Victory is everything. If you think you’re there for therapy and counseling, you’ve already lost, you wussy.

We had our first match last month, and I won hands down on all cards. The secret is to avoid a confrontational attitude, because therapists figure they are there to supply therapy, not to hold court over an individual and pass judgement. You have to be subtle, speaking their lingo a little but not so much that they get suspicious that you’re trying to crawl up their ass. It’s more a matter of expressing their basic non-judgemental attitude in your own words. Sometimes you struggle for words and they finish your sentences – that’s when you know you got them.

So anyway, I left the first match and did a little endzone dance when we got back out to the car, shaking my booty and going, “Yes, yes, in your face!” and so on.

So this time, my opponent prepared. I let her. Because I had found my groove, and once you find your groove you can’t be beat. Let them prepare their attack – the counselors recognize it as an attack and take your side, and the opponent is fucked no matter what they say after that. Plus, you get to do the therapy jiu-jitsu thing and use their momentum against them. You just put the sincere expression on your face, sometimes mimicking the therapists’ body language (hands folded in lap) and sometimes employ an “uncomfortable” twisted, suffering posture.

It works, I swear. And it was working during our second match, no sweat. I was way ahead on points, I had both therapists eating out of my hand, both the husband and the wife. We had this axis of therapy going, this triangle of counseling mojo focused like the sun’s rays through a magnifying glass and my opponent was sizzling like a beetle.

And then she mentioned a “fat ass” comment I had once made, spontaneously, with humorous intent, totally unimportant and forgettable, except that she hadn’t forgotten, and my balloon of superiority went plplplplplplppll through the room and out the window into the flower bed outside.

The room temperature cooled several degrees, I could tell I had lost the female counselor completely and the male was afraid to openly take my side any more. Despite my great lead, the score was suddenly even. Feh.

I almost said it outloud, “feh”. Except I was the only blogger there and no one would’ve understood. I may have said, “gah,” though.

“Gah. Did I say that? I can’t recall.”
“Momentary lapse?” What was this, the female counselor (with, I noticed, as my canny opponent no doubt also had, a caboose quotient higher than my opponent’s) throwing me a lifeline?
“Something like that. Heh.”
[short pause]
“You took up running shortly after that, heh.” [Note to self: apparent regret and candor seems to come across better in situations like that than humor.]
“Sigh. Sorry.” Beat head alternately with shamanic drum and gong that are lying around.

Anyway. I finally managed to dig myself back out of my hole by anticipating a couple therapeutic suggestions and making them myself. “Why don’t we try this and this…” and they were all, “yeah, or that and that.” I also tried candor, describing my feelings about a couple things, like why ballroom dancing appeals to me (structured ritual where I am in the role of control). Although I should probably have left out my equation of the ritual of ballroom dancing with the ritual of sado-masochistic sex. I’m not sure they got that. Or agreed with that. I was on the edge of giving them this URL and saying, “just read my blog!!!”

At any rate, my victory this time was too close to warrant doing a victory dance back at the car. But a win is a win.