with the charade even though I hated doing so. (Also, you know, her family was decent enough to invite me into their home and offer me dinner on a regular basis.) Her cooking was the core of her pride (and ego) despite having many other things in life she could be proud of.
Several years later my high school best friend was marrying his high school sweetheart and I was literally the most fucking piece of shit person I've ever been in my fucking piece of shit life. To save some bucks they threw the rehearsal dinner in his parents' backyard which meant his mother would be cooking. So at the dinner (which was 150~ people I want to say) I went out of my way to not eat his mother's cooking and just drank beer because I knew that it would rub her the wrong way despite the fact I was just 1 fucking jerk in a sea of people, many of whom were family she rarely saw because they lived in BFE. I knew her that well that I could push her buttons like that and I did.
So like 2 hours into the dinner his mom got so mad at me for not eating her food that she went and found my mom (I took my mom to their wedding, no judge pls, I wasn't going to take some flavor of the month I was dating at the time instead, that might have given them the wrong impression and made my casual relationship more complicated more quickly than I would have liked and forced me to end it sooner) and told her that she didn't invite me to the rehearsal dinner so that I could "drink my dinner." My mom went and found me at the wedding party's table having a good time and relayed the message to me but didn't quite understand the sheer rancor my high school best friend's mother displayed towards my behavior and that moment was one of perfect

.
e: The last wedding I went to I was p. responsible and helped out in a time of need. #solidarity #growingpains