“I am a competitive person.” I’ve heard this statement in conversations with other adults ever since I graduated college. Now I don’t mean I’ve heard this phrase a few times–I hear it ALL THE TIME. Maybe not as much as people talk about the weather, but people talk about their competitiveness way to much. This has given me many years to try to sort out the social circus that surrounds this linguistic phenomenon:

1. Nobody will challenge your claim. Think back…has anyone ever challenged someone’s declaration that he or she is a competitive person? No! You are permitted to announce this fact to a group and quickly move on to your example of competitiveness. This bothers me.

You could never introduce a story by saying, “I am a really good looking person…” or “I am a really smart person…” because people would stop you right there. Apparently being competitive is abstract and not instantly verifiable. After the tale of competitiveness, the self-proclaimed competitor treks back to his cubicle believing that people actually agreed with them, when in reality, the listeners were bored out of their mind and too uninterested to evaluate the evidence. Again, this bothers me because it dilutes authentic competition.

You never declare that you are a competitive person when you are actually in a competition. Everyone with two eyes to see understands that Steve Nash is a competitive person. This leads me to believe that the people who yak about being competitive are sitting the bench in the game of life.

2. “Competitive” is an award we only give ourselves. It’s as if Steve Jobs built a Technology Hall of Fame and then inducted the iPod. Isn’t it someone else’s job to notice your greatness? That is the essence of greatness: friends and enemies are left in awe of your worth.

I could be wrong here. Maybe moms describe their kids as “competitive” to explain away their child’s rib-cracking aggression on the soccer field to the other moms sitting in the bleachers. But in the world of adults, you never announce a peer’s competitiveness. It’s a blue ribbon we fix to our own chests.

3. People only declare they are competitive when it involves conquering someone else. It’s always a tale of proving superiority over a defined opponent, in a win-lose situation. I’ve never heard someone tell a competitive story that ended with win-win. Nor have I heard anyone illustrate their competitiveness and when the end result is losing to someone else. But true competitors step into the ring knowing they can step out defeated.

4. Why don’t people ever compete with themselves? The most competitive people that I know understood long ago that their greatest opponent is yourself. Why don’t you tell stories about when you were your only opponent and you triumphed over weakness? Maybe I’ll do it. I’ll practice here:

“I became bored with work by 2 in the afternoon. But I’m a competitive person, so I overcame indifference by taking 10 minutes to remind myself why I do what I do. I listed all the good things about what would come of my afternoon’s effort. Then I made to-do list and stuck to it. By five o’clock when it was time to go home, I had so much momentum that I stayed at work until six.”

I know that if I said that during story time, it’d sound awkward and the audience would get uncomfortable. It is so different than things we would normally say, people would think I was trying out a new type of bragging. Or a subtle way to indite someone on their own laziness at the job.

Summary:

I don’t know, maybe adults go around reminding people they’re competitive because we’re all working in this Information Age, and we don’t have a scoreboard and statisticians recording our ability to conquer opponents. Who knows?

Regardless of why people won’t shut up, I have come to understand that the declaration of “I am competitive” has no correlation to whether that person is in fact competitive. It’s something that adults say to boost their appeal to others. It takes the place of more desperate pleas: I’m not a pathetic example of humanity, Don’t count me out, and ultimately, I’m worth mating with.

The problem with the universal desire to be competitive is that it leads humans–mostly males–to spare with one another on a variety of useless activities: drinking games, lawn darts, and jumping from high platforms into a backyard pool. One-up-manship is a fool’s game. You can spend your entire life proving your superiority to random people in insignificant competitions without committing yourself to anything of meaning.

Maybe it’s not all or nothing, but you have to wonder if the world would be a more harmonious if the shuffle-board champion at your corner bar spent his time helping out at homeless shelter instead.