TRIVIA KEEPS ME SANE
A COUPLE YEARS AGO, my friend Alex invited me to a weekly trivia game that he was hosting at a Manhattan dive bar called McSwiggan’s. I liked the idea of cheap beer and some pretext to keep drinking it on what might have been an otherwise dull Thursday night. But when I got there, things immediately felt tense. One camp of finance guys were pregaming by quizzing one another on state capitals that they shouted out as if they were buying stocks. A crew of college students huddled at the bar, using trivia apps to bone up on a bunch more random facts. Then Alex took the microphone to ask questions about topics that everyone was taking way too seriously: ’90s sitcoms, NFL history, and movies about the Mafia.
My team consisted of a group of friends plus friends of friends—the plodding way that adults seek to expand their social circles after their 20s. We were novices and lost convincingly. Normally, I’m an ultra-competitive guy who turns everything, including tests, board
