words with friends (lyn)

When Alec Baldwin famously got into a fight on an airline for refusing to stop playing Words With Friends, I decided to check out the game.  I am now addicted.  I keep 21 games (the maximum allowed) going at once, with currently 11 different players. 

The best part of the game is the people I’ve reconnected with.  My current players include:

• A colleague at CNBC I hadn’t spoken to in years
• An ex-head of a major cable network; we worked together 15 years ago and had lost touch
• A friend from Weight Watchers
• A high-powered owner of a major search company; we met years ago
• An ex-colleague at CBS
• My current boss
• Two people from my hometown in Massachusetts; both of whom I’d lost touch with when I left for college in 1969
• A man I met through a friend as a possible date but that instead turned into a game player (literally)
• A Horace Mann mom whom I know, but not well
• An old friend I met when Alexander was an infant, who moved out of the city 14 years ago and whom I haven’t seen since

In addition to the game, we sometimes send each other little notes.  Mostly these notes are pretty routine.  Good play.   Nice block.  Wow.  Great word.  Stuff like that.  But sometimes it’ll morph into more meaningful banter.  Maybe I can help you find a job.   Or, we should really get together (that from someone I haven't seen in years). 

Aside from the many questionable words the game allows, I’ve learned a lot about the people playing.  I now know:

• Who stays up late.
• Who occasionally cannot sleep.
• Who gets up early.
• Who just plays for fun and doesn’t care about playing defensively.
• Who knows lots of unusual, arcane words.
• Who is strategic.
• Who starts games and doesn’t finish them.
• Who resigns when there is no chance of winning and who stays in just in case.
• Who, like me, plays to win.

It's a great way to pass time, learn new words I'll never use,  and re-establish old relationships.