How do I (33M) "fix" things with my friend (30F) after she found out I wasn't trying as hard as I could in a competition?

I want to preface this by saying firstly I am dealing with a disconcerting amount of head trauma (tangentially related) and also was (maybe still am, did I mention the head trauma?) pretty good at playing video games. I don't say this to boast, but at one point I was told that I could probably make it a profession. I didn't because the fastest way to ruin a hobby you enjoy is to do it for work in my personal opinion.

This is important because the overwhelming majority of people cannot compete with me if I'm giving a game I am familiar with 110%. Growing up I had a neighbor who wasn't having fun if he wasn't absolutely demolishing his opponent, and it quickly became not fun to me. I've always remembered that and learned how to match the ability of whomever I am playing with. Could I win nearly every time if I really pushed for it? Yes. Am I actively choosing who wins any given game? Absolutely not. I handicap myself to their level, as in a golf handicap, not just got a PS4 controller and a few stomps to the head handicapped, and just play and have fun without crushing the opposition every time.

Enter my friend, Becca. We've been friends since college and she's an extremely competitive person. Like, when I say competitive I mean she beat me once after a super close match and wound up pelvic thrusting at my face and shouting SUCK MAH BALLS! at the top of her lungs. We had been drinking, and I wasn't upset. It was honestly hilarious. It also illustrates how important winning can be to her. She'll get REAL mad if someone "lets her win" or "throws" in her opinion, which I totally get. It's condescending and demeaning and can be INCREDIBLY offensive to "let" her do anything.

The problem is, the night I wound up with the head trauma an unrelated participant pissed me off and had a little bit of a rage problem. It was a team bracket thing we were on a team for, all the teams were couples and me and Becca were the only ones without a plus one. (She's got a BF but he doesn't approve of video games.)

The idiot with a rage issue got me good and riled and I wound up playing without a handicap for the first time that Becca saw. It was enough of a slaughter that he lost it and threw a PS4 controller at the side of my head and then stomped on me a couple times before other people dragged him off me. The problem is that I'm home from the hospital now, and when Becca came to visit, she seemed kinda off and when pressed admitted that she wasn't thrilled that I hadn't been trying when playing against her. Kinda concerned I'm going to lose a good friend of mine over this.

My brainmeats are still a little scrambled, but I did my best to lay out the points I made above, and she said she didn't see the difference. If I'm not trying as hard as I can I'm just letting her win in her opinion. Says she understands I didn't set out to try and be condescending, but now she feels like all those times weren't real and waved away my claims that they absolutely were.

What are the words that fix this? I can't find them.

TL;DR: Friend thinks me not playing to the best of my ability means I was letting her win. Don't know how to explain my goal was for everyone to have fun.

Submitted January 17, 2022 at 12:06PM by ulfr https://ift.tt/3nVmO63