The other night one of my coworkers was trying to figure out how to approach the  salad girl from the local deli he frequents.

“Ask her to make you her favorite salad,” I suggested. “Then memorize the ingredients and bring that same salad to her one day after her shift ends. “

I thought it was kind of a cute idea, but the group (all dudes) pooh-poohed it immediately.

Then one of the other guys piped up. “Just act like you like her a whole lot one day, then act like you kind of hate her the next. Girls love games like that.”

Um, what?

Let’s get one thing straight. Girls don’t love games.  We don’t love it when you don’t text us back for obviously long, awkward stretches of time so we’ll get the point that you’re busy. (It’s New York. Every damn one of us is busy. When you really like someone, you text them back in a reasonable amount of time, and we all know this.)

Girls don’t love it when you glance around furtively and say things like “Yeah….I’ve got plans next Thursday” when what you really mean is “I’m still totally dating other people and I want you to know that without actually saying it out loud.”

Girls don’t love games. What we do love, however, is Game.

Game is a rare and precious thing. A lot of people don’t have it, although it is often a gift of the lazy and simpleminded — probably because God figured everyone should be good at something, and Game is more intuition than anything else.

Game is about constantly calibrating your shared level of attraction. It’s being honest and open, yet playing up your strengths and being appreciative of what the other person brings to the table. It’s striking a delicate balance between being interested and interesting.

And, on some level, Game can be boiled down to simply doling out your crazy in digestible doses.

Key elements of Game — pulling back, assessing the situation, diving back in again — can be seen as cat-and-mouse, which is why people get it confused with playing games. Game is a much more sophisticated beast, unfortunately.

I should know, because I have no Game whatsoever.  I’ve logged 11 years in long-term, committed relationships — almost a third of my time on this planet , le sigh — and I’ve only spent 6 adult years of my life single.  I am terrible at going out to nice restaurants with virtual strangers, yet very good at reaching a consensus with someone I know very well on what color our sheets should be.

Which is why I find it hilarious when people ask me for dating advice. Not only have I got no Game, I’m not your average thirtyish New York girl. I don’t take spinning classes, I don’t go to trunk shows and I don’t do bottle service.  I am most impressed by a man who will take me to see an amazing band I’ve never seen before, show me an iPhone app I absolutely must have and cap the evening with a game of Erotic Photo Hunt and weird old whiskey cocktails in a dimly-lit lounge.

Or am I just like every other girl out there, and the disconnect we have with men is that they’re trying to land these fictional money-obsessed anorexic bobbleheads that they imagine we all are?

Unclear. All I know is, playing games doesn’t work on girls like me. I’d much rather have a sweet stranger buy me a salad.