At first, Lucy and Josh’s relationship consists only of repeated game playing. They play the Mirror Game, the Staring Game, the Spying Game, the You’re Just So Game, the Or Something Game, and of course the Hating Game. Even when they begin getting to know each other better, they couch everything in game terms. For instance, they play truth or dare when they want to understand something about the other person. HR (short for human resources) is their “safe word.” The How You Doing Game is simply how they behave when they’re not being hateful to each other.

For most of the novel, Lucy interprets their relationship as competition. Someone is always trying to win, though she admits she doesn’t know what the prize is. She tells the reader: “I should mention that the ultimate aim of all our games is to make the other smile, or cry. It’s something like that. I’ll know when I win” (8). She is so focused on playing games that she’s unconcerned about the outcome; it’s the game playing itself that she cares about. More than once, she assumes Josh wants to make her unhappy. She thinks he’s won every time he unintentionally makes her cry, such as when he mentions the strawberry farm and her mother’s blog, or when she can’t handle Danny’s compliment about her being beautiful because of how Josh has made her feel.