6When my son was a toddler, he threw the mother of all tantrums at my childless friends’ house. I waited it out, from time to time saying, “I know you don’t want to go, but we have to. So come and put your trousers back on”. From vivid and bitter experience, I knew that nothing else would work.

The friends marvelled at me. “You are SO patient,” they said, in tones of awe.

Now I knew this was friend-speak for “How have you not beaten this ear-splitting little shit to death by now?”.

But I went home with the firm belief that I was a patient person, almost to the point of sainthood. And I carried this with me all my life. Until, that is, I started playing Royal Match on my phone.

I’m a big fan of phone games, even more so now I’m a widow. I have to sit alone in waiting rooms, or station platforms, or airport terminals, and I don’t always have the concentration to read.

But I’m in the hot-flush of middle age not the first flush of youth, so games that rely on sharp reflexes are out. Ergo, I have Wordle, obviously, and I’m English, so it’s practically compulsory to humble-brag about your daily score. And I have a Solitaire, and a killer Sudoku. I used to love the house designing ones, but they swallowed up my all time and got deleted.

And I have Royal Match. The bastard.

It is one of those games where you have to get rid of shapes by lining them up into threes or T-shapes or squares. Then they change into special shapes, and new ones drop down. I’m at level 4432 which means I’ve encountered, among other things, weird orange jelly hippos, purple frogs, and ducks that pop out of what look like little square condoms.

But the special shape that gives the most bang for it’s buck is the magic light ball. We Matchers bloody love the magic light ball.

To get it you have to line up five matching ordinary shapes. Then you can use it to blitz an entire colour from the board. OR – and this is the good bit – if it’s next to another special shape (like the zappy helicopter thing, or the bomb), you can use it to multiply that all over the board.

But wait, there’s more. If you have two magic light balls, side by side, they’ll clear the entire board for you.Which will often be the difference between winning and losing. So, yay, let’s hear it for magic balls.

But here’s the thing. A clever person will survey the board after each go, looking for opportunities to create special shapes, and maximising their chances for a win.

Or should I say a patient person will do that?

Like I thought I was.

But apparently am not.

Because what I do is see something dropping down, get all excited, zap that instead, then mutter with annoyance as I see I’ve just missed making a light ball (by not waiting till everything dropped). And I do this repeatedly until the point where I’ve lost another fucking game. Day in, day out.

And each time, each time, I tell myself I’ll be patient. I’ll wait. I’ll stop and look. And then I ignore myself completely.

Turns out I’m not just fairly devoid of patience, I am actively sodden with impatience.

But, luckily, Royal Match has a smart little algorithm.

It knows if you lose constantly and don’t make any progress at all you’ll just give up and delete the game.

So, when you endlessly continue to fuck up a particular level, it changes the skill-to-luck ratio and starts dropping down more of the special pieces. It has figured out you are a total knobhead, and unlikely to adapt your gameplay, so it gives you a nudge.

But you really have to persevere for it to do that. Like, a lot.

(And, yes, it might not be an algorithm stepping in – it could also be that I suddenly become a shit-load better at strategising. But really, what’s the more likely of the two?)

So, this is the state of play. Royal Match has taught me I’ve been fooling myself about my patience levels, for all these decades. But it’s also shown me I’m one stubborn bugger when I want to be.

And, as writers, don’t we need perseverance a lot more than we need patience?

It’s what I’m telling myself anyway.

Plus, patience is far less sexy than dogged, adventurous, perseverance. Go me!