Games People Play_ The Psychology of Human Relationships - Eric Berne [29]
‘Creditor’, in the form ‘Try and Get Away With It’ (TAG-AWI), is sometimes played by small landlords. TAC and TAG-AWI players readily recognize each other, and because of the prospective transactional advantages and the promised sport, they are secretly pleased and readily become involved with each other. Regardless of who wins the money, each has improved the other’s position for playing ‘Why Does This Always Happen To Me?’ after it is all over.
Money games can have very serious consequences. If these descriptions sound facetious, as they do to some people, it is not because they relate to trivia but because of the exposure of trivial motivations behind matters people are taught to take seriously.
Antithesis. The obvious antithesis of TAC is to request immediate payment in cash. But a good TAC player has methods for getting around that, which will work on any but the most hard-boiled creditors. The antithesis of TAGAWI is promptness and honesty. Since hard TAC and TAGAWI players are both professionals in every sense of the word, an amateur stands as much chance playing against them as he does playing against professional gamblers. While the amateur seldom wins, he can at least enjoy himself if he becomes involved in one of these games. Since both are by tradition played grimly, nothing is more disconcerting to the professionals than to have an amateur victim laugh at the outcome. In financial circles this is considered strictly Out. In the cases reported to this writer, laughing at a debtor when one encounters him on the street is just as bewildering, frustrating and disconcerting to him as playing anti- ‘Schlemiel’ is to a Schlemiel.
3 · KICK ME
Thesis. This is played by men whose social manner is equivalent to wearing a sign that reads ‘Please Don’t Kick Me’. The temptation is almost irresistible, and when the natural result follows, White cries piteously, ‘But the sign says “don’t kick me”.’ Then he adds incredulously, ‘Why does this always happen to me?’ (WAHM). Clinically, the WAHM may be introjected and disguised in the ‘Psychiatry’ cliché: ‘Whenever I’m under stress, I get all shook up.’ One game element in WAHM comes from inverse pride: ‘My misfortunes are better than yours.’ This factor is often found in paranoids.
If the people in his environment are restrained from striking at him by kindheartedness, ‘I’m Only Trying to Help You’, social convention or organizational rules, his behaviour becomes more and more provocative until he transgresses the limits and forces them to oblige. These are men who are cast out, the jilted and the job losers.
The corresponding game among women is ‘Threadbare’. Often genteel, they take pains to be shabby. They see to it that their earnings, for ‘good’ reasons, never rise much above the subsistence level. If they have a windfall, there are always enterprising young men who will help them get rid of it, giving them in return shares in a worthless business promotion or something equivalent. Colloquially, such a woman is called ‘Mother’s Friend’, always ready to give judicious Parental advice and living vicariously on the experience of others. Their WAHM is a silent one, and only their demeanour of brave struggle suggests ‘Why does this always happen to me?’
An interesting form of WAHM occurs in well-adapted people who reap increasing rewards and successes, often beyond their own expectations. Here the WAHM may lead to serious and constructive