How to Not Get Invited Back to Game Night

The innocent ask. Brad and Marcus are hosting game night. Sounds fun. Let’s bring a game. What could go wrong?

Until you discover the game night archetypes hidden from you in polite society. Sharon is cut throat leaving nothing but victory in her path. Kevin is the know-it-all with every weird ass rule memorized for games you didn’t even know existed. Brad has gone scorched earth for any and all inefficient play. Marcus is convinced he is going to make it to the World Series of Poker. And here you are. Terrified, surprised and hoping to not get invited to this anthropological experiment again.

Besides fucking dominating every game offered, here are some other ways to make sure not to get invited back to game night but staying friends.

1. Slamming the UNO Fuck Off On The Win

You had three cards. Then Sharon dropped a Draw Four. Then Brad dropped another Draw Four. Then Kevin had the audacity to Skip you. They giggle. They rant. They plot.

Twenty minutes pass. You claw back. You are down to one card. You are not telling anybody you are down to one card because the last time you said "Uno" at this table Sharon nearly flipped the table.

You drop it. Draw fucking four bitches!!!! Game over.

But you don’t send in your victory card alone. Right on top of that winning moment is your Fuck Off Flag. Cementing the point you are not up for a best out of 3. You are done with this and just want to retreat for more snacks.

2. Planting Checkmate Like You Mean It

Kevin wants to play chess. Of course Kevin wants to play chess. Kevin has brought his own board. Kevin has brought a clock. Kevin has, somewhere on his person, a notation pad because Kevin has been waiting for this moment all week.

You hope for some Queen’s Gambit moment that will make chess click for you. Two hours and forty-three minutes later you are three drinks deep watching Kevin explain his own moves to you in the voice of a podcast host. He has said "interesting" so many times you have started counting on a napkin. He took a phone call during your last turn. He came back and said "where were we" like that was a normal thing to say.

And then you see it. The opening. The thing Kevin did not see coming because Kevin was too busy narrating.

You move the bishop. You say it.

Checkmate.

Kevin blinks. Kevin says "wait." Kevin starts moving pieces backward to check his work, which is not how chess works, but Kevin is doing it anyway because Kevin cannot accept what just happened. He lost. To you. A Chess pleeb.

The Fuck Off Flag goes down next to his king before he finishes recounting. Not a slam. A placement. 

Kevin cannot have this happen twice. You are now free and can just live in the beginner’s luck story he will tell from this night on.

3. The Slow Reveal At Poker Night

Marcus has been waiting for this moment since he watched a documentary about Phil Ivey in 2022. Marcus has felt for some time that he was meant for bigger things. Marcus has, on more than one occasion, mentioned the World Series of Poker as something he "could see himself doing eventually." Marcus's kitchen table is, for tonight, the ultimate audition

You hope to maybe break even and go home with a story.

Turns out, Marcus is pretty fucking good. So your play smart and slow is not going to work. He is not dealing with your naivety the same way Kevin did. Fine, new tactic. Chaos it is.

You aren’t going to win or break even but you may break Marcus’s cool. The cockier her gets, while betting, you start placing one of your twelve fuck off flags around the table. Sticking out from your hand as he thinks. Planting in your ever dwindling stack. Throwing behind your ear. Soon the table is awash in new fuck offs for him - he may still win - but at least now everybody had fun during the experience.

4. Sinking Brad’s Battleship

Brad is hosting, which means Brad gets to pick the game, which means we are now playing Battleship at a dinner party for some reason. Brad has set up his fleet like a man who has been waiting for this. The carrier hidden somewhere clever. The destroyers tucked into corners. The submarine at a diagonal nobody ever calls. Brad sat down across from you and said "I haven't played this since I was twelve" in a voice that suggested Brad has played this every Thursday since he was twelve.

You hope to last long enough to finish your drink.

You don't. Brad calls A-1. Hit. Brad calls A-2. Hit. Brad calls A-3. Sunk. Your patrol boat is gone in twelve seconds and Brad is doing this small smile that you would describe, if pressed, as insufferable.

Fine. New plan.

Every time Brad takes a shot you slide a Fuck Off Flag onto the wreckage of whatever he just sank. The patrol boat gets one. The party laughs out loud. You instruct everybody to keep quiet. Brad is losing his mind - what is so FUCKING funny? 

The destroyer gets one. More giggles ensue. Brad is turning slightly more red. His FOMO grows.

By the time your carrier goes down there are four flags on your side of the board and your grid looks less like Battleship and more like a small protest movement in international waters. You are slow crying from holding in the giggles. Brad is growing more impatient on the joke he is the center of.

Brad finally wins. He lunges to turn the board around to see what is so funny. He takes each one and throws them at each one of us around the table. Thanks for giving them back Brad. Always the consummate host.

5. The Twelve-Flag Campaign Against Kevin

Kevin is back. Kevin is always back. It is now late and someone has pulled out Catan and Kevin has, in the last six minutes, used the word "technically" four times, explained the rules to Sharon who has been playing this since 2009, and asked if everyone wants to "house-rule" the robber.

You are tired. You are also still holding the assortment Brad redistributed twenty minutes ago.

Kevin says "technically." A Kindly Fuck Off appears next to his beer.

Kevin takes his phone out during your turn. An Off You Fuck appears on his score sheet.

Kevin starts explaining ore-for-wheat trades to Sharon, who has built three cities in this exact configuration in front of Kevin twice this calendar year. A To Whom It May Concern lands on his player card.

This is the part where it gets out of hand. Sharon clocks what is happening around flag four and starts contributing. Marcus, who came over to refill drinks, drops a Fuck Eww into Kevin's resource pile without breaking stride. Brad - the man who two games ago was hurling these flags back at the table - is now strategically placing them on Kevin's longest road. Brad has switched teams. Brad is now you.

By the end of the night Kevin has accumulated twelve unique flags from at least four different people and has no idea where any of them came from. Kevin keeps looking around the table. Kevin keeps almost catching someone. Kevin keeps just missing it. Kevin is laughing, sort of, in a way that suggests Kevin is not entirely sure if Kevin is in on the joke.

You will not be invited back to play games. But Sharon will text you tomorrow. Brad will text you tomorrow. Marcus will not because Marcus is still processing the poker thing. Three out of four is a great game night.