Who knows when it started? Hi Ho Cherry-O? A version of Monopoly on the Commodore 64? An old version of Life? Clue? Scrabble? Old Maid? Pool? Wherever the root, I caught a game bug.
The games I mean are two or more players. The material medium involves boards, cards, tiles, dice, and various instructions. The rules are generally variations trying to get a particular result by chance and playing against different actions to gain the maximal probability of an arbitrarily determined victory. All that is to say that games mix skills and luck. I can pick the rules apart in any number of different ways, display the beautiful logics of different games, and love them for it.
However, with games formalism depicts only a part of the whole. In the mechanics other players are implied; around game tables, they are actually there. They act as sociable ways to get to know people, as I get to know how the other person chooses and how those choices differ from my choices. It creates an implicit oath where adherence to the rules and to fair play encourage trust. When a fellow enthusiast for the same kind of games becomes apparent, it becomes a point of common interest. When the games require actual talking, as in trivia or party games, the game acts as a conversation prompter. Thus, the island of formal rules transforms into a metropolis of interactions.
I have been a restrained person for a long time. Sometimes I find silence more comfortable than talking. In games, I don't have to worry about making the other uncomfortable if I don't have to talk, and it becomes a zone of low-level communication anyhow. If it's a good game, it will soon lead to other conversations, more utterances. Some of my best friends in the past have come from games and sports. And I miss the opportunities to play with lots of different people that I had before. Perhaps I'll find them gradually.
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