It wasn't often that Rarity considered herself truly lacking. Miserable, unsuccessful, inconfident, certainly; but she had little concerns about personal achievements outside her forte. However, this time it was different. The almost comically abysmal losing streak of thirty-five games of Tic-Tac-Toe against Pinkie Pie - certainly impressive considering her maturity, in a very morbid sense - ground on her for a long time ever after, up until this very day. It was a children's game, strategic at that. It wasn't up to chance who won. In fact, everypony around her always claimed the game couldn't be won if both players go at it seriously. However, she never saw how this wretched pastime could be so utterly predictable to others. Worse yet, Rarity most definitely wasn't stupid, she constantly reminded herself. She couldn't be: she could use her magic to thread together the finest garments, she was the one who found out the secret identity of Gabby Gums, she could read other ponies and even managed to fool not only the high society of Canterlot but also, in hindsight regrettably, her friends with the most outrageous claims.
Rarity took a sheet of paper and a pencil. A rubber too, just in case. Mentally bracing herself for this seemingly gargantuan task, she drew up a three by three grid. She would open Pandora's Box, and there better be plenty of hope left inside. Suddenly, the first wave of panic struck.
"Oh Celestia, where do I start...?"
She could just go ahead and take the center for X, but, while symmetric and aesthetically balanced, would it be a smart move? Any other field raised the same issues. It couldn't possibly matter where she started, any place would be fine because the other side could never be pretictable; especially not if she started in the middle for maximum symmetry. Pinkie Pie managed to best her countless times, and she wasn't exactly the pony to plan ahead much. So perhaps she should pick a field at random?
Ultimately, she picked the bottom left, which she marked with an 'x'. If she could win against herself - "Random Rarity" (X) versus "Classic Rarity" (O), so to speak - then at least she would have proof that having no strategy is better than her trivial attempts to form a straight line, a feat she could easily accomplish in her daily life, but became the single greatest obstacle in her life as soon as this was subjected to taking turns with somepony else. In vein with her old ways of playing, she put the O in the center, the place around which everything else arranged itself. This would be the key to see how Pinkie did it. Almost laboriously, she forced herself to put the next X in the top left, rather than the top right for symmetry. Pinkie wouldn't play symmetrically, she would simply pick out any random field - and the top left it became. But now the grid was imbalanced to the left - she put the O to the center right. Now all that X would have to do is claim the center left and win - but this isn't how pinkie would have thought, not at all. Middle top it was instead.
Anxiously, Rarity stared at the paper. Did she really find a way to beat Pinkie Pie? By merely playing as always? A preposterous idea. Had this been the way to go she'd have won at least one game of the dozens and dozens of times the Earth Pony had inflicted her will upon her. This was suspicious, wrong even. Pointless. That was the word she was looking for - pointless. No matter how much she'd practice, there was no way she'd ever be able to uncover this enigma. Tears began to well up inside her, as she ripped the paper into pieces, and strewed them across her room, sobbing, before sweeping up the remains of her failed research. She needed her couch, it was too strenuous a flight of emotion to deal with to stand while wallowing in the tragedy of her situation.
Only a short while later, Twilight Sparkle dropped by Carousel Boutique for a neighbourly visit.
"Hey Rarity, how are you?" she called. Hearing only faint sobbing and bawling, Twilight started looking for her friend. Granted, it was possible Rarity was just in another fit of melodrama, but she'd rather not take any chances.
"Rarity, what happened? Are you okay?"
"Oh Twilight... i-it's nothing, I-I just-", Rarity squeaked in despair. "I tried to prac-practice playing Tic-Tac-Toe, a-and I just can't! How am I ever going to cope? Am I really too stupid for such trite a game?"
The purple alicorn consoled her friend, and after a while Rarity caught herself again. It was good to have a friend closeby who is able to cheer you up.
"Rarity, I could teach you how the game works, it'll even get boring quickly after you've got the hang of it."
"Would you really do that for me, Twilight?"
"Sure, let me just draw up a grid and we'll start right away..."