Is puzzling a competitive sport?

One of my close friends and her girlfriend won’t do puzzles together, because her girlfriend says it gets, “Too competitive.”

I had never thought of puzzling as a means to express one-upmanship, but then I started to think about some of my puzzle habits, and I had to reconsider.

There are those times when I will piece together whole sections while my person is still working on one area, only finding a fit every few minutes, whereas I am placing pieces every few seconds. I try to be subtle about it, to not show off the fact I am assembling most of the puzzle.

Of course, the opposite happens sometimes too, when I can’t find a single piece and he’s putting them into place in rapid succession. I swear during those times, that he is rubbing it in by snapping the pieces in loudly and even tapping them to make his point, “Lookie, I got one!“ He never says that, but I feel like his tap is speaking volumes.

Then there are the times when we’re both looking for the same piece. Perhaps there’s some very odd shape or a bright color, and we will say to each other, “This one is so obvious, it’s got to be easy to find.“ And then we go through a mad search, combing over all of the sorted pieces trying to find that one piece. One of us will finally get it and place it in the puzzle and exclaim, “Got it.“

So I guess puzzling can be a race and a game of “who can do it better,” though so far I have only seen good sportsmanship when I’ve built a puzzle with one or more other people, because, in the end, we have one goal, to make the puzzle whole … even if I am the one who placed the most pieces in the fastest. 😊