To possess Game, of the sexual variety, is a wonder of our post-pubescent reality that confounds us. Most of us have some sort of Game and — irrespective of that Game’s efficacy — we do our every best to rock it.

The state of “being in love” is like anabolic steroids for your Game. Injecting love into your Game transforms you into a sexual Queen Midas where anything you think about, are in the same room with, let alone actually touch immediately turns to Erect. Others are drawn to your Bermuda-Triangle-of-being-in-love and inexplicably anyone and everyone thinks you are amazing and wants to get into your pants.

“Why now?” you wonder momentarily and then you dismiss the caravan of callers, with their pants around their ankles, ready to satisfy. They matter not to you, for you are in love.

If the above summarizes the chemical reaction between Love and Game, then there is an equally astounding reaction the follows in the wake of the mushroom cloud of devastation that comes with the destruction, spontaneous combustion or gangrenous rot and death of Love Anti-Game.

The phenomenon of Anti-Game reminds you that if there is a God, her sense of humor is vindictive, highly sadistic, and she’s laughing at you.

“Ah yes,” you think, “now that I’m on the ground, rolling around in the desolate, septic-tinged mud puddle of aloneness, please, someone walk by and kick me. Or even better: point, laugh, take a picture with your camera phone, then kick me and for good measure feel free to relieve yourself directly on my head.” Mmmm, yeah … that’s Anti-Game.

The zone of Anti-Game goes beyond having no Game. The black hole of Anti-Game is like mono: You have no idea exactly how you got it, it renders you completely unable to interact normally with others, and the duration is unknown.

The following are the five most common symptoms associated with Anti-Game. Anti-Game is often misdiagnosed as Heartbreak or the much more serious and incurable disease of Having a Heart and Actually Caring. Anti-Game is a serious ailment in its own right and should be treated as such.

1. Stench: Anti-Game is identified through a very particular smell. Although you yourself can not tell that you reek of rotten Loe, any and every potential sexual, romantic or human companion catches the scent from miles away and runs in the opposite direction. The stench of the castration of your previous lover(s) hangs about you. You begin to wonder, “I thought his manhood was in the Tupperware in the mini-fridge under my bed, but maybe during that last round of breakup sex he actually just disconnected his member, left it up my crotch and it has now begun to fester and repel others?”

2. Spiraling: Anti-Game manifests itself in a very personal and private form of general lifestyle spiral — downwards. Evaluate the state of your room and your behavior inside that room when you are alone. Is your floor littered with SlimFast cans, G-Heav number two sandwich bits and ritualistically burned fortunes from Ivy Noodle? Do you often begin or end your day by rocking out in your underwear, singing in the mirror, to bad mid-90s bands like the Gin Blossoms? When you break that Valium in half, do you lick the sedative dust off the palm of your hand? Yes? Take my word for it — you are spiraling.

3. Snot: When Anti-Game sets in, the once clear and sacred boundary between your mucus and your interactions with potential partners is transgressed over and over again. Those suffering from Anti-Game often times find that they actually snot on someone they want to have sex with or while unsuccessfully attempting to have a basic human conversation they manage to snot on themselves.

4. Scrambled Sex Signals: For the heterosexual female, Anti-Game scrambles signals in such a way that your sexual-goddess-secret-identity only reveals itself to men who are completely unavailable: gay men and straight men in “committed” relationships. In the funk of Anti-Game, gay men fall upon themselves to lavish praise, admit to bi-curiosity or straight up proposition you for sex. “But you’re gay” you exclaim, “and I do not have a penis!” Simultaneously, straight men with wives, fiancees or two-year-long relationships crawl out of the woodwork and profess their undying adoration, love and desire for you.

5. Circus Situations: When suffering from Anti-Game almost all of the social and sexual situations you find yourself in are beyond absurd. Your half-naked “friend” sways in your common room at 2 a.m., to no music at all, while caressing himself with a previously vomited upon blue dish sponge. A small, ancient Asian man wanders up five flights of stairs, into your room — where you have finally tricked a straight man into giving you a back massage — the old man sits down on your bed, realizes, “oh, sorry … you’re not Judy” and then wanders away. These circus situations become totally normal to you in the haze of Anti-Game. The absurdity that radiates out from Anti-Game is defined by the fact that any of the situations could also involve a bear riding a tricycle — and that spectacle would be the most normal part of the experience.

If in the past month you have experienced three or more of these symptoms, individually or simultaneously, please contact the local CDC, stop going to Toad’s, inform close friends and family, and consider accepting your sexual sabbatical until spring. If your Anti-Game is also accompanied by anal leakage, discolored discharge or rash — well then you, my friend, have it even worse than me.

Jana Sikdar hardly ever suffers from anal leakage.