I win! Not my fault you didn't know we were playing

Like many people, I'm extremely competitive. Unlike most people, the majority of my competition doesn't know I'm trying to beat them.

So maybe "competitive" isn't the right word. I don't have to win everything I do, and I avoid participating when I can't win.

I would never, for instance, play horse against Larry Bird, challenge Joey Chestnut to an eating contest or attempt to out drink this guy.

But if I get a chance to beat someone without them knowing I was trying to win? I will do it every time.

I make an effort to have the most recent blog posting, which makes my picture appear above everyone else on our site, but none of the other writers know this. I win and they aren't trying.

When I was in high school and college, I would try to outscore the kid sitting next to me on every test. Grades weren't important to me (as my 3.2 GPA shows) but beating the person sitting directly to my right was*. I would then rub it in their face.

This culminated when I spent three hours making myself a gold championship belt to bring to class instead of actually studying, which would have made more sense as it was finals week.

Understandably, these practices were extremely aggravating to my friends. When a group of us would be sitting around and having a casual conversation, I would shout out "I win!" seemingly at random, usually because I'd gone the longest without crossing my legs or looking to the left or some other equally obscure thing nobody knew to avoid.

Still, trying beat people keeps me motivated. I can't generally motivate myself to workout, but if I can potentially beat someone in the process suddenly I'm all about it.

I guess this, at least in theory, a problem, but as long as I can continue to come up with convoluted ways to compete with others, I can continue to be challenged. Which is good.

(*)The easy thing to do would have been to sit next to the dumbest kid in class, but I never took the easy road. Instead I always sat next to the foxiest girl in class. These two objectives occasionally overlapped (Hey, Dani!).