If you’ve never played this game, you have to guess letters to form a word before each part of a body can be drawn. If the body is completed before the word is discovered, the game is over.

This is usually what happens when people don’t know how to communicate with each other, or they make assumptions about who or what the person is or should be about. Sometimes when the body is complete, the outcome can be a breakup or divorce. But when the game is allowed to continue or start over, it could be even worse.

It should not be up to one person to try to guess what the right word is – there have to at least be clues if one person has a hard time saying the word aloud, unless they are giving misleading clues on purpose.

Two things should be considered here: The first time a person has to guess about someone’s motives and intentions and the head is drawn, the guesser should halt the game and leave because there should be no guessing games played at all. The second is that if guessing is being forced upon someone, the game shouldn’t even start.

The only purposes games have are for entertainment, keeping your mind sharp, or helping you develop strategic skills. And the game of Hangman should be strictly in the same space as Charades – for entertainment – or maybe honing spelling skills.