" Want to play rock, paper, scissors?”
I wonder where this is going. “Sure.”
“On three,” she prompts. We bob our fists together. “One, two…” But before three she blurts, “Why do you love your dad more than your mom?”
“What?”
“Three,” she calls. I throw down scissors, which she beats with rock.
“I knew you’d do scissors,” she says.
I’m stunned.
“Ask an invasive question and your opponent will go for scissors,” she says. “It’s a defense mechanism.”
I look down at my hand, betrayed.
“It’s in the phrasing,” she says. “It doesn’t matter how true the statement is. If there’s a fraught relationship with either parent, it makes people want to cut you. Hence the offensive. Or scissors.”
“Wait. My turn.” I hold out my fist again and we go. “On three,” I say.
On two I ask her: “Go out with me. "

― Mary H.K. Choi