Game Night ~ At the Games!

Well, first, the close of yesterday's post wasn't quite accurate.  The skirt is lined, but still see-through in
sunlight.  I'm not a big enough celebrity to let people see through my skirt so I put on a slip.  I've found in the past that a half-slip and lining and skirt get in each others' way, so I opted for a full slip.  Parts of me were under five layers of fabric but the layers were still light and comfortable.  That's good: it was over 90 that day and a little warm in the house.

Foreground: Meg, C, D, and Cards Against Humanity

We got to the games a bit late, but people were still coming in.  There were about ten people already there and probably thirty people said they were going to be there.

People were sitting around the dining/living room arguing about the fine points of some science fiction show I wasn't familiar with.  We joined in when appropriate and introduced ourselves to whoever was nearby or coming in.  One guy, D, came in wearing a Queens College sweatshirt.  I asked if that was his alma mater (since it was mine) and it was.  He lived even closer to the college than I did.  It turned out we had other things in common and we joined him and a woman, C, who came in with someone we had played games with at other game nights.  Charity, D, and C all had played Settlers of Catan and there was a Star Trek version that D wanted to play.  It turns out the game isn't that difficult but depends on a bit of luck and the dice didn't like me much that night.  I started catching up near the end of the game but finished in a solid fourth place.

We were looking for a quick game and someone had laid out several decks of Cards Against Humanity, a suggestive if not downright dirty game.  The idea is, each player in turn pulls out a black card which has a sentence with one or two blanks and you have to pull out one (or two) white cards from your hand to match the blanks.  "Match" is loose ~ the player who chose the black card picks the best white card, and best might be funniest, most random, best fit... whatever the player decides.  So it's a fun and funny game.  We started with the same four players and two more guys joined at different points.  No-one was very serious about winning and losing (but when we left, I was tied with C.  I kept telling the other players "I'm pretty funny".  By the end, they agreed).

We had fun, met a lot of people, not one who minded or cared about or noticed (yeah, right) how I was presenting.  In fact, Charity and I were relative newcomers, and C was brand new, and I didn't see a difference between how I was treated and how they were treated.

Four other little notes:

* pronouns and such were always appropriate, although I thought I heard D refer to me as "he" at one point, but I might have misunderstood.  It was all "ladies" or "girls" or "guys" (hey, I do that too) and "she" and "her."  No prompting necessary, ever.

* as we were leaving, we stopped in the kitchen where a woman in her 20s and an older guy were playing blitz (speed chess).  I stopped to watch ~ I can't resist a chess game.  The guy had good position but made a couple of unforced errors and he lost the game.  But the players in the other room thought we had left so I had a few "fly on the wall" moments.  I heard my name mentioned, but in relation to the games and wondering if I had gone out with some of the other gamers.  Nothing was said that couldn't be said to my face, nothing about my being, um, a bit out of place, or anything that implied I wasn't just another girl gamer.  We (girl gamers) made up maybe a quarter of the group. 

* after the chess game, I spoke with the players briefly and the woman, looked at me and out of the blue said "you have beautiful eyes."  I said "thank you.  My parents made them for me."  Little things like that make my day.  (The compliment, not the eyes.)

* the next day, I found that several gamers (including the woman in the kitchen) sent me a "good to see you" (kind of a meetup "like") after the game.

Bottom line: if you haven't been out, go out!  There's a world out there that doesn't mind if you want to be yourself.

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