3/8/10 - Change.
Tonight, there’s a feeling of nostalgia that I just can’t shake. I guess it’s a feeling like the end of an era is drawing near on my social life lately. I forced a few friends to go with me to the weekly pub quiz at Fado back in December 2008 and the holidays prevented me from going again until mid-January 2009. Once I started going in January, I made it a mission to make the quiz a weekly event and actively campaigned to get people to go with me. I knew one of my shift managers from a job I was working at the time would be up for the event, and once I dragged him to one, he was set. For a while, the pub quiz team was me, the shift manager, his girlfriend, one of the guys in my improv troupe, and his girlfriend. The team limit was always set at six, and I don’t think we’ve ever had a static sixth member. People have come and gone when filling that sixth chair. It’s typically a rotating cast, but the core of the group was always the other five. Some weeks, one of those couples couldn’t go. Rare were the instances when both couples couldn’t attend.
The team chugged through some mediocre performances before we became comfortable with the Geeks Who Drink format and learned how to actively prepare. My Mondays practically revolved around getting off work, driving to Fado, eating dinner and studying for the quiz. While in this weekly ritual, I only skipped one week in March 2009. I was able to go until sometime around October before missing another week.
Eventually, my team had become synonymous with the elite teams in the field. We’d turn up the occasional crummy performance, but that would mean something like finishing in the top 50% of a field with over 25 teams. We’d usually finish in the top three or four.
Winning was fun and felt good, but I found something far more enjoyable about Fado: the company. My server turned out to be incredibly awesome and I would arrive early enough before the quiz started that the rest of the restaurant was mostly dead. When my server had few other tables, we would wind up talking. Some weeks, she would have the night off and I got to repeat the process with other servers. Through introductions by my primary server, I got to meet just about everyone that worked Monday nights in 2009. But more than just meeting these people, I tried really hard to have genuine conversations with all of them. I learned about their interests, collegiate backgrounds, hometowns, families and significant others. I genuinely cared about all of them and I still do.
Somewhere along this process, the quiz became less important to me on Monday nights and my relationships with all of these people began to take focus. Before I started working an 8 to 5 job, I was encouraged to stay after every few weeks and really catch up with the employees after they finished working (and started drinking). I wound up at a few birthday parties, got invited to the employee holiday party (but chose not to attend… I think that’s a night they should truly enjoy one another without worrying about customers) and wound up friends with many of them.
I became a Monday regular, but moreso than a person who shows up every week for a pub quiz. I was known by my first name by servers who had never met me before. People knew what I wanted to drink before I even ordered. It was awesome.
I liked competing in pub quizzes and winning a fair share, but I really enjoyed setting aside time each week to catch up with people from a completely different social sphere. It was nice, it felt fulfilling, and I looked forward to it each week.
Eventually, I started working an 8 to 5 job and couldn’t stay out late. Soon after that, Fado cut ties with Geeks Who Drink and struggled to take the reins of their pub quiz back. They still do a pretty good job with it, but I do prefer the effort of 50+ writers from Geeks Who Drink over the seeming 3-5 at Fado.
Tonight, I learned my primary server got a really good job offer in a field she actually cares about. I’m really excited for her because as long as I’ve known her, she wanted to get a job like this one. Now the timing works out, but that means no more pub quizzes for her.
There are still people I will look forward to seeing each week at Fado, but it’s a pretty devastating blow when the one person I felt closest to is going to be gone. It’s hard to encourage my teammates to go as well. They’ve all become busy in a way that most can’t do Monday night with great regularity anymore. There was a stretch where I would be the ONLY person on my team to show up for weeks. I usually still had a lot of fun with the people at Fado, but it’s still hard to go week in and week out when you know there’s not a great chance your friends will come.
I guess it’s a feeling I’ve had for a while… One that I’m sure most people experience where things are great the way they are and you don’t want them to change, but they have to (and they probably should). College was much better than high school, but I was far too naive to realize that as a senior in high school. I was really sad that most of my friends were moving away to other cities in other schools.
It’s the dynamics of relationships. I worked for a coffee shop for about a year before I could find a full-time job. It was a lot of fun, but mainly because of the people I worked with and for. My store had an issue with high turnover (rarely people getting fired… more like people getting better jobs elsewhere) and when each person left, it made it a bit harder for me to go back the next day.
I guess Fado feels the same way. One of my friends who used to work there as a server quit a while ago for personal reasons and it was frustrating to not see her each week. I still make an effort to see her or talk to her at least once or twice a month. Now, she’s moving away because her boyfriend has a really great job opportunity up north. Again, it’s something I’m glad for. But, I’m saddened I will see less of her.
There are lots of great memories, but it’s hard to hold onto the good ones and not wish for things to perpetuate like that. It’s an incredibly selfish feeling, and one I feel really guilty for at times, but I think it’s human. We want to be happy and we don’t have 100% control of the future to guarantee that we will be happier than in the status quo. Yet, part of life is making that jump forward regardless of how great things are.
It sounds stupid, but the best analogy I can think of in my slightly inebriated state is some of the levels of Super Mario Bros. 3 where the screen is constantly shifting to the right. You can either keep up with the pace of the screen and keep moving right, or your will be forced to do so by the inherent nature of the level’s programming. Standing still will work for only so long.
Wow, that’s a lame analogy, but it’s the best I’ve got right now. I like standing still. I’m someone who puts a lot of effort into the things I choose to do and I like to soak up the good qualities inherently related to them. I’m learning to change, but it’s taking time. I guess life forces us all to learn how to change.
