What Kind of "Fun" are You?

You could read a book or ride a roller coaster. Or, you could destroy your friends and family at Wordle.

There was this opinion piece in the New York Times recently about fun. As in, what is it? How do you define it? And why are we, as humans, drawn to it?

There are different definitions of fun. There’s social fun, as in connecting with or providing for others, like joining a knitting club or cooking for your friends. There’s contentment fun, which is gardening or reading a book. Ecstatic fun is riding a roller coaster.

Then there’s my type of fun: Achievement Fun.

There’s a little quiz (they clarify that it’s very unscientific, more Buzzfeed than biology) to find out which type of fun you are. Brad laughed at me when I told him my results because Brad (contentment/social fun) always hates when I plan something FUN and it’s trying to lift as much weight as possible or go wit-to-wit with a quick-minded person or absolutely destroying him in any type of board game. (Note: We never play board games, which I think are fun, likely because I get too competitive.)

I think baking is fun, but not because I find contentment in it – in fact, I find it the opposite, I think it’s super fucking stressful. But what I love is having the book cracked open on the recipe and getting everything lined up and absolutely tearing into this cake/croissant/loaf/whatever and making it the most beautiful, delicious god damn thing you ever saw or tasted.

Still riding high from this beauty from January 2021.

What’s not fun? Losing to my mom at Wordle every day. I know you may say, but, wait, it’s actually not a game you lose to someone? You’re playing a computer? And it doesn’t say win or lose? But that’s not true, because every morning I wake up to a text from “Crazy Evelyn Flatley”, as she is saved in my phone, with no context that says “WORDLE 2/6”. (There’s one waiting for me as I type this for sending out.) I sit there on the toilet cursing a screen of grey and yellow boxes wondering why the hell they haven’t just done BEAST yet so that I can win in one guess and finally get a W against the woman who gave me the greatest competition of all – life. (lol)

Even writing my (lowercase) decaf drafts (hi fans!) started out as achievement fun. At the beginning of the year, I made it my goal to write one newsletter a week. Spoiler alert: I have not done that. Which is not fun.

But! I’m trying to learn:

1) It’s OK to not be perfect about it, if you’re having fun while writing it (contentment fun?), who cares

2) Don’t be so precious about your posts either. Achievement is just doing it. You’re not going for awards here; your draft doesn’t have to sit in (actual) drafts and be reworked and reworked, you can use it as what it’s meant for, just write and hit send and be done with it and

3) I don’t have a third point I’m having FUN!!

I’m trying to be better about not seeing everything so black and white, win or lose, and maybe focusing more on the contentment fun or social fun of it all.

That said, if anyone wants to play a board game, let me know. I’ll bring a cake.

I fucked up this croquembouche on hour 10 and it was not fun. (But it still tasted good!)