Interesting, Ive always thought the same, most of lifes interactions are mundane.Do you have any articles or book links that deal with this and what do you specifically mean by domination games, one upping each other?
People only care about themselves , their own needs, 99% of the time, not about what you want or think most of the time, what the person they re trying to interact with wants. They just follow their own goals and hope you will give them what they want asking nothing in return. We can only interact with other people for 3 things; dominate them, submit to them, or cooperate with them. These interactions are the same for all biological living beings.
90% of the time people want to dominate you and sometimes want to be dominated by you. People who dont have something, but identify you have it want it and then start interacting with you hoping they ll get from you what they need for themselves, to increase most of the time or maintain, their odds of survival. If you can get something in return, no problem, but most of the time people just want to give nothing if they can, in return of what they re asking you, again it's a waste of time or energy in this case to answer them , espeically when you know you re not going to get anything in return. Very rarely people propose you something and tell you they re going to give you something in return, ie; cooperation.
Most of the time people who have nothing to offer to others are those who ask... the most to them.
If you can identify someone has nothing good to give you in return of what he s asking you, then do not waste your time, energy.
Depending of your charisma, most of the time people want to dominate you, or be subdued by you, or cooperate. Charismatic people have people subduing to them constantly. Uncharismatic people are always annoyed by people who want to dominate them. Cooperative people are often a lot more educated than others and tend to stick with each others, they are very rare in fact, and they often ignore others people cause they re taught from childhood not to waste their intelligencem energy, ressources, time with people who only want to dominate them or are jealous.
They taught to study and get as high as possible in the ladder/pyramid, and then once sitting at the top, or near it, they ll dominate others.
When people figure you dont have what they need, they ignore you. We re only interested in the people who have something we want/need, we ignore others.
People with low self esteem and who ve been unloved by their original caregivers often have troubles identifying what others want and in a deep need to be loved will always fall for all the traps dominating people set in their way. They werent loved as kids so they re lacking love, attachment, hence searching for it at all costs. They always want to be loved once adults, so they d do anything for more attention, which means they ll constantly interact with anyone , wont select which interactions are worth it and which ones arent.
Fact is, most of the time and especially in cities, you have no need to answer the needs of others who are always frustrated and want to release their anger by dominating others.
We all have capacities we could use to do a lot of things potentially especially when we re educated, but our energy isnt limitless. Hence the need to specialize , focus and select few favorite people who will follow us for our existence.
In big cities most interactions are superficial and domination-related, in rural environments people take care of themsleves and their needs when they ask you something, are genuine, real most of the time, and you can be sure they ll give you something in return.
Cities are factories that build mentally unhealthy individuals. Too much useless stress for nothing, or very few in return.