I’ve been feeling a little isolated lately.

That’s kind of my fault. Rejecting the major social networks is both healthy and righteous, but it closes a number of windows to keeping up with people. We’re COVID-cautious, which means a lot traditional avenues of socialization are closed to us, especially while we’re in Winter.

For example:

I’m not gaming at game stores, and that means tournaments are entirely out of the picture. They’ve fired up Infinity tournaments at Huzzah Hobbies again and, although I’m not doing tournaments… if they’re gonna do tournaments, it’s a good thing they’re doing Infinity tournaments. I might feel some residual possessiveness, but I’ve been not running Infinity tournaments longer than I ran them, so it’s unquestionably good that the scene is moving on. I want it to be successful! So, I swung by to say hello, wish everyone luck, and drop off some prize support.

I feel like: every time I crawl out of my hole, I quickly smack into evidence that what we’ve been doing is absolutely the right thing. I was the only person masked. A stranger decided to lecture me on an understanding of herd immunity that isn’t applicable here. Friends said they’d had COVID-19 three times, five(!) times. I got some “It sucks,” “It’s no big deal,” and “I’ve had serious short-term memory issues since” from the same people.

(How you reconcile “no big deal” and “serious memory issues” or “once everyone gets it it’ll go away” and “I’ve had it many, many times”…)

They’re doing what’s right for them… but clearly I won’t be playing in the game store again any time soon.

Anyway that’s the problem. So, solutions:

RPGS – I’m going to give online RPG gaming a shot. I’m years behind everyone else on this, I know, but remember: my normal workday is 6+ hours trapped in web conferences. The idea of doing that recreationally is… challenging… but I miss people, I miss RPGs. So, I’m going to give it a shot next week – my old gang, OSE, Discord, and owlbear.rodeo.

I hope it works. I’m optimistic. Wish me luck. I want it to be successful enough that I just keep doing it, week to week.

Wargaming – As I’ve said: gaming at Huzzah’s not on the table. That’s a bummer… but a couple of times over the past two years, I’ve had someone over to game on the porch (we’ve got a lovely screened-in porch) or (masked) in the basement and it worked great. I need to do that more! I almost certainly would be doing it more if it weren’t for inertia: work tends to be pretty draining and I spend most of my free time painting and it’s just easier to keep doing that. So, I’m going to make an active effort to get folks (especially folks I haven’t gamed with in a while) to come over to the house for some porch gaming or masked basement gaming.

(Well, once I’m done with this damned Arks of Omen terrain: working on terrain really screws up my gaming space.)