Finding friends on BGA?

[JoysJoy]

I am just wondering how common it is for other people to have found long-term and good friends by playing on BGA?

I have friends that I treasure who don’t even speak the same language as me, but we can communicate using a device and ‘translate’. it has changed how I see other places on the planet, because now I have friends there and I know some thing about it.

I have friends whom I have taught games to, or learned from, using BGA game interface and audio chat, and/or phones, or even zoom to share screen and voice. I have friends that I have traded emails with and who are there for me even when we are not on BGA.

I have also had beloved friends that have disappeared for even a year or more, and I never knew what happened with them because we had never connected outside of BGA. Where, of course, we don’t even know each other’s real names . I go look at profiles to see if some of them who have been gone for a year or more have ever come back. I don’t know if they’re alive or dead. That makes me sad. And those loses makes me try harder to connect outside of BGA with the people I really like, so that I don’t lose them if they can’t come back here for some reason.

Honestly, it seems to me that some of the best possible people like to play board games here, and somehow, we connect during brief chatting of some games. We somehow find and friend each other. Against all odds.

I treasure these people now. And it just all happens organically. I am not intentionally trying to find someone to connect with, but somehow it happens anyway and when we end up chatting in real life by voice, we find out we have so much in common. That’s what makes me keep coming back here, no matter what.

I’m just wondering if other people have found this same experience.

I don’t think I have ever seen a Forum Discussion talking about interpersonal relationships on BGA in a good way. Usually just long threads complaining about how awful it is that there is chat options and *how to shut it off*?? But chatting with frieds is one of the big reasons that I play every day. I connect with people that matter to me and that I have come to love as friends. It has made me wonder why would anyone want to stop chat and miss out on the great friends you could have IRL with those you really connect with? Do those complainers even know this is possible?

Finding my amazing long term friends have made any inconvience or problem here a tiny thing.

[Meeplelowda]

I'm glad you've had this experience. The old adage in the board gaming community is that is is easier to turn board gamers into friends, than friends into board gamers.

I've only really connected with a handful of people on here that I don't already know IRL. I find that it happens in niche games with few players, so you end up seeing the same players a lot. Particularly when the default timer is long compared to how long you actually need to think, so you can chat without timing out.

But be mindful that many people just want to treat BGA like they are playing against a bot and don't want to interact at all. That's their preference. That's without factoring in the language barrier.

I'd like to think of BGA as being like an in-person gaming convention where it would be weird to go to the open gaming area and play with people without actually talking to them. But to each their own.