ScarletRose: I have noticed an inverse relationship to the stridency of someone proclaiming they only play for fun and the level of their rating.

"The object of a game is to win, but the reason to play a game is to have fun."

It should go without saying that you play a game for fun. Why else?

The last thing I want to hear my opponent say is that he doesn't care who wins, and I feel sorry for someone elses game if their opponent says that to them.

This is why the people that care about their rating want the ratings to reflect some value that's easy to understand and is readily comparible to someone elses. This way when I look at your profile I can tell which games I might want to invite you to play me in. At least as a rough guide. As others have posted here if someone plays in a small pool of opponents and loses most of the games they might actually be a better player than is reflected by their rating because the people they have been losing to might be really good players. Is this the case for you?

I'm sure my Janus Chess rating is lower than people would expect from my play, but ol' Sumerian's Smirf beats me almost every game. Consequently I have a lower rating. Now that I've been playing a wider pool of players in Janus Chess, my rating has leveled to my ability. For awhile I was dragging along around 1400. I still don't have a high rating in the game, but this is probably because I'm not that strong of a player of it consistantly enough to get a higher rating. I still play the game win or lose because I find it a fun game, but I try to win every game and am disappointed when I lose. It doesn't mean that I didn't have fun playing the game, it just means I'm disappointed in losing. If my opponent makes a good move and it's something to remember, it makes the loss feel better than if I made a bad move and gave the game away, but I can still have fun even if I lose. I never play a game to lose. I find winning a game more rewarding then losing a game. This is what the rating is supposed to show, not if you are having fun playing.