Average Joe: I know all about your love affair with Wordle
Look at you. There’s something different about you these days.
Gallivanting all about like a smitten teenager.
You don’t even care that the whole world can see it.
Don't try to be coy, Roy. You’re happy, alive, giddy, peppy, aglow — there must be 50 five-letter words to describe your newfound passion.
I know all about your love affair with Wordle. I mean, you weren’t exactly trying to hide it when you posted it all over your Facebook page.
So charmingly smug, the way you gloat in some of your quicker victories. Absorbing consolation left and right when you sweat it out to the last guess, or worse, bomb out of the game altogether. But you’re always right back in there the next day, stealing a moment to spend with your not-so-secret squeeze.
I know all about your love affair with Wordle — because I am having one, too.
Confession time
I vowed to resist Wordle at first, dismissing it as a silly puzzle craze. I’ve had these flings before.
Long ago, I ran off for a month with Rubik’s Cube, and we mutually agreed to call it quits after I learned how to pry out all of the pieces and shove them back into their correct places.
More Average Joe: If a colonoscopy is in the cards, deal yourself in
I had something really special going with Waldo for a day or two, and then I just stopped looking and left the poor guy wandering around in a huge crowd.
Sudoku was proof that opposites don’t attract. I gave it a shot, but I’m just not a math person. (I know, I know — it’s technically not a math puzzle at all. But those numerals just remind me of math problems. I don't like that at all!)
Then, in early January, Wordle came charging into my life. It was everywhere I turned, refusing to be ignored. I’d see it winking at me from dozens of friends’ social media feeds. “Joooooooooe, what are you waiting for?”
I finally caved and decided to see what all the fuss was about. It took just one puzzle, and I was hooked.
Haven’t missed out on a Wordle since, making it my steadiest puzzle date ever.
Twice the fun with Average Joe: Celebrating 2/22/22 in the 330: Is all of this fuss two-two much?
How Wordle works — and seduces
If you’re somehow not familiar with its concept yet (hater!), the puzzle is played at www.nytimes.com/games/wordle on a smartphone, tablet or computer. The goal is to figure your way to the five-letter word of the day. No “Wheel of Fortune”-type hints; just start by tossing a word out there. Any letters that match letters in the target word will be revealed. Letters that match up with their exact position in the solution will turn green. Letters that are correct but misplaced will appear in yellow. You get six tries to arrive at the answer. And an alphabet elimination grid helps you keep track of letters you’ve already guessed.
It feels like a stingy site at first, rationing out just one puzzle per day. But that just keeps you hungry to come back the next day. Smartly seductive, that Wordle.
I’ve been chatting up everyone from my oldest friends to my actual rocket scientist nephew to gather insights into why this game became such a worldwide sensation, and we’ve landed on a couple of logical explanations:
Its nature changes so quickly: There’s no practical skill involved if you nail the answer on your first guess. You’re either just darn lucky or the word has been leaked to you. Once you’ve started narrowing down your options, though, the skill part kicks in and the real fun begins.
Wordle is snack-sized and thoroughly modern: The puzzle’s compact puzzle grid allows you to use up 30 letter guesses at most. You’re cut off after that — unlike a crossword, where you can sit for hours erasing until you’ve worn right through the paper. And its digital-only format lets it go wherever you do. (For best results, though, play consistently on the same device).
Everybody loves a win streak: The game tracks your daily performance — generously counting as a victory any successful attempt to arrive at the word of the day in six or fewer tries. Even mediocre players can get a hot win streak going.
Posting isn’t necessarily boasting: The option to post your result on social media is great for people who like to brag on themselves for a bit, but lots of folks also aren’t too terribly ashamed to hold up for their friends’ inspection the puzzles that pushed them to the very final answer or beyond. Folks genuinely seem to enjoy commiserating over the puzzles that threw them for loops.
A trail can run cold after a hot start: Wordle has an uncanny ability to sink you even after a series of good, strong guesses. For instance, you could guess the word “fight” to begin with, and discover that you have the last four letters of the answer all set up perfectly. But then you start to panic as you cycle through more guesses: light, might, night and right. You’re down to your final guess, and you realize it’s got to be either tight or sight. Choose incorrectly and you can kiss your win streak goodbye. Similarly, you could burn up a lot of guesses trying to turn a batch of all-yellow letters green. For instance, by your second guess you could arrive at the realization that the final word will contain all the letters in “least,” but that word could be steal, stale, tales, teals or slate.
Countless paths lead to the same place: Wordle turns out to be a nifty sociology study disguised as a puzzle. When people post the paths to their solutions (Wordle creates a shareable summary that illustrates how you performed without giving away the day’s word), they’re giving a window into how their thinking differs from yours as you journey toward the same conclusion.
All of these factors put together make Wordle a difficult relationship to break off, even after the occasional day when you strike out and walk around mumbling, questioning your own worth. You’re still going to go running straight back into its loving arms the next day, maybe even wait up for a midnight rendezvous.You're already peeking at the counter telling you how many hours, minutes, seconds until the next puzzle posts. Thinking about you, Wordle. Won’t be too much longer until we’re together again.
Ahem! Wait a minute.
I’m not the one who's head over heels. You are.
When he isn’t toiling away as the Beacon Journal metro editor, you can occasionally find Joe Thomas musing about everyday life as the Average Joe. Reach him at jthomas@thebeaconjournal.com
This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Average Joe knows all about your love affair with Wordle
