Meeple Mania
There was a time — and I know this sounds mythical now — when meeting friends meant talking. Real talking. Not turn-taking, not dice-rolling, not strategy optimization. We used to sit together and share stories, laugh about stupid things, go for a walk after lunch, or decide at 10 p.m. to get ice cream for no reason other than existence felt sweet that night. Now every social interaction has been kidnapped by cardboard, dice, and the cult of “game night.”
You walk into someone’s house and immediately trip over a mountain of board games with names like Catan, Gloomhaven, Villainous, and something called Wingspan that looks like an AP biology class disguised as a hobby. Shelves once used for framed photos or candles are now shrines to 46 boxes of emotional torture. And before you even sit down, someone smiles demonically and whispers, “We got a new game…” like they’ve unearthed cursed scriptures from an ancient tomb. Suddenly furniture is being rearranged with NASA-launch precision, chairs dragged into formation, lighting adjusted like it’s a Broadway tech rehearsal, and you realize you’ve accidentally joined a cult.
You don’t even get to speak before a card is shoved into your hand declaring you are a time-traveling witch who must betray your left-hand neighbor while raising imaginary sheep and surviving a fictional plague. Meanwhile, all you wanted to do was check in and ask your friend how they’re doing emotionally, whether their job is destroying their soul, or if their cat still hates them. But conversation is no longer permitted. Feelings are no longer permitted. Only rules, tokens, and suffering are permitted.
And of course, every group has the competitive maniac — that one person who transforms the moment the game begins. Their voice jumps two octaves. They slam pieces, correct everyone’s moves, accuse people of cheating even before the game starts, and aggressively explain rules like a gym teacher who never got therapy. You sit there thinking, “I survived childhood. I survived gym class. I do not deserve this again.” Yet here we are, in adulthood, paying bills and doing taxes, still being screamed at about “NO, THAT’S NOT HOW YOU BUILD A SETTLEMENT!”
Most of the time I’m not even playing like a person. I’m just going through the motions, placing little wooden tokens and flipping cards while the resident Yeller yells the rules directly into my soul. At this point I’m basically a Roomba with a pulse — I nod, I move my piece, I follow instructions, and I silently question every life choice that led me here.
And just when you think things can’t get more humiliating, someone suggests a “fun card game,” which turns out to be a psychological interrogation device designed to expose every dark detail of your existence. Suddenly you’re staring at a question like, “Who in this group is most likely to sleep with their boss?” Excuse me? Why do we need to ruin lives tonight? Why do we need to cause lasting emotional damage in between sips of LaCroix? Why is casual hanging-out now an emotional minefield?
Some games go on forever. Hours. Whole geological eras pass while you sit on an increasingly painful chair, your butt cheeks screaming for mercy, while your dinner sits there, getting colder, untouched, forbidden. Because apparently you cannot eat near the sacred board. You cannot even breathe too strongly near it. These people have such intense, obsessive, surgical standards for board-game cleanliness that you feel like you’re playing inside an operating theater. God forbid a single molecule of food touch the box — they will have a meltdown large enough to shift the Earth’s axis.
And then there are the card games that come with QR codes. Or demand an app download. Or force you to open a browser and “log in to join the game.” Suddenly everyone’s head is bent over their phone, tapping, swiping, scanning, troubleshooting, resetting WiFi, forgetting their passwords, pretending they have good eyesight. How ironic that we invited each other over to spend time together only to immediately dive back into the dark rectangle of doom. If we were going to stare into our phones all night, we could’ve done that alone, in bed, without pants.
Even planning a trip with friends has been corrupted. You suggest going hiking, or taking your bikes, or playing badminton, and they interrupt with, “No, no… we meant board games. Which ones are you bringing?” Sorry, I thought we were going to enjoy nature. Not carry a 40-pound box into the wilderness so we can recreate civilization on a picnic table.
And the worst insult of all? We already have entertainment. We have phones, apps, streaming, puzzles, memes, conversations, hearts, memories, stories. We have each other’s human company — or at least we used to. But somehow, instead of sinking into that warm space of connection, we choose to sit in rigid chairs, for hours, with rules thicker than textbooks, being psychologically tortured, yelled at, emotionally dissected, interrogated, and starved. All in the name of “bonding.”
By the end of the night, you stumble home emotionally malnourished, physically exhausted, spiritually deflated. You leave knowing absolutely nothing about your friends’ real lives — but knowing exactly who among them would commit fraud, treason, arson, murder, and war crimes for a pile of imaginary victory points.
As I crawl into bed, my butt numb and my soul hollow, I whisper one small request to the universe: Next time, kindly disclose the board game in advance so I can devote myself fully to the noble craft of not showing up.
