The game itself is simply a series of prompts. I purchased it online and downloaded a PDF full of rejection cards, each with a different way to embarrass myself: "Ask a stranger for a breath mint, say hello to three people at the grocery store, ask a friend to do your laundry." In theory, this was all totally doable. But, it wasn't theoretical anymore. Ask a real-live friend to wash my dirty clothes? This was the Olympics of making it weird. The cards sat folded up in my notebook for weeks, causing heart palpitations every time I caught a glimpse of them. "Challenge a stranger to an arm wrestle!" they goaded me. "Ask someone if they believe in God!" I wasn't ready for the Olympics, so I called in a pro. My therapist was thrilled. Exposure and shame is her jam, and so one rainy afternoon the two of us spent a session looking for people to reject us. Her office is in a professional midtown building, so we each picked a rejection prompt then headed out into the hall to find the first open door we could go into. It turned out to be the waiting room of a medical office down the hall, and I felt myself break out in a sweat as she bounded through the door, approached a businessman and politely asked him: "Do you think I look like Cindy Crawford?" All the heads in the waiting room turned toward us, the crazy lady talking to strangers and her sweaty sidekick. "Um..." the businessman smiled, as if maybe she was a friendly sort of crazy. "Yeah! Sure!" Thank God. Wait, no — fuck! She didn't get rejected, so she had to do it again. She turned to a guy in a track suit and he kindly agreed with the first. My therapist, by the way, is a perfectly good-looking lady, but there's only one Cindy Crawford in this world, and she wasn't in that waiting room. Clearly, these guys were just startled into extreme politeness, because that's how you handle crazy people. At last, she posed the question to a third man in a crisp button-down. He raised his eyebrows in the universal symbol for, "No way, Jose" and shook his head. We thanked him and fled. Next, it was my turn. There were no more waiting rooms to lay siege upon, so instead we loitered in the lobby, waiting for our next awkwardness victim. Soon enough, Track Jacket Man came out of the waiting room to take a phone call in the hall. I turned to my therapist, wishing I'd never pitched this stupid, stupid story. She grinned. I walked up to the stranger, ready to make his day even weirder. "Hi, excuse me?" He gestured to the phone. I smiled and nodded, but I didn't leave. Finally, he told the caller to hang on a sec and put the phone down. "Can I help you?" he asked. "Yes. Do you like my shoes?" He paused, considering my rain-soaked Oxfords. "Yeah, you know what? I do," he smiled. He meant it! "It's a nice look. Casual but put together." Behind us, I heard my therapist laughing. At once, I was bathed in relief and frustration. What a nice guy, I thought. That, and Great, now I have to do it again. I turned back toward the lobby just as a middle-aged woman walked in from the rain. Before I could lose my nerve, I accosted her with the question. "Hi! Sorry! Do you like my shoes?!" She started, then took a look at my shoes. After a long moment she looked up at me from under lowered eyelids, and she was absolutely not smiling. "They're shoes." She headed off down the hall and I jumped for joy. It was a rejection; that much was sure. And, with a bonus barb. The woman paused halfway down the hall and turned back to me, adding, "Fashion is a crock."