Stranger Days #4: Fun With Friends

Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes

Welcome to stranger days--my blog series exploring daily life, challenges in times of the COVID-19 pandemic, and just sharing insights or thoughts about how to make it through these days.

The board to the card game, Funemployed
Obviously, I'm thinking a lot about what's going on in the world right now and trying to find a healthy way to think about it, process it, and both be prepared but not overly obsessed with what comes next.  Blogging may seem like a strange way of doing that but it does give me pause to think about things that are helpful, interesting, and worth sharing for folks who might also be reading this and having their own challenging experiences with COVID-19 and its long-term impact.  

Something that I anticipate taking more advantage of in the days and weeks to come is to schedule more video-chats with groups of friends.  This past Sunday, another couple that we regularly hang out with recommended a "check-in" session via Zoom.  It was a good opportunity for all of us to be together and have real talk about what we're navigating and experience in these times.  

But it also turned into something utterly delightful.  We decided to play a game and my partner offered one of my favorite games, Funemployed.  If you have not played this game, I highly recommend it.  You need at least 3 people and its gameplay is akin to Apples to Apples or Cards Against Humanities.  There are 2 sets of cards: job cards and skills cards.  Each round, one person gets to be the Employer who is hiring for a job (selected from the job deck).  They put the card out on the table.  Everyone else gets 4 skills cards dealt to them.  These skills cards are what they need to use in order to pitch why they are qualified for the job.  The goal, of course, is to be as ridiculous with your skills as possible while still being coherent about how they work for the job in question.  The applicant that impresses the Employer the most wins that round and then, the Employer role is moved to the next person. 

Five game cards laid out with the Skills cards being "Really bad aim, Passive Aggressive, Shame, and Uncontrollable Libido".  The Job is "Archaeologist."
How would you use those skills to argue for this job?
So for about 40 minutes (or what ended up being 2 rounds), we played and we laughed hysterically.  One of our friends brought his A-game and started using props and got fully into it.  But everyone, owned their "skills" and we all were hurting with laughter.  Regardless of how we came into the space, we all left feeling a bit lighter and happier that we came together. 

The lesson here for me was that it will continue to be important to regularly spend time having fun with folks; mixing the checking-in and sharing what people are processing with an opportunity to just break free of the weight of this stress and be like a kid--or someone applying for a ridiculous job with outrageous skills.  

Take care. Be careful. Be care-filled.  Welcome to stranger days.



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