A Thought About the Hat Game

Good improvisers are good at the hat game
Keith Johnstone says that for some reason, men tend to be better at the hat game than women, or possibly that the people who are overall best at the hat game tend to be men (he says it, I don't - don't hit me).

Keith Johnstone

Keith Johnstone

I'm rubbish at the hat game
The way to win at the hat game tends to be to make your opponent "go inside" - so they respond the actual content of the scene rather than stay with the game. This is a lot like the "I need you to tell me exactly what you're going to do to solve this problem" attack that you get a lot from sociopaths.

A hat

A Hat

I'm just starting to re-read Suzette Haden Elgin's book on conversational self-defence and I remember that she said that one of the differences between men and women is that women don't see the conversations in a work setting as a game. I don't think this is a difference between men and women, but I do think it's an important difference between people who are good at conversational self-defence (and even attack!) and people who aren't.
So if you want to know how to be good at conversational self-defence, one way to get there might be to figure out how to be good at the hat game.
Bugger, I'm really rubbish at the hat game.