Game Night!

There?s Nothing Wrong With A Break From The Bars

So, it?s Thursday night. You hit the bars for Wednesday well drinks last night. Friday and Saturday night will be all about the clubs. Maybe you just need a night to relax and recharge your batteries. But, it doesn?t mean you have to do it alone. Invite some ladies and friends over for game night. It?s a great way to chill and get to know some of the girls you?ve met a little bit better.

The key is to find a game that everyone can enjoy. Yes, I can kick your ass at spades and Scrabble, and yes, you can kick my ass at Risk and Legends of Catan, but most people could care less. All those games are great for showing your knowledge of strategery, but there?s little incentive to be social and does anyone really care if you can rule the world by starting in Australia? On the converse side, everyone knows how to play Monopoly and Life. Roll the dice and move. But, there?s nothing to keep everyone involved and soon everyone is looking for an excuse to really go to jail. (Except if you use real money, but that changes the dynamic of the evening and depending of the laws of your area, could lead to jail, if the cops are out to get you. Which they are. They told me.)

So, the key is to find something that involves more than a simple dice rolling motion (which you could do all by yourself) that doesn?t involve the concentration of total world domination. Here are a few that fit the bill perfectly.

Apples to Apples: A perfect game for making each other laugh. Players are dealt seven red cards that have a noun on them. Then one player plays a green card with an adjective on it. (Trust me though; you don?t need to know grammar.) For example, the green card reads ?Funny.? Then each player gives the person with the green card one of the cards from their hand that represents the closest thing to ?Funny.? It could be ?Charlie Chaplin? or maybe ?Jim Carrey,? but it could be ?Mirrors? or ?Roadkill.? The person with the green card chooses the one that makes the most sense to them, whether it is through logic or just laughter.

The Game of Things: In this game, you?re given a simple phrase, for example, things your parents forgot to tell you. Everyone then writes down something. The person that reads the ?thing? then gathers all the responses. The fun comes from guessing who wrote what. You get points for guessing correctly. Impress the ladies by figuring out that their parents forgot to tell them that strippers make a ton of cash.

Charades: Truthfully, you don?t need a board game for this one (I?ve played it beside a campfire in the middle of the woods, which is a great way to pass an evening), but if you don?t want to put the ladies under the pressure of coming up with their own ideas, it?s a good idea. Everyone?s played it, so it?s easy to start and fun to see how all of your friends approach the words. Bonus points for the ladies if they act out ?flexible? or ?Basic Instinct.?

Scattergories: Starting to get a bit more brainy here, which can be a negative as it can lead to frustration. As long as you keep things breezy though, this can be a fun game. Roll the dice for a letter and then for a list of descriptions, write a word that starts with that letter. Cross your fingers that the ladies always seem to find a way to work in dirty words.

Trivial Pursuit: The brainiest of all the games, it should only be attempted in teams so that no one is sitting there bored off their asses. (Waiting for six people to roll the dice can take forever.) Plus, conferring to each other in whispers as the other team thinks is a great way to move closer. You can?t let the other team hear, can you?

Yes, there are the other games that put you on the dirty path or forced intimacy route quicker. But, to me, those try to hard to get to point of getting to know each other. Letting these games create the atmosphere of sharing and soon the evening will be right where you want it to be, without the awkwardness. Then the game night could become a regular thing. But, it will never replace the clubs.