I enjoy a number of genres (extraction shooters, for one example) that my particular friend group just doesn’t seem to have any interest in. But I find that any desire to have a go-to group to play these games with is dwarfed by a lack of the emotional energy and time required to forge a new relationship from scratch.

I (and my wife as well, actually) have accepted sometime ago that perhaps we just do not have the bandwidth to expand our social group at this point. We have our established friends, and while we regularly encounter other adults and say “oh they’re really nice, we should invite them over/get to know them better”… we never actually do. Friendships are like plants, right? In order to grow and thrive they need attention, they need constant watering, especially at the beginning, or they shrivel and die. And… I don’t know where that attention is supposed to come from.

To use Tolkien’s perfect phrase, “like butter scraped over too much bread,” by the time I’ve given the people already in my life (wife, kids, existing friends, me) the attention they need, there’s nothing left.

So instead, I am content to play these games with my Tyler Durden ‘Single-Serving Friends,’ temporary and superficial acquaintances for a match or two. One-night stands without the commitment of a friend-listing.