"So this is a climbing gathering?"
"Sort of. But we're just eating today."
The above was part of a short exchange with an acquaintance, and also describes pretty succinctly what I partake in outside office hours. So 9 months after work started, regular friend activities have simmered to a constant of eating and climbing. [And saving Middle Earth at a leisurely pace (have been on the way to Mordor for 4 years and counting).]
When I go out, eating is always involved in some way or other. If the friends I climb with are my climbing friends, then
almost all my other friends count as... my eating friends. Could be lunch friends, dinner friends, REP-alumni-free-food friends or the
rare supper friends, but it's true that meals seem to be the basis for most
gatherings. I.e. meetings = eatings.
In that case, my climbing friends seem to be the most multipurpose bunch though it's not just because climbs come with at least one meal by default haha. There's lots of other fun things to do together with friends. The interesting thing is: which friends.
So I've noticed that whenever I want to initiate something (go somewhere, play something...), there's always an easiest party to direct the jio to. It's also the same concept behind deciding whether or not to jio someone out for lunch/dinner when I'm in their area. Without incentives like free food, I tend to follow the path of least resistance. And this path brings me back to a selection of people/groups that I observe to be narrower than before.
Well, I definitely can't afford to go out every day (both in pocket and energy) which kinda limits my after-work activities. But there's this other factor. It's like there's this sort of consideration pie that's shared between family, colleagues and friends, but friends only get to take their share after the other two groups. Right, because peanut butter seems to randomly pop into my head every now and then I shall just use it in an analogy. Peanut butter is easier to spread thick than to spread thin i.e. it takes either more effort or more peanut butter to cover an entire slice of bread up till the edges. At least quality peanut butter feels like that. If peanut butter is (for lack of better description) "capacity and desire to interact", bread is friends. All the friends that mattered at any point in time. [Crust would be acquaintances then but not crucial.]
Ok explicit enough not gonna delve into the specific examples that are running through my mind. I guess this is why meals form the basis of most meetups. Aside from being necessary for survival, it's the easiest thing to do. Everything else--including climbing--requires more effort which naturally means deciding how to spend it. Everyone has their practices, but during meals I tend to actively create a "best" portion to save for last that I know I'll definitely enjoy. Same applies to peanut butter and bread if the peanut butter is running low.
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Been meaning to write for a while, but see la, snooze until October already. Writing muscle has been put to a fair bit of use at work that's why.
