I really, really love being alone. I fantasize about renting a cabin somewhere in the mountains and being completely by myself to read, write, sleep, hike, and cross stitch. But I also really, really love people: my family, my friends, and my students. I just need properly scheduled time for both of these sides of myself. Recently my husband and I watched Game Night with Justin Bateman and Rachel McAdams and it totally took me back to the summer after senior year, when a bunch of my friends and I would meet to hangout and play board games fairly often. I know, I know, I know. It sounds slightly lame, but I don't care. I would love to have those nights back! And now we can legally drink! It made me think of what sort of groups I'd like to be a part of as an adult, since the days of all of those easily accessible activities of our youth are gone. I was in Brownies, softball, Science Olympiad, Academic Decathlon, the Speech Team, volleyball and basketball in middle school, and a slew of less formal things like the aforementioned game nights. If I had more time and energy I'd start or join the following:
Game Night: I'm not letting this go, guys! I seriously don't know what could be better than hanging out at my house with my friends playing Apples to Apples, Scateggories, Scrabble, Cards for Humanity or ping pong, when I, ya know, actually get one.
A Writer's Group: This would probably be incredibly motivating for me, since I am a slave to deadlines and fulfilling my obligations. There would be no way that I'd show up to a meeting without making progress on whatever I was supposed to share. This would also be a challenge for me, since I can be really self-conscious when it comes to what I do write (says the girl whose dream career is novelist).
Dinner Club: I know people who have done this before, host dinner parties based on a cook book or country or some other theme. It can be done a variety of ways, whether the host provides the meal or it's more of a potluck. Whatever. Just let me have people over to my house to cook for and then let me go to theirs.
A Bowling League: The problem with this is that I suck at bowling. If I break 100 it's a good day, let's just leave it at that. My mom is really good and is in a league, which makes me lack of skill even more disappointing. Nonetheless, I LOVE bowling and would love to go more.
A Feminist Book Club: I am already in a book club at work, which is a lot of fun, but the idea of being in one that centers on feminist texts is also appealing to me. It could be fiction or non-fiction, and the group could also go to marches and protests- maybe I'm getting carried away. But still. We could all read Gloria Steinem and complain about the glass ceiling or whatever.
If you live locally and would like to start any of these and ask me to join I'd be totally down [insert three winking smiley faces here].
Not lame at all. My husband still speaks fondly of his Thursday night "gin rummy and pizza" tradition with a group of friends he had like 15 years ago. Just pure fun. And I have a friend group that does dinner club that's ingredient-themed... they did one with garlic, one with mushrooms, etc. (every course has that ingredient featured).
ReplyDeleteIt's great "social time with boundaries" for introverts.