Isn't it always about winning or is it always about winning?

I know how annoying sore losers can be.

Last weekend our friends played a prank on Akshay and me, and truthfully speaking, I did not take it too well. In fact, it was the first time that I lost my temper with anybody and I lost it real bad. Chided them for being juvenile, that their prank was not at all funny and then I stormed out of their house. Took me a few seconds to regain my composure before I went back to their place again. Only this time I was laughing my head off and the stunned audience joined in.

Though I still feel that their prank deserved to be yelled at, I am not angry with them anymore.

In fact, it makes me wonder if I was angry at them or with myself, for being so gullible.

Or was I just a sore loser?

Okay, this realisation did not come to me right after this incident. There was something else as well that triggered it off.

Earlier during this week, one of my office teams did not meet their quality target for the first time in 8 months. The manager-in-charge blasted the life out of the poor guys. It did not end there. He then turned to smatter the Quality team with his tempestuous outburst, wrote a zillion mails condemning us for being so "strict" and being "guided by the rulebook". He was irked that he would now have to sit and formulate an "action plan" and come up with explanations for his superiors, something he hadn't done in almost a year.

I found this really maddening. The only thought that came to me was ' Man, is he a sore loser or what.'

And that was what made me wonder if I was one too.

I have all the streaks of becoming one (if I ain't one already). Pictionary and a round of 29 are the best examples I can think of when I say I play to win. I get really irate when people cheat and suddenly come up with new rules to suit their needs in the middle of a game. I don't hesitate in telling a close friend , " I don't trust you ," when she says "I didn't see the cards, trust me." I get really upset when somebody cuts off my card and the stakes are at 29. Akshay almost apologises before he does that (in fact, he's the sole idiot who's luck runs better than mine in a card game). I don't yell or cry at the end of a lost game but I really, really, feel bad for the next few minutes. I seethe.

And no, I don't yelp with joy when I win, I let my smug speak for itself :-)

So There. I don't want to be a sore loser but do I have the makings of being one? Or is this just some harmless disappointment which everyone faces on losing ?