A few weeks back at the department party I was playing darts. I was playing with two people who I knew, as well as a couple that I didn't; guests of department members and such. None of us play darts, of course, but one of us knew the rules to a simple game, so we played that.
Of course, this was at a pub, so writing our scores up on the board was harder than it should have been. I certainly took my sweet time adding 31 to 174, and others did too; I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and say it was the liquor.
One guy, though, consistently made mistakes adding his score up, and funny enough he always erred on the higher side. It wasn't even like he was making mistakes like forgetting to carry the 2 or something, no; at some point I think he was off by 22. I thought to myself, "Is this guy cheating at darts? Is this guy really cheating at darts at a statistics department party?"
I couldn't stop thinking about this. I desperately wanted to believe that he wasn't cheating at darts. I took a step back, said that he just sucked really hard at addition. No one would cheat at darts at a stats party, would they? No, they wouldn't. That would be a really petty, and frighteningly competitive, thing to do. Hey, maybe he was drunk and couldn't work the addition part of his brain. But I couldn't convince myself. "This guy is cheating at darts!" I said to myself, "I can't believe it!"
I didn't call him out though. I decided that while it takes a... uh... special kind of person to cheat at darts at a statistics party while playing with four other beginners, it's even lower to call out a dude for cheating at darts at a statistics party while playing with four beginners.
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11 comments:
I disagree. If he's cheating, he should take responsibility for it. It's not you being petty because you want to win. It's about what's right.
This whole 'snitching' things is peer pressure used by those who want to abuse the system for their personal games. FUCK THEM.
Yeah, why does he get away with cheating when you would call me out?
I wouldn't call you out if you were among strangers and trying to make new friends or impress a girl or something. Give me some credit.
As for the "snitching" thing, you're right; I know you're right because Jim Krasinski told me so:
It's okay to call a foul
How would one impress a girl playing darts?
"Hey baby, watch me stick it right in the treble 20. You like that? Yeah, you do."
Clearly I have weird ideas about what it means to be a man.
Would it impress a guy if a girl was good at darts?
Richard, I found an even better Canucks headline for you:
Clicky
Weird... it says that I have a Blogger profile, when in fact I do not.
I would be impressed and not because I think girls can't be good at darts, but because I'm not good at darts.
on the one hand i agree that such an act of cheating is ridiculous and that it should be brought to attention... but then again, I don't want other people thinking you're low and petty either...
if only there was a way to call him out and not make yourself look like a finger-pointing rat...
then again, you were at a statistics party, maybe all the other statisticians noticed the poor math too?
re: girls impressing guys by playing darts. i think guys are very easily impressed if a girl can do anything with a good deal of confidence, whether or not she is better than a guy. ;)
I too would be impressed if a girl was very good at darts, also because I am very bad at darts.
As for impressing a girl, it's not that being good at darts is particularly impressive, but cheating at darts is particularly unimpressive. If you were chatting up a girl and happened to be cheating at the same time, I'd let it slide.
As for not looking like a finger-pointing rat, I prefer to save the story to tell everyone later for laughs.
I think you're correct: sparing your un-gamesman friend the embarrassment of explaining his addition, and yourself the embarrassment of explaining why you noticed, is the thing to do. It's surely about as magnanimous as you can be while playing darts.
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