50: No-Fun Rhirhi

Is the title official now?

Happy 50th post! With my not-tallied HCMC Restaurant List updates, I’ve actually written more than 50 posts, but I’m still celebrating. Because it’s hard for me to believe I’ve written that many in less than two years and garnered a group of subscribers. Thank you for reading. I appreciate you giving my words your time when they appear in your inbox.

What’s more fun to celebrate 50 than a post about how I don’t think I’m very fun?¹ Ha. But seriously, after listening to a recent Ologies podcast episode where host Alie Ward interviewed someone who is renowned as a sort of science-based fun expert, I think I am right about myself.

The funologist, Catherine Price, asserts that there are three main ingredients to an activity that can be defined as fun: playfulness, which is like a good/open attitude; connection, which means fun things are done with others; and flow, which refers to being totally engrossed in the activity.

SO. All of my alone time? All the activities I enjoy doing alone? They are not fun. Which is part of why I don’t think I’m fun. A bigger part is that I’m not interested in the vast majority of group activities. Board games, team sports, outdoor sports—let’s just say sports—crafts… like many many things to do with others. Another part is that I run on a low energy, chill vibe, which is why doing anything that requires me to be more physical is not enticing. Correction, I love to be physical; I walk as much as I can. But organized physical activity is not really my thing.

For instance, some coworkers often go to an indoor badminton centre to play. I like badminton and do think it would be fun to join them. But I just want to play in the street or the nearby park like neighbourhood kids do. I don’t want to hire a bike to go to the place to pay the money to do the thing. The time spent on the fun will only be like one-third of the total time spent on the activity, and so it feels like too much effort to me—this is why I always tried to live a short walk away from any gym I belonged to.

I’m difficult AND no fun.

However, given it’s a special 50th post, I thought I would reflect on moments when I did have fun or how I know I do have fun. I want to provide evidence to you and myself that despite feeling like an alien when I listened to that podcast, I have had true moments of fun with all three ingredients. In no particular order, here are memories of me having fun or my fun ways.

• All meals I have/had that involve other people. At this point in my life, given my interest in food and dining, eating with others is probably how I have the most fun. I love long meals, and I especially love long meals with others. Because I love conversation. Yes, okay fine, when it’s only me by myself, it’s not as fun. But I have an annoying trick to make it a little more so. I find a way to have a conversation with someone, whether it’s me being that (great/terrible) person who sits next to you at the bar and finds a reason to have a mini or meal-long chat with you or me having mini chats with the staff—I’ve found a way to make all forms of my dining fun.

• For four summers in my tween years, my family rented a lake cabin for a couple of weeks with close family friends. At the time, their daughter was my best friend. I have an affinity for badminton because of those summers, as her and I would often play. We’d bring the boombox outside to the patch of grass and listen to our latest album purchases on tape that we had brought with us while trying to volley as many times as we could. But what I remember more about the fun I had those summers was when it was had during card games. At night, our parents would often play more difficult games that we didn’t know, but eventually during the afternoons, after a few cribbage and hearts lessons from the dads, some of us kids would set up a table on the dock after a swim and play while we dried off. Hours could pass without notice. I haven’t played cards in so long, but’s it’s definitely a way I have had fun in the past.

• When I was 17 years old, I went to my first Edmonton Folk Music Festival. Some friends who were fans pooled their money together to get me tickets for my birthday because they knew I had never been. I experienced it with my closest friend from my high school and loved that first exposure. Back then, people would camp overnight in a line along the outer fence of the festival grounds to secure an advantageous spot for the morning tarp run to claim the area where you would sit for the day’s music. My friend and I decided we would try it for the last day, and I don’t remember if it was because we wanted good seats for a certain musician or if we wanted to do it just because. It was probably the latter. It was us trying to be silly and spontaneous and unlike our usual selves. Her family was a seasoned Folk Fest group and regularly camped, so they had all the gear for us. We didn’t sleep, it was chilly, and I was in line with her dad for most of the morning because she had to go to her part-time job. But it was fun. We chatted with others in line, and we just chatted as teenage girls as we tried to make the best of a rather boring situation. The process was fun, and the result was a good spot on the hill. Win-win.

• Alcohol-fuelled revelry. Alcohol came up in the podcast and discussed as how it can help some people be more open to fun. I would be one of those people. I have had many, too many to mention, fun times that involve being tipsy—maybe the majority of my adult fun times involve alcohol. Dancing, karaoke, chatting with strangers, making new friends. All have been more fun because of lowered inhibitions. I’m louder, funnier, and more up for anything. Of course downsides can occur, and they have, but there’s no denying that I’m more fun after a glass of wine.

• Speaking of dancing, possibly one of the shortest-lived and greatest moments of fun in my life happened while doing the salsa. For a few months in my late 20s, I took lessons both alone and with friends as simply something to do. It wasn’t to meet men or make friends; I was a little bored. I didn’t love it enough to make it a new hobby (see organized physical activity above), especially as progressing meant more events and parties and strangers. I just wanted to go to class, and that wouldn’t take me far. One class, I got to be the momentary partner of our instructor. He was a gigantic man with a smile to match. Anyone who saw him dance couldn’t help but rhapsodize on his skill and showmanship. After outlining the steps of a new move, he often would choose a student to demo with him. All I really needed to remember was my step counting, because he could lead like nobody’s business. I remember nothing but maybe 90 seconds of twirling and smiling and feeling light as air as he moved me across the floor. It was so fun.

• Cooking with others. I don’t enjoy others in my kitchen. It’s a control and perfectionism thing. If I’m cooking you dinner, let me do it. My way. There’s a plan in my head, and for me to be able to present you with the meal I had dreamed of, it’s just best if I execute it alone. Plus, I have a hang up about wanting my dinner parties to be like restaurant experiences, in that you are coming to my house to relax. You don’t have to do anything but eat and chat. In someone else’s kitchen? Let me help, give me a job! Or a dinner party arranged for us to cook together? Love them. I’ve been part of a few and thought they were heaps of fun. Cooking classes with friends, too, have been enjoyable. I think in all cases, I can happily recognize that it was the process that was the best, and that connecting with friends while doing an activity I already enjoy is fun for me.

And now I’m out of thoughts and memories. A moment like this is when I view myself as not fun (only seven bullets?), and I extend those views to how I fear I am not a very engaging teacher to children. I don’t identify with so many ways that people have fun, and I feel odd. Not odd enough to change myself, mind you, but odd enough to feel separate. A position I know well.

I seem to only have fun doing activities where conversation is involved. When I think back to when I played team sports as a child, what was more fun to me was the trip to Dairy Queen after the soccer game with some teammates rather than the game itself. Talking is always my favourite part.

I also think back to the pandemic, when conversation seemed like the only way to have fun: walks or chats outside with people or the latter over a video call. According to the funologist, all of the cooking and baking I did wouldn’t be considered fun because there was no connection. (I’ll still argue it was fun but) Maybe me posting Instagram photos a few times a week of all my wares for those two and a half years was my attempt to bring connection into it.

I’m thankful that the funologist does view conversation as fun, because like before, video calls are how I have fun right now with the people I love who are far away; people I want to have fun with.

People who I hope enjoy moments with No-Fun Rhirhi.

Maybe having fun here

1. I’m actually having dinner at my favourite restaurant tonight, so that might be better.