Let’s say you’re at a dinner with 20 people, and there’s one piece of cake left. Who gets it? Normal social graces usually result in that last cake being split between the few who begrudgingly admit they would like it..as long as no one else really wants it more…

But this kind of “who can be more selfless” behavior gets under my skin. Sometimes, I wish everyone could feel comfortable enough about saying “Yes, I want that last piece of cake, and if you all got up right now and I was the last one at this table, I wouldn’t think twice about eating this cake. But since you’re all here, and you all feel the same exact way as I do, we need to find a fair and equitable way of dividing this cake.”

Because that’s the real truth of the situation. But instead, this becomes a subtle jousting match, where you’re never quite sure who is being how honest. All these little personality calculations start going on, most without us really being conscious of them. Yet they are going on. For each person who says they don’t really want it, we take into account that person’s past history of “politeness”, that person’s history of eating like a pig :), or of watching his/her weight, etc, etc.

Without going into every one of those little calculations (because that’s not what I’m here for today), the end result is that no one wants to stick their hand out too far beyond anyone else’s, for fear of breaking some rule of inconsideration, of dispoliteness, and because there is ’something to be said’ for making a small ’sacrifice’ now (i.e. i do want the cake, but I’d be happy to let you have it) because it can have a more meaningful, more symbolic, positive effect on your relationship with that person/those people.

But end of the day, the result is that the person with more smoothness forgoes his/her share of the cake, and the person who might not be as aware of subtle cues - or simply doesn’t have the chops to ease his way towards a nonchalant avowing of the sacred cake - gets the cake. And the person who actually does get what he wants - i.e. the cake - feels like he has lost something else, something not entirely tangible, but somewhat more important.

Ok so I think I’ve described this situation enough for you to a) recognize it and b) realize I think it sucks donkey butt. The initial gut reaction could be “c’mon it’s a frikkin piece of cake. NOT a big deal. If you want it, just take it. Plain n simple” But the truth is that the subtly intricate social dynamic DOES exist, and just ignoring it doesn’t make it go away. It needs to be addressed head on, ‘attacked’ so to speak, in order to get PAST it, rather than pretended into non-existence.

So here’s my proposed solution, the essence of which is for the unspoken, fear-based dynamic, to be transformed into a simple-yet-strategic game. Here’s one game option. You could have another idea, and if so, please share it in the comments area below.

RULES: Everyone picks a number between 0 and 100. In silence. And writes it on a piece of paper, or just types it on their cell phone. Then everyone reveals their numbers. The person with the lowest number is the one who gets the cake.

BUT it’s not that simple.

If you have the lowest number, and the next highest number is 10 or more than your number, THAT person “wins”, or, at least, you are disqualified. For example, let’s say you chose #4, and the next highest number is #15… you’re out. And if the third highest person is, say #23, then the person who chose #15 wins gets the cake.

Here’s a ‘real world’ sample of how this first rule plays. 5 people playing the game. Here are the numbers they chose:

4, 13, 15, 30, 32

In this case, the person who chose “15″ wins, because the “ten” rule knocks out the “4″ and the “13″

VARIATION #1: So let’s add another dynamic. In addition to the “distance of 10″ knockout rule, lets say that any two numbers which are consecutive get knocked out.
So if the five chosen numbers are
4,5,7,9,10
The #7 wins, because the other four all get knocked out.

Similarly, if the five chosen numbers are
3,5,6,9,11
The #3 wins because it’s the lowest number ’still standing’

And to show both knockout rules at the same time, here are another five chosen numbers:
3,14,15,18,38

In this case, #3 gets knocked out because of the “Distance 10″ knockout rule. #14 and #15 get knocked out because of the “Consecutive” rule. #18 gets knocked out by the “Distance 10″ rule. So #38 wins, even though it’s the highest number. Yum. Death by chocolate.

Oh, there’s a third knockout rule, which is another “Distance of 10″ rule, except that if you’re the highest number and you’re more than 10 above the next person, you’re knocked out. This is to put a leash on cherry pickers who, in a more crowded game, might just opt to choose #100 and hope that tough vying for the top spot results in mass carnage. With the usage of this third knockout rule, the previous example would have resulted in #38 losing as well.
What If…
This then leads to the question: “What if everyone gets knocked out?”

I was toying with a rule to govern who wins when everyone is knocked out, but then realized that the real POINT of this is to transform the aforementioned social knot into a fun game. So if everyone gets knocked out, you play another round. The more rounds you have, the more fun it becomes, because, eventually, people start exhibiting patterns, faking, bluffing, strategies, reading subtle cues, etc… essentially all the social detection skills people used in the unspoken awkward game, now people can freely and openly “compete” with each other, and whoever actually gets the cake can be celebrated as the winner.

I think that’s all for now. Play and see how it goes. I’ll do the same.