Couples Who Play - Word Games as a Daily Ritual
A relationship is not about the big things but the little things. Relationship experts talk about the little gestures called the bids that one performs and is either responded to or ignored. The condition of the relationship depends on the little gestures but not on the anniversaries and holidays.
A daily puzzle game is exactly that little gesture and thus works much better than it seems.
Why a shared small ritual is needed
In a relationship, the ritual solves the practical task. The ritual is the guarantor of the point of interaction that does not depend on the mood, spare time or anything to discuss.
And this is the point – the conversation requires effort and timing. A puzzle game played together requires nothing but still provides some kind of interaction.
Also, a ritual creates the common language. Couples who play the games together come up with jokes about particular words, learn each other's weaknesses and rivalry that does not require anything.
Why the daily format is limited
The easiest thing to do is to play the same daily word and then compare the results. And it works, but this is a limited approach.
Here both of you play the word separately and then compare the results. Interaction in this case is about the comparison of the scores and comparison of the scores gets old really quickly.
Also, one of you is usually better than the other and a daily word highlights this difference every day and does not provide any chance to work on it.
Creating words for each other
And this is the way that works.
Instead of playing the word made by somebody else, you create the word yourself and then send it to another person. Wordle Unlimited allows you to do this with the help of the challenge system: you create the word, give it a name of your choice, set one or two-minute timer and/or two-letter hints and get the link that you can send via any messenger.
Then they open the link, play the word and send you the result with the challenge option.
The main difference is that the word becomes the message. Choosing the word to send is what makes the game interesting and adds the personal touch to it.
What to send
| Choice | Effect |
|---|---|
| Inside joke | The best choice, recognition is the reward |
| Place you both know | Nice, and typically not difficult enough to stop being fun |
| Their habit/catchphrase | Guaranteed laugh |
| Word with double letters | Difficult, use hints |
| Obscure word | Avoid, stops the interaction |
The last row is the description of the initial mistake people make. A word that nobody can guess is not the challenge but the end of the interaction. The idea is to continue the interaction and not to end it.
When to do it
Couples who do this regularly play this game in a certain spot rather than at any convenient moment.
Morning is the good time to start the interaction because you have this interaction when you are separated and thus you have something to reply to. Evening is the good time as well because it gives you something to do during the twenty minutes you spend in bed and on your phone. This is probably the best use of these twenty minutes.
Long-distance couples benefit the most from this approach. A challenge link goes through any number of time zones, takes twenty seconds to create and actually creates the interaction, not just a good morning message.
The competitive version
If both of you prefer something straightforward, private multiplayer rooms allow you to compete with the leaderboard. You create the room, send the link, choose the format and the word length and compete in solving ten words first or who will solve more words before the timer runs out.
This is the completely different atmosphere and it is important to remember that three minutes of competition is fine while the record kept over weeks typically is not. Leave all the record-keeping aside.
The word length is the key factor in this case if one of you is better than the other. Competing in the different word length or choosing the different word length for the challenge fixes the problem without anyone admitting it.
Keeping it from becoming the obligation
The failure mode is pretty easy to predict. A ritual turns into the duty, then into the thing maintained by one and endured by the other and then becomes an annoying source of guilt.
The solution is to keep the stakes low. Do not keep the running score. Do not treat the missed day as something serious. Do not send the word when you do not want to because the word sent to maintain the ritual is not what it is supposed to do.
It all happens in the browser at wordleunlimited.dev with no need to register, which is crucial here. A ritual requiring the registration somewhere on both sides does not survive the first week.
The point is that this ritual requires almost nothing. Twenty seconds to prepare and three minutes to play and the small interaction that would not happen otherwise.
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