What rules need to be communicated in order to meet each other’s needs and help us both win?

In those childhood games of Hide and Seek, every neighborhood had different rules, and as our worlds got bigger, we found there were a few things that had to be established at the beginning of each round. As we emotionally hide and seek our partners, we need to be willing to discuss some of those same rules.
A few days ago, I listed the questions to ask regarding your Hide and Seek styles. Have you noticed how you and your partner interact? Have you caught yourself hiding, and wondered how long you want to stay hidden? Have you found yourself seeking, perhaps resenting having to seek, or even wondering what the hiding means?
Those who hide are not interested in permanent isolation so much as they are seeking time to process an emotion, figure out what they want, or restore a bit before jumping back into the demands of a relationship. Those who seek are not attempting to aggressively establish dominance so much as they are asking for reassurance about the status of their relationship, the conflict, or the future. It is possible for everyone to win, it just takes fine tuning your communication to meet your partner’s needs as well as identify your own.
For the Seeker: How high should I count? I know you need to hide for a bit, but I’ll get anxious if it’s too long. Do you need an hour? 15 minutes? A day? Just let me know when I should start seeking and I’ll know when I should start worrying. I don’t want you to find me right away, or I want to come get me and fast, both are legitimate desires, but can be confusing if they aren’t established beforehand.
For the Hider: Hot or Cold? When someone is so good at hiding, they may secretly revel in their skill without realizing the anxiety this causes a seeker. Is there a way to keep communicating that still give the hider their space, at the same time reassuring the seeker? If I’m too well hidden when I play with children, I make bird sounds to help guide them along, to reassure them I’m still present, just not visible. Can you offer your partner some clues and reassurance as far as where you are in processing and preparing to be found? I’m still hiding, but I love you and I’m working on it.
What’s the safe word? In my neighborhood it was “olly-olly-oxin-free.” I have no idea what it meant, other than the game is over. If you haven’t been found, come out, if you are still seeking, come back to home base. We are starting over. This was default in case someone was too good at hiding, or other demands took precedence. Your mom is saying it’s dinner time, come home. As adults, we also need to know, if the hider is hiding or the seeker is looking in the wrong places, how to reset. We also need to know that we can set things aside when a more pressing matter comes up. I know we are fighting right now, but also the house is on fire, so let’s call 911 and finish the fight later.
None of us wants to look at our relationships as games, the stakes are too high for us to consider the possibility of losing. The nature of Hide and Seek is simply that it never was a game. It was about learning to trust our social group, expressing trust that others will find us and safety in being found, about finding friends and victory in seeking connection with others. And if we know the rules before we start, everyone wins.