The Attraction of Possibility

Sh*t (stuff) happens

Talia knocked on the door and sighed. Woe after woe, she had no idea why she even bothered to go out on dates. They were all just the same. Was there something just inherently about her that she kept attracting the type of guy who sounded good on texts but never translated in real life? This was becoming a ridiculous regular occurrence. Surely even Liam was tired of *Another guy, always another guy? Ok let's unpack your dating woes.*

When they first met at the annual international board game tournament from the insistence of their mutual friend Al, she didn't think much of it. More the merrier to make a win for the team right? They won of course.

Over weekly game nights, they bonded over their mutual interest of food, particularly the importance of specific gaming snacks, travel (came with their day jobs) and Marvel films. After the group game nights disbanded when life got busy, they still kept talking and started to delve into the woes of dating. They were simply friends though. One that she could count on regardless if he wasn't in the same timezone or city. A guy who always showed up for her with no question of doubt. Needless to say it did cross her mind once; maybe there was to it than that.

Everything about their friendship was simple and easy, so it was a no brainer to air it out in the open. Once they did, it was pretty clear that it was more of an older brother and sister kinda vibe with no romantic undertones. So that was it. She felt most like herself when she was around him and at home and didn't have to second guess anything.

Liam opened the door, "Don't tell me."

"Yep. Again what else is new? I don't wanna talk about it," sighed Talia.

"Course not, haven't you heard about the new game Sh*t Happens {Stuff Happens}. Life could always get a lot more worse than a bad date."

"Let's go then, what are we waiting for?"

Liam ushered Talia to the coffee table where the game was laid out with their favourite snacks. They both sat down on the fluffy floor cushions and Talia smiled and asked, "So what's the story here?," while munching on a soft pretzel bite. They were so good, Liam actually knew how to bake unlike Talia.  So whenever she came over, she made the most of it. Liam smiled, "You good?," and reached for a pigs in a blanket and dipped it in tomato sauce. Talia nodded. They both ate in comfortable silence.

He pulled out the game rules map and said, "How about we dispense with the official game rules eh? Just to make it more fun."

"Sure I'm up for it, what's the play here?"

"Alrighty, we get three cards each and we order them based on the misery index rank to create a lane of pain. We each take turns drawing a card, and the other person has to guess where the scenario card sits in their lane of pain. If they get it right, they win the card. But if not, the drawer gets to keep it. First person to reach eight cards and has the worst scenario story wins."

Talia smiled, "Sounds fun, I need a bit of cheering up."

"Coming right up," said Liam while shuffling the cards deck and dealing out their cards.

Talia looked at her cards and laughed.

"Ok, I've got: Don't hear the tornado coming, 99.2. World's most wanted terrorist using my name as an alias, 76.1. And Internet connection goes out Error 404, 7.1. I would argue internet going out would be worse than the tornado. How could you not hear a tornado coming? I got super sensitive hearing so this scenario is not possible. What did you get?"

Liam smiled and peered at his cards, "Just can't help the analyst brain eh? I got: Slam your hand in a car door, 22."

Talia giggled, "Omgosh remember the time where you did that? And you were still texting me and I just like what are you doing? And you weren't even using Siri, you was just typing with one hand. I don't Have no idea how you did that."