“To allow yourself to play with another person is no small risk. It means allowing yourself to be open, to be exposed, to be hurt. It is the human equivalent of the dog rolling on its back—I know you won’t hurt me, even though you can. It is the dog putting its mouth around your hand and never biting down. To play requires trust and love. Many years later, as Sam would controversially say in an interview with the gaming website Kotaku, ‘There is no more intimate act than play, even sex.’ The internet responded: no one who had had good sex would ever say that, and there must be something seriously wrong with Sam.”

Sam-as-Mazer is a provocateur, given to making controversial statements. But like most of his statements, this one too derives from his personal truth. For Sam, making games with Sadie is the ultimate act of intimacy, greater even than lovemaking. Sam’s statement is also informed by his complex feelings about his body image and sex. People’s reductive response to Sam’s statement shows their own difficulty in understanding the varying kinds of sexuality and sexual responses in the world.

“You would think women would want to stick together when there weren’t that many of them, but they never did. It was as if being a woman was a disease that you didn’t wish to catch. As long as you didn’t associate with the other women, you could imply to the majority, the men: I’m not like those other ones.”

Sadie’s observation at MIT shows the insidious way in which patriarchy operates. Women are so indoctrinated to want to belong that they refuse to form a community. When a woman breaks into a male-dominated space, she feels she must prove she has done so because she is not like other women.

“‘Always remember, my Sadie: life is very long, unless it is not.‘ Sadie knew this to be a tautology, but it also happened to be true.”

Sadie’s grandmother, Freda, tells Sadie not to lose hope that Sam will forgive her because life gives a person many chances. At the same time, life is also finite, which is why one must seize the moment. The statements sum up the contradictory nature of time and reality itself. Freda’s statements prove prophetic, as Sadie and Sam’s friendship lasts the test of time, but Marx and Sadie’s love is cut short.