stitchwhich | Finally Learning How To Play Sudoku

Years ago it seemed that everyone was playing Sudoku - except for me. I could not figure it out. I read the rules and such but actually doing the puzzles eluded me. And man, it burned when a friend who is ah, intellectually challenged, was regularly playing the game. (He can see his way through a brick wall if you give him enough time but comprehension is very difficult for him.)

So!

I had an ad for a sudoku app pop up on a word-based game I play to relax. Over and over, as those ads do. And I clicked on it. I'll be darned - it has an "easy" level and I am rocking it. I should probably opt for "medium" but I'm too happy actually winning the games to want to push my luck too far. I'll step it up when easy level gets boring. It is a little thing but it has silenced the brain weasels who whispered judgements about my intellect throughout these last few years. I mean, I was good enough for Mensa but couldn't play a game even my IQ-challenged friend* could master? That really bothered me.

I am aware that there is a whole basket full of ego involved in what I just wrote. A lot of that is driven by early training and life - it is normal for people with above-average IQs to catch on to games and to master them easily, and we get extra-grumpy when something that should be achievable is out of reach. And we are trained to think that reflects a flaw in ourselves. The Gods know, I heard "this should be easy for you" often enough in my early life.

*This friend is someone our local circle of buddies coach through life... he really did "ride the short bus" during his schooling and even now doesn't understand the difference between a High School "Certificate of Completion" and a "Diploma". Which makes job applications difficult for him. He doesn't understand social behaviors well. The day I first met him, he told me about the three sexual encounters in his life, and it wasn't until we knew him better that I was able to explain to him why doing such a thing would be off-putting to new acquaintances. In the middle ages, he'd be one of those single men living on a farm as part of the family, nutured as an "uncle" and not expected to be able to get by on his own. At the same time, if you call him saying you need help, no matter the time or the need, he'd be there. And if he saw someone without a shirt on a cold day, not only would he give them the one he was wearing but he'd take them to the laundromat to wash it so it would be fresh for them. Which is a good thing, because none of us can convince him that Axe-brand products are not attractive for a 50-year-old man. (Or any man, for that matter.) But it would not occur to him to just drive to a second hand store and buy that person a new shirt instead of spending the money to wash his.