Why My Table Only Sits Four

There’s a game night that runs out of a shop near Wayland Square most Fridays, eight to ten people rotating through whatever’s on the table, and people keep telling me I’d like it. I probably would, in the moment. I still don’t go, and it’s not because of the games, it’s because I’ve got a table at home that seats exactly four and I’ve come to think that’s not a limitation, it’s the actual point.

Marisol, Petey, sometimes one of Petey’s exhibits-department friends if someone’s out sick, that’s the table. Same handful of people most weeks, which means everyone already knows how everyone else plays, who takes forever on a real decision and who needs a reminder that yes, actually, attacking is allowed. That familiarity does something a rotating eight-person table can’t, the game stops being the whole event and starts being the thing happening while the actual event, whatever gets said between turns, unfolds around it. We talk and eat something Marisol brought and it’s not a bad time, just nothing that needs to be thrilling to be worth showing up for.

I think about this the same way I think about a specimen display, honestly. You can cram a case full of thirty different birds and it’ll look impressive from the doorway and mean nothing up close, or you can put four birds in there with room to actually see each one, and somehow the smaller case tells you more. I don’t think that’s a strained comparison. A big rotating game night is the crowded case. My Thursday table is the other kind, four things, seen properly.

The honest downside is that I don’t play the newest hot release the week it comes out, since I’m waiting for whoever’s turn it is to bring it, and I’ve missed things I would’ve enjoyed because the timing never lined up with our four. That’s a real cost. I’ve made my peace with it. What I get back is a table where nobody’s a stranger, where the story from three weeks ago is still something we’re referencing, and where I never once have to explain who I am before explaining what happened at game night. Small trade, worth it every time.