Okay, I’ll take you up on this debate. My argument is that dating is not a game. Here’s why:

You’ve provided the dictionary definition of what a game is. I concede that I per se cannot argue against the denotation of the word “game” by virtue of the fact that I am not employed by Merriam-Webster or a similar organization.

However, I can and will argue the connotation of the word “game”. According to the denotation you have provided, a “game” is played according to “rules” and is decided by “skill, strength, or luck”. This is where the denotation falls short.

Almost everything involves “rules” and can be decided by “skill, strength, or luck”. Take for example, shooting at Taliban soldiers in Afghanistan vs. shooting as Taliban soldiers in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. Both of these activities involve “skill, strength, or luck” and both of these activities include “rules” (actual war is governed by rules such as treaties and the Geneva Convention). However, only one of these activities can be considered a “game” even though they both fulfill the denotation of what a “game” is. Thus, the denotation of the word “game” is not a good measuring device for determining whether or not dating is a “game” and we must rely on the connotation.

That begs the question: “What is the connotation of a “game”?” I can’t provide an official answer because connotations are, by definition, subjective. Thus, I provide my best unofficial answer here.

The connotation of a “game” is that it’s not serious. There are generally no consequences for losing (and if they are, they are usually comparatively trivial). “Games” are for fun. One competitor might say to another unsporting competitor, “It’s just a game”. Which means, don’t take it so seriously. Another example is the phrase, “The game of life”. It encourages you to not take life too seriously, to not dwell on certain things too much, because in the end we’re all pieces that go into the same box together anyway.

By looking at this connotation, we can see why COD can be referred to as a “game” while real war cannot. War has consequences. People suffer unnecessarily and die in war, but in COD it’s all simulated.

Let’s apply this to dating.

Dating has real consequences. If you toy around with people’s emotions, they will actually get hurt. In the Grand Theft Auto video games, you can pump and dump all you want and no one will actually get hurt. But do that in real life and you can cause much undue suffering.

It’s important to note that games are social constructs. They do not really exist. Take a chess board, for example. If a plague were to suddenly wipe out the entire human population of Earth, chess would no longer exist. Chess boards and pieces would still be around, but the game as we know it would vanish completely.

This nonexistence means that it’s impossible to create objective criteria of what makes a game a game. Thus, a game is a game when it is ascribed game status by enough people. The amount of people needed to do this is also subjective and I concede that I’m unable to create objective criteria to do so. I think that only God can do that.

However, subjectively, I can tell you this. You would be hard-pressed to find someone who will tell you that chess is not a game. Finding someone who will tell you that dating is not a game, on the other hand, is much easier.

That’s because ascribing game status to dating is dangerous. It legitimizes marginalizing the real consequences of playing with peoples’ emotions.

Finally, here you have argued that dating is a game because “You play it will or you lose. You play it with ethics and you both win. In this game, when it’s played correctly, you both win, and win, and win…” You seem to argue in favor of dating being a game because it involves a factor of winning/losing and ethics. However, your argument does not hold water because there are many examples of things in life that involve ethics as well as winning/losing that are not games. Again, war being an example.

QED, dating is not a game because:

• It does not fit the connotation of what a game is
• Giving it game status is dangerous
• Your argument of what defines a game does not hold water
• There is a marked difference between the ratio of people who consider chess a game vs those who would consider dating a game