The play’s the thing that will catch the conscience of everyone else…

Last week I was walking my date along Wellesley. I don’t remember how the question came up, but she asked me what the queer community thought about players. I frowned with some incomprehension at the question. Why would the queer community have any specific thought on players, that’s independent from, and different from, what the “straight community” would think? And also, why would we think anything about them anyway? Why would we care?

“Do they judge them?” She asked, enunciating “them” as though players were some extraterrestrial species.

“No. I guess it depends on the person. People will all have their different views on so-called ‘players’. Maybe some seek to avoid them, while others actually view them with greater interest than they do others.”

Or at least that’s the kind of reasoning I came up with, without really thinking.

Fast forward about 24 hours. I’m in a living room, sitting in a chair. Across from me, girls, one listening, like me, the other, almost hysterical with a mixture of glee and frustration.

“But WHY would she do that to me? Why me? Doesn’t she have anything ELSE to do with her time?”

“She’s a player.” The sympathetic one across from her said, matter-of-factly, sipping beer.

There’s that word again! I watched the victim in front of me and thought of her persecutor. Ms. Sympathy and I exchanged looks.

“If you can’t handle the game, drop out.” I said, as we escorted her to the door 2 meters away.

But can the player really escape community judgment? The queer community, and specifically the lesbian community, has its unique points as far as dating goes. For one, your friends and the people you could date are the same people. Think of a room of extremely reactive atoms. That’s why players will have far and wide raps, and their notoriety, once acquired, will travel instantaneously. Whether or not players actually constitute an extraterrestrial species, the lezzies usually prick up their noses at the scent of one. Players do hold implications for us. We either watch out for (or just watch) them for our own purposes, or watch them for our friends. Once a friend, always a friend? For sure. If you play it right. Screw it up and once a friend, always a player.

Thr girl from earlier in the story? She’s fine. She’s found someone else to play.

Posted by meattofu.