25 Comments

Huh. Every once in a while, your stories of playing games tempt me to try out the local gaming shop. Then I regain my sanity. 😉

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Do it! Once you turn to the dark side, there's no going back.

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I think Lila was a good fake name for Delilah, because the similarity mandated paying closer attention to reading your newsletters.

The concept of man play dates seems wondeful to me. I admire the effort Peter put into preparations. If I can convince my few mates, we'll definitely take inspiration from both of you, because I think we'd have good fun pulling such a big game session, playing on more than one set of a given title (though we usually stick to video games). As for the time resisting, here's a comparison. I asked my dad for some more details on his Gettysburg sessions, and he said his first attempt lasted just ten minutes!

The most regular guests in my family's house are the family of my aunt and uncle (plus their children - my cousins), who live about hundred meters up the hill ridge. The cleaning of our respective houses before each visit depends on whether it's an official or unofficial occasion. When it's official, we are cleaning. When it's unofficial, we are also cleaning, only a bit less😉.

I'm an introvert, but have views similar to yours on having people around me (or like you described it "never more than a closed door away"). As much as I like solitude, my life would be so terrifyingly empty without family and few mates around. Also, it's hard and fun only to a point playing some games by myself.

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If they're only a few hundred meters away, they basically already live at your house. No reason to clean up. As for Gettysburg, you've piqued my interest again. I'll check Steam and see if it's available for download. I bet it is.

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Jan 22Edited

I need non-family people around about once every month, seriously. I must admit when we were younger and our kids were playing on several sports teams over the course of twenty years, we had many friendships based on that and we were together all the time. I think that did us in for the rest of our lives. And thank you for recognizing that Lola and women friends have actual serious conversations and not just about curtains and celebrity gossip which is what a lot of men think is all we talk about.

That picture of the game gave me the heebie jeebies....reminded me too much of Battleship which a former boyfriend used to insist on us playing. Let me tell you my heart was not in it.

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Forcing someone to play a game they don't want to play is the surest way to kill attraction. Ask me how I know. Games Lola hates never make it to the table again. At least not until man play dates.

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Wow, this looks like fun!

Like a sophisticated game of Risk.

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As long as you don't mind being systematically crushed over a series of hours, it's great fun.

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Hubby and I have the same dynamic that you and Lola have. As a result, he has man play dates often, and I love that! Works well for both of us. He found a slot car racing group (Mondays, all men of course) and he volunteers at a small rum room as a tiki bartender Thursday nights. I'm not kidding. He's an optometrist by day. He loves having people around him at all times. I recharge alone. All good. We do have game nights with another couple some weekends (our neighbors) and that's just right for me. He also still does guy weekends a couple weekends a year with old college buddies. So I totally get it!

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Volunteer bartender sounds like a fun hobby. Actually, all of his hobbies sound great. Maybe I need to be his friend.

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It's all about strategy 💪

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Or, in my case, a lack thereof.

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WW2? I thought men thought about the Roman Empire?

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I think you 2 would get along great! Too bad we don’t live in the Indianapolis area anymore. We did years ago!

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Oops this response was meant for James's response to me above. Sorry about that!

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Ugh! Please go back to using Lila. Too complicated to keep track of something new and Delilah has too many syllables. It doesn’t read as well. And since you pretty much always reference her with Peter it’s fine. Really. Please.

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If it's any consolation, there's a better than even chance I'll forget and go back.

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My nephew (and my brother in law) has requested that I make a visit just for Axis and Allies, I've been told I need a full day empty of other plans. The issue is that there's no way my husband has the stamina for a whole day game, so my sister is going to have to plan something to do with him while we play. Timing TBD, since every time we plan a visit it is instantly filled with activities.

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You got me there... there’s no way in hell I could play anything with that many pieces. I too would be knocking things over left and right and, honestly, that would be way too much time with people. I’m Lola on steroids these days. People bad, alone good. We had a pipe burst and people in and out of my house with more coming. I may crawl into a corner and let everyone else handle it. Nah. I’m also a perfectionist who can’t let anyone do anything without my supervision. I thought I’d lose that trait as I got older, instead it’s gotten worse.

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I'm in Lola's group of people. As a social worker, I people all day long. When I come home, the last thing I want to do is be social. My favorite way to pass time is to read, play games on my phone, paint or watch TikTok. That being said, I recently got a D&D set. In my mind, I envision some great set up eventually with several players, but in reality, I will probably only play it with my husband and son.

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My hubby used to do game nights with friends from work but changed employers and it wasn’t as often. Then one guy had kids, while the rest of them had older kids that weren’t as time consuming. Eventually it just stopped. I enjoyed my quit evening when it was hosted elsewhere and enjoyed making snacks when it was at our house then I would read a book. We are getting more introverted as we get older and I’m ok with that. We are empty nesters for over a decade and get to enjoy the quiet. No more traveling to gymnastic meets up to 300 miles away. No more weekend birthday parties. No more trying to do all the housework on the weekend because I don’t work outside the house. We enjoy our weekends of doing as little as possible most of the time. Rarely, if ever, does he want to deal with anyone else.

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Jan 22
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Once they know, they know. No need to clean after that.

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Jan 22
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The best time to proofread your text is after you hit Send. LOL

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Talk texting is fun!

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Don't worry, I sometimes have that problem too. I hate discovering typos, as well as what my "beloved" auto-correct invented this time.

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