When we played games at recess the popular kids loved to stack up the teams in favor of the cool kids. The kids
would make ridiculous picking rules to keep all the good
kids on one team. They would say that their team got to pick the first four and then the loser team could pick. Another trick was that two good players would refuse to play if they were not on the same
team. It was called a two-for-one deal.
As a adult I now have a little bit more dignity and would just walk away from an abusive team picking scheme. Doing what the popular kids said seemed so big and essential when I was eight. We of the second and third tier athletically and socially would wait in line as the cool kids worked out their Machiavellian self service. Then we fought over the scraps, not in the sense of who got the bad kids but who had to take them. On occasion, I would end up on the all winners team which only damned me to watching the action and staying out of the good kids way. If the ball came to me my job was to throw it to someone good and not screw that up or face expulsion from the team. I should have walked away and kept my dignity but I wanted so badly to be popular and to be cool that I thought that it would be better to try and play along. It didn't work.
As a adult I now have a little bit more dignity and would just walk away from an abusive team picking scheme. Doing what the popular kids said seemed so big and essential when I was eight. We of the second and third tier athletically and socially would wait in line as the cool kids worked out their Machiavellian self service. Then we fought over the scraps, not in the sense of who got the bad kids but who had to take them. On occasion, I would end up on the all winners team which only damned me to watching the action and staying out of the good kids way. If the ball came to me my job was to throw it to someone good and not screw that up or face expulsion from the team. I should have walked away and kept my dignity but I wanted so badly to be popular and to be cool that I thought that it would be better to try and play along. It didn't work.
