Tonight we went to our "Welcome to the Semester" School of Library and Information Science (SLIS) Barbeque. Our friend Jarrod called us a couple of hours before we planned to head over and invited us out to dinner as a thank you for helping him move a few weeks ago. After a short debate (1.2 seconds) we said "Yes!" which was good because the barbeque was a barbeque in name only: no hot food, just chips, desserts, and beer. (PS We ate dinner at The Brown Bottle downtown where Jarrod's super-cute girlfriend Jenny is newly-waitressing and it was really good: we recommend.)
The "barbeque" itself was actually really fun, despite the absence of hamburgers and hotdogs. We had a really good time talking with everyone who was there about all kinds of stuff from school to home renovations (the couple hosting the get-together had just put in a new glass sliding door and were in the process of re-doing their bathroom as well) to ridiculous tech support questions. There were a few awkward silences, as there always are with a group of people just getting to know each other, but only one of those was caused by me. A comment was made about how any game is more fun as a drinking game and I said, "I dunno, I've played a lot of fun games sober..." Silence. Good times.
I wouldn't normally make a comment like that, but when I was in Spain on my study abroad I had an experience that changed my perspective. All of us in the program lived with families, except for two of the guys who lived in an apartment with two other guys also on studies abroad but from different schools, one from the States and one from China. The kid from the States would go out drinking almost every night with some of the other kids from his program and we would come over to the apartment to play games or watch a movie. We would always invite the 3rd roommate to stay and at first you could tell that he was thinking, "These kids are crazy." But one night he stayed. And pretty soon he was staying every time. And it occurred to me that he had never experienced a sober night in that was fun: he didn't know you could have fun without drinking.
So now sometimes I say things like "I dunno, I've played a lot of fun games sober..." And sometimes that is awkward, but sometimes it helps you make a new friend. So...worth it?
The "barbeque" itself was actually really fun, despite the absence of hamburgers and hotdogs. We had a really good time talking with everyone who was there about all kinds of stuff from school to home renovations (the couple hosting the get-together had just put in a new glass sliding door and were in the process of re-doing their bathroom as well) to ridiculous tech support questions. There were a few awkward silences, as there always are with a group of people just getting to know each other, but only one of those was caused by me. A comment was made about how any game is more fun as a drinking game and I said, "I dunno, I've played a lot of fun games sober..." Silence. Good times.
I wouldn't normally make a comment like that, but when I was in Spain on my study abroad I had an experience that changed my perspective. All of us in the program lived with families, except for two of the guys who lived in an apartment with two other guys also on studies abroad but from different schools, one from the States and one from China. The kid from the States would go out drinking almost every night with some of the other kids from his program and we would come over to the apartment to play games or watch a movie. We would always invite the 3rd roommate to stay and at first you could tell that he was thinking, "These kids are crazy." But one night he stayed. And pretty soon he was staying every time. And it occurred to me that he had never experienced a sober night in that was fun: he didn't know you could have fun without drinking.
So now sometimes I say things like "I dunno, I've played a lot of fun games sober..." And sometimes that is awkward, but sometimes it helps you make a new friend. So...worth it?
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