by Oli Anderson, Transformational Coach for Realness
Hurt People Hurt People
Ever noticed how some people seem to play unnecessary, manipulative, or confusing ‘games’ with you for seemingly no logical or rational reason?
For example, maybe they drop passive-aggressive comments, create unnecessary drama, or try to control situations in ways that feel unnatural – it can really flabber your gasters.
Here’s something I learned that helped me not to get sucked into these kinds of ‘games’:
The unreal games people play often seem very real to them (even though they’re not).
That’s because these behaviours aren’t always conscious choices – they’re often outdated survival mechanisms, scripts written in childhood, or past experiences that no longer fit the present reality but that people need to ‘act out’ in order to keep their EGO where it is and avoid facing the Shadow Self bubbling away beneath the surface.
Once triggered, these programs start running automatically, even when they don’t make sense in the current moment (to the person or people witnessing these ‘games’ or even the people playing them).
Understanding this doesn’t mean excusing ‘bad’ behaviour, but it does give us a powerful way to navigate the world with more clarity, less frustration, and stronger boundaries so we can stay REAL and focus on our own ‘stuff’.
Let’s break it down:
Why Do People Play Games?
At its core, ‘gamey’ behaviour is a survival response -it’s a way people unconsciously try to:
- Control their environment (to feel safe – usually because they have a nervous system that’s out of regulation and they have sympathetic dominance so they’re stuck in fight-or-flight mode)
- Manipulate others’ perceptions (to avoid rejection because of some unresolved pain in the past that screwed up their image of themselves)
- Protect themselves from emotional pain (to avoid vulnerability and triggering SHAME – the biggest and most common problem in the world because it causes people to live in the Void)
These patterns usually stem from early experiences where someone felt powerless, unsafe, or unseen – over time, they learned to cope by developing strategies – ‘games’ – that seemed to work at the time and maybe even did for a short while.
The problem? Many of these strategies outlive their usefulness but they didn’t OUTGROW them:
Imagine someone growing up in a household where they were only shown love when they were in distress, for example – that person might develop a tendency to exaggerate their struggles or create unnecessary problems in adulthood. This is because, deep down, their nervous system equates the ‘attention’ given in times of distress with “receiving love” (for example).
The game isn’t rational – but to them, it’s seems real, because it’s a strategy they’ve been using for years to navigate reality (and because it occasionally got them what they wanted, they assume it must be true).
Recognising the ‘Code’ Beneath the Games
I used to get incredibly frustrated when I saw people playing these social games.
Manipulation, guilt-tripping, passive-aggression – it all drove me mad.
Why? Because my own ‘code’ had an aversion to being controlled, a script written by my own childhood experiences. This meant that whenever I sensed someone trying to ‘manipulate’ me, my old programming kicked in: I’d get annoyed, reactive, and sometimes even aggressive in my need to not be controlled.
The irony? That was just my own survival mechanism playing out and a sign that I needed to catch up with the life I was living in CURRENT REALITY so that I could let go, drop my projections, and become present again.
As I worked on my own ‘stuff’, I started seeing things differently; I realised that when someone is being ‘gamey,’ it’s NOT who they are in their REALNESS it’s just a script they’re running on autopilot that takes them out of reality and makes them UNREAL (and ego is the opposite of reality).
The more real I became, the easier it was to see when someone else was being unreal. And once I saw it as just a script, not the person themselves, I didn’t have to take it personally anymore, which meant I could have a better relationship with them because I wouldn’t involve my own projections and the frustrations they triggered… Instead, I could just let them get on with it without being personally affected (and removing myself if necessary because “Gimme something real or GTFO“).

Common ‘Gamey’ Behaviours and What They Reveal
Here are some common ‘gamey’ archetypes you might come across, reverse-engineered for your convenience and edification:
1. The Worry Projector
Ever had someone try to make you worry when you weren’t? They’ll text you constantly about a situation, check in nervously, and say things like, “Don’t worry” – even though worrying wasn’t even on your radar.
At first, this can feel a bit ‘off’, bizarre, or even just plain annoying but, often, they’re not actually responding to your situation – they’re projecting their own internal anxiety onto you.
They don’t know what to do with their worry, so they unconsciously try to transfer it to someone else. If you also start worrying, it validates their emotions and makes them feel less alone in their anxiety (whcih is kinda sweet if you think about it but it’s not REAL).
What’s the outdated script?
- “If I don’t worry, something bad will happen”.
- “Caring and worrying are the same thing”.
- “If others are calm, they must not understand how serious this is” (personally, I’m vexed by this one because when we’re not calm we can’t respond to life properly and actually solve whatever problem we’re dealing with).
2. The Guilt-Tripper
This person subtly (or not so subtly) makes you feel bad for prioritising yourself:
Maybe they act ‘distant’ when you set a health boundary to protect your own realness or make passive-aggressive comments like, “It must be nice to have time for yourself” or “I guess I’m just not as important as [some REAL thing that you’re doing]”.
What’s the outdated script?
- “Love = sacrifice” (the unhealthy, one-sided kind where you’re sacrificing for them but not vice versa).
- “If people care about me, they will always prioritise me no matter what” (even if you’re on fire or something).
- “If someone puts themselves first, it means they don’t love me” (when actually it means you have healthy boundaries because even though you need to SERVE the people you love you can’t do that if you don’t look after yourself – “you can’t pour from an empty cup”).
3. The Drama Magnet
Some people always seem to have something going wrong – usually something that requires your attention, help, emotional involvement, and the most important assets you have: your time, energy, and attention. They’ll stir the pot in social groups, overcomplicate situations, or always seem to be in some kind of conflict (which is true: they have conflict in themselves because they’re fragmented and lost to shame, guilt, and/or trauma).
What’s the outdated script?
- “Chaos is normal” (which it is but they have become so used to having problems all the time that they don’t know who they are without them – it literally feels ‘weird’ when things are okay so they need to start drama to muddy the waters again and calm their ego).
- “If things are calm, I’ll be forgotten” (because typically that’s the only time they’ve been given ATTENTION in the past and they’ve confused this for the love they don’t know how to give themselves because they’re lost to the Void).
- “Problems make me valuable” (because it gives them struggles to talk about and they can get ego strokes form buying into a victim mentality and dragging people into the drama triangle).
4. The One-Upper
No matter what you share, they’ve done it bigger, better, or worse:
If you had a bad day, theirs was worse; if you achieved something great, they’ve done something better. If you went somewhere, they went somewhere better, etc. etc. etc.
What’s the outdated script?
- “If I’m not impressive, I’m invisible” (because they are driven by shame which makes them need to externalise their own value to themselves and the world.
- “I have to prove my worth constantly” (again, because of underlying shame that makes them lose touch with their REALNESS and get caught up in constant judgements of themsleves and others).
- “Being ordinary = being worthless” (because they don’t know how to be REAL and so they don’t know how to ACCEPT themselves).
How to Handle ‘Gamey’ People Without Losing Your Mind
Now that we understand where some of these behaviours come from, how do we actually deal with them?
1. See It for What It Is
When someone plays an unreal game like the examples given, try to recognise that it’s just their ‘old code’ running. This doesn’t mean you have to tolerate it, but understanding that it’s not personal helps you respond from a place of clarity rather than reactively bringing your own ‘stuff’ into the equation and opening up a cycle of negativity and nonsense.
Instead of thinking, “Why is this person being so annoying/manipulative/etc.?” try:
- “This is just their survival mechanism at work”
- “This isn’t really about me”
- “I don’t have to participate in this game”
Or the ultimate killer of such games:
- “THIS IS UNREAL”
2. Set Boundaries Without Drama
Just because you understand why someone is playing a game doesn’t mean you have to engage with it – boundaries are key and help you to protect your sanity.
Essentially, a boundary is just about saying “NO” to anything unreal so you can focus on what’s actually REAL:
- If someone tries to guilt-trip you, don’t defend yourself – just calmly stand your ground and do what you know is REAL for you.
- If someone projects their worry onto you, you can acknowledge their feelings without taking them on and taking yourself off your own REAL path.
- If someone thrives on drama, avoid feeding into it by reminding yourself that it’s not REAL.
A simple, “I hear you, but I don’t feel the same way” or “I’m not worried, tbh, but I appreciate your concern” can go a long way.
Alternatively, you can just smile, nod, and then do whatever the hell you wanted to do in the first place.
3. Stay Grounded in Reality
As we’ve been saying, people play games because – on some fundamental level – they’ve disconnected from what’s real.
The best way to counter this is to stay anchored in reality yourself by working on your REALNESS (book a call with me to get started):
- Focus on facts, not emotional distortions: When someone tries to pull you into a game, stick to what’s actually happening – not the exaggerated or projected version because of your own ‘stuff’ pulling you into unreality.
- Practice mindfulness: Staying present helps you avoid getting caught in someone else’s script because mindfulness keeps you in a place of wholeness but the scripts are always just somebody’s fragments.
- Choose real connection over performance: If you sense someone is playing a game, try shifting the conversation toward something more authentic – ask them a PATTERN BREAKER question that brings them back to themselves (something about their real interests, their true feelings, whatever).
4. Lead by Example
The more real you become, the less gamey people around you will be – at least in their interactions with you. This is because if you work on being real and present then you set the TONE that allows unreal people to take a leap of faith and do the same thing (though some will act the other way and get more unreal as your realness triggers their Shadow Self and then ego ‘stuff’).
When you’re grounded, rooted in your REALNESS, unshaken by manipulation, and refuse to engage in drama, you subtly encourage others to meet you on the same level. They may not change overnight, but they’ll begin to realise that their games don’t work on you and so they’ll either start to look at themselves or move on to somebody they can manipulate (which is no loss to you because you haven’t lost anything real).

Final Thoughts: The Power of Reality Over Games
We all have our own outdated scripts running in the background – some of us just have more obvious ones than others. Either way, the key to navigating a world full of ‘gamey’ behaviour isn’t frustration or avoidance – it’s understanding (essentially that “hurt people hurt people”).
When we see these behaviours as unconscious survival mechanisms rather than deliberate attacks, we can handle them with greater clarity, set stronger boundaries, and remain grounded in what’s REAL.
Ultimately, the less we engage in the games, the more we create a lifewhere real connection replaces manipulation, and authenticity wins over outdated scripts.
Stay real out there,

More on this: ‘Why Do People Play Mind Games?’ – The Truth About POWER, SCARCITY, and EGO