Why do people resign when they're losing!?

This drives me crazy! I've been a good sport and played until the end the hundred times I've lost. I just want to defeat an opponent fair and square! Is that too much to ask? 

That's a good point. I'm pretty new so I was unaware that resigning was seen as good etiquette. I just feel as though it should be check mate or nothing. Guess people can play as they wish. 

Ummm I believe we're all here for entertainment...?

Just so you know, almost all games (that are not draws) end in resignation.

The only times I've ever been checkmated at a tournament are when it was a really pretty combo, so I go ahead and let my opponent play it. This has happened less than 5 times. The only people playing all the way to mate every game are beginners.

Which is fine, that's how you gain experience, but again, just so you know.

Wow, this topic turns this whole debate the other way around. Usually it's people asking "why don't people in the lost position just resign?" :-)

In chess it's usually good sportmanship to resign the game when you don't have any realistic chances for a draw. Playing a lost position to a checkmate, some would consider just annoying. Of course you are allowed to do so, but usually it just wastes time from both players. Bullet and blitz time scrambles are another thing altogether, where you might be able to win on time even if you have lost position (also known as flagging the opponent).

It's actually kind of funny when you think about it, in almost every sport or game it's considered unsportsmanlike to give up the game before it really finishes. In chess it's totally different.

It depends - I tend to play until I have no honest hope of winning (which is often!). Sometimes I like to see how long I keep the losing position going before surrendering. Sometimes when you are desperate to save your King you come up with some creative solutions. Other times I just want the pain to end

In most sports your ability to score isn't diminished.

Imagine a game where if you're behind on the score, you must also take players off the field.

In some chess positions there is no series of legal moves that will let you checkmate the opponent. This is totally different from most sports, where no matter how far you're behind you can still score.

I'm not exactly talking about if there's no reasonable chance of winning then resign. I've played several games where they still have plenty of pieces on the board but I took their queen or have them in a tough spot so they resigned. But I also now understand that resigning in a losing situation is the best thing to do as to not waste both players time. Lesson learned. Thanks for all the feedback!

If you are playing someone who is WAY better than you are, and you lose your queen, it would probably be a good idea to resign.  Not so much if you are the superior player.

Cool.

Because they don't want to waste your nor their time. Resigning means they acknowledge their loss.

I just played a rapid game and by move 22 we got to this position:

Could my opponent still win? Sure. A knight and bishop can be very powerful. Question is: how likely is it? At this point my opponent has 3:39 left and I 7:53.
So for the next few minutes of our lives this person is going to try and push his pawns while trying to hunt mine down.

Fast forward to move 43... They have 0:42 left , I have 6:22 left. So that's 21 moves and about 4 minutes and a half of them dancing around. They just lost their bishop:

Can my opponent still win? No. Can we still draw? Sure. So why resign in this position? Let's keep going for 6 more moves and close to a minute, because...?

Final move was me queening the pawn on the b file. How much do you want to bet that if my oppnonent hadn't run out of time at that point we'd be playing until I actually mated them?

Is this what you prefer rather than resigning? Resigning is the most natural and graceful thing to do when you're losing and there's no way to win. You've already lost.

The real questions ought to be:
 - Why do people keep playing when they've already lost.
 - Why do people resign after making 1 to 5 moves and less than a minute played?
 - Why do people ragequit after losing their queen? Are they really that petty that they want their opponent to sit through the abandonment timer?

Earlier on i had a bad habit of resigning when i lost a castle or queen early on. my rating was bad, dropped to 100 at one point.

I have recently tried to continue playing even when i lose a major piece, and in some cases i manage to draw and even win. I was surprised that its possible to comeback even when you are down a queen early due to a stupid mistake. My rating is back up to 400, which is still bad but playing on made a tiny improvement

9 points isn't difficult to recover at your current rating. As your rating improves you'll find it harder to get back into the game when you fall so far behind. You're a long way from eliminating blunders, but that'll be true of your opponents for a long time too. Even if you're sure a game is lost, it makes sense for you to play to the bitter end if only to get end-game experience. There are plenty of little tricks to learn which can unexpectedly change the outcome of at match at the last moment. You might as well learn them when you have nothing to lose, than when you do.