TRIVIA KEEPS ME SANE
A COUPLE OF YEARS AGO, my friend Alex invited me to a weekly trivia game that he was hosting at a pub 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 was pregaming by quizzing one another on US 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 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
