I hate to disappoint, but I was never that kind of player. I was always up front with any woman I spent more than one night with about my behavior and what kind of person I was, and either they decided "Thanks, but no thanks" or were OK with it. Well, they thought they were OK with it, anyway.
This didn't keep me from breaking hearts or the occasional screaming match, and it's not like I don't bear responsibility for the feelings I hurt, but being dishonest with women was never my thing. Honesty can be occasionally painful, but in the end, it's much easier.
That said, I can tell you the secret to lying, which is the root of every dirty relationship trick: all it really takes is a basic lack of empathy, or being incredibly selfish. You just have to not care about other people's feelings.
I'd like to say this is behavior I've seen exclusively in players...but unfortunately, not so much.
Well, players are obviously more interested in getting what they want than giving other people what they want. I can't fault you for being honest then. It's their fault for getting offended if they knew from the beginning what you were all about.
I kind of used to be a female version of a player. I had one or two male friends in college who I used as emotional tampons, and I'm sure at least one of them really liked me. It was the wrong thing to do, and in the long run I missed out on some quality connections. Unlike most connections you make in school.
I just can't see how you wouldn't get tired of fooling around with people you're not into. Maybe once or twice is just pure fun, but after that it has to wear on your soul, no?
I think for a lot of people, being a player is a kind of phase. Whether it's because they're young and they think now's the time to do it, or they had their heart-broken and turn jerky for a while, or they're just not mature enough to see that their actions affect other people. And at some point they do tire of it. My best-friend's husband was a legendary player in college and now admits he's ashamed of some of the lines he pulled out to get the "nice girls" into bed (however, when his guy friends are around he still swells with pride when they talk about how many girls he used to get, I guess it's a guy thing?) But there's definitely a handful of people that never tire of cheating and lying, and I think those people who never feel guilty after years of being dogs are just fundamentally crappy human beings and probably lie and cheat in every other aspect and relationship in their lives.
I'm kind of wondering what the exact definition of "player" is... I'm not sure if I fall into the category or not. For about 3 years I was in an open relationship with a guy because we were both very ill at ease with monogamy (I have cheated on all of my exes, which is a source of deep shame for me) and agreed that it was the best type of relationship for us at the time. We were 19 and felt that, although we liked each other very much, we were too young to enter a dedicated, long term, mongamous relationship, particularly with my history of feeling easily suffocated by monogamy.
While we were open I had a number of brief flings but I was always totally honest about my relationship status with everyone I met. If they wanted to get involved with me then great, if not then we just became friends if we really got along or said our goodbyes. I only ever did anything with people I really, truly liked as well. Does this behaviour make me a player, in that I had a number of partners, or is it exclusively if someone lies/employs underhanded tactics to get numerous people into bed?