Growing up, one of the most popular video games was Oregon Trail. I think in part we enjoyed it so much because “computer class” allowed us to play games rather than do work. It features a strategy, turn-based interface with randomized challenges and planned events to overcome as you move through a simulation of the trek from Independence MO to the Willamette Valley. It dawned on me this past week that the Oregon Trail game is a microcosm for modern romance, and I will explain why.
Party selection
The game offers you three options for crossing the plains. You can be a banker, a carpenter or a farmer. Each of these comes with strengths and weaknesses. Bankers are richer and can start off with better equipment, but the carpenter can repair the wagon for less despite his lower starting wealth. In the game as in life, there are pros and cons to the potential mates a woman can choose, and the option you pick may predict your ultimate prospects for success. In the game as in life, the banker had the greatest likelihood of success because of his wealth, because you could buy more goods, pay for portage, bribe the natives, and treat your own diseases or wounds. However, you got more points at the end if you could get to Oregon as a farmer, since the whole point of the valley was to farm it.
Obstacles
The route to Oregon is beset with difficulties, natural and random. Depending on when you go, you face weather conditions. The game builds random challenges into your game like damage to your wagon, sickness in your party, injuries to your family, and roadblocks to your progress. Sometimes you can spend time or money to overcome them. Depending on whom you chose to be, you have different prospects for success over these challenges. It is possible to lose members of your party along the way to disease or war parties or injury. I died many times trying to cross the plains as a farmer. The final stretch puts you on the river where you have to navigate the rapids, and it is possible to get this far and have everything go right up to that point and then lose by crashing along the river. The most difficult challenge comes right before the end.
Prospects for success
Upon arriving in Oregon, each of the players faces different prospects for success. New settlements need bankers less than the other professions, and you don’t get extra points from the game for not spending money. Carpenters bring skills and farmers bring the ability to survive and thrive, but they are less appealing vocations in the modern world. However useful those other options may be, many players pick the banker, because there is a stigma against being a lowly farmer. You get more points if you can make it there as a farmer, because it’s harder to cross but more valuable in Oregon if you come as a farmer.
Unfortunately the world scores our trek to Oregon differently. Very few women like blue collar workers or farmers as their mates. Since we don’t live in a world where people are scraping by like they would be in the old west, very few women find men valuable unless they are rich like the banker.
Over the past several years, many of the elderly members of my congregation and neighborhood tried to set me up, unsuccessfully, with daughters, granddaughters and friends. Most of these women were attractive. None of them were interested in me. I’m essentially a glorified teacher as a chemistry professor. These women know that I would be a good son in law or grandson in law. They know where I am headed. I’m headed to Oregon, a place of potential prosperity and peace, and they know it’s a good place where they would like their female descendants to be. The younger women however see the journey and have no interest in crossing the prairie with me. They don’t want to face the risk of smallpox, dysentery, injury, Indian attack, floods, storms, bear attack, or wreckage on a river crossing. They don’t want to help me get to Oregon. They don’t want to have to do the work. They want to fly to Oregon and then pick from the winners who manage to arrive, especially those who “make bank”. They are not interested in struggling with me but wish to benefit from my successes after the struggle.
I understand the appeal of the banker. It’s nice to be where I am where I can buy just about anything I want, spend two weeks in Europe each year, and put gas in my tank whenever I like. However, aside from money the banker offers little of value, which is reflected in the scoring of the game. Everyone knows that it’s appealing, and too many women would rather arrive without having to do work than struggle and grow together with a mate. The women who try to introduce me to their female friends and family recognize the utility and logic and strengths I offer as a Carpenter/Farmer, and they know that “very successful” is appropriately vague. Unfortunately the young women are not looking for a relationship. They seem to be looking for a reward.
We are all on our way to Oregon. We are trying to get to a place that offers possibility, prosperity and peace. No matter how you define that and what route you take, you will have to cross a wilderness and face trials and opposition. When you face them, you can either break down or break through. Women dispose of perfectly acceptable men all the time, because they care more about validation than about having their needs met along life’s path. Women want a man built by trials who is successful without having to put anything into it. IF we lived back in the day of wagon trains, they would have no ability to pursue that option. The only way to get to Oregon back then was to walk there yourself. There were no planes or trains or automobiles. Although we have those things today, the truly successful man is one who can get there without those advantages.
If you meet a man who is making the trek to Oregon, take a risk on him. Flying to Oregon and picking a winner is not the way to build a rich life. You might have riches, but they don’t necessarily enrich you. Even if you don’t make it to Oregon, you might find something along the way. Adventure. To live is a great adventure and an enriching one.
