What has happened to the game of love? In spite of all the available technologies to connect us together more and more, people are opting out of the relationship game, preferring to live alone, than to risk another bad relationship outcome. This preference reflects a deep change in our collective human psyche, for it used be that what lovers feared most was loneliness. Now being caught in a static or unsatisfying relationship is even more troubling. Wanting to be together, to build a family is no longer enough. Our modern age has made it is easier to be passionate and maintain passion about a pet or favorite sports team than a lover.

Memories of childhood games on late summer evenings remind me of what the game of love once meant to us. As kids we understood that it was the play that mattered. Winning and losing both reflected their original root meanings which were “to desire” and “to be set free.” Capture the flag in the dwindling light of the sky or a full neighborhood game of hide and seek was an apprenticeship in freedom. Pretending was rich with excitement, as we all shared in the wonder of not knowing the outcome. And yet we all knew that no victory was ever final, there was still tomorrow night.

Lovers through history shared one secret; they all knew that it wasn’t about winning or losing, it was the play that was essential. Playing allows us to experience freedom from duty and necessity. It is a primary condition of creativity and allows us the self-conscious delight of living out alternative realities. It is what makes us so deeply human.

Nowhere does this ring more true, than in our most intimate moments. Adding playfulness to sexual desire invites new friends into the bedroom: imagination and fantasy. Invite these allies to any passionate encounter with an openness to play, a willingness to pretend, and the freedom to live in the wonder of not knowing the outcome. Saying yes to this game of love, keeps life green and alive. And while it offers no guarantees of long term winning, it does promise to share glimpses of what we all desire most of the magical influence of love.

Rewarding our instinct to love creates the self confidence to transform a private secret to a public force with the power to renew life and transmute human defects into loveable qualities. We are, after all, most loveable when we love. By staying in the game, the play itself teaches us how to sustain the wins and losses. In love and life it is the sustaining that makes us grow.