Friendly Plays

A bunch of my friends are at my home for a party, and it's a really lively one. In fact, quite a few of us also love playing the Pokémon games, though our current fates are pretty much the same: we're not able to get into it as much as we used to or would like, due to pressures from other stuff. That got me to thinking about how much of the friendly relations I have arose in relation to Pokémon. As it turns out, there are quite a lot of those relations.

The first and most obvious is the bunch of friends that I'm currently hosting. As mentioned, some of us enjoy playing Pokémon; as a matter of fact, it is exactly this that formed some of the basis of our initial relationships. Together, we form a clique of people that do out-of-the-ordinary things, and we like what we do. Still, in terms of Pokémon, nowadays we appear to be somewhat divided by what we're doing. It is my hope that someday those of us that have played Pokémon can return to our roots and have a great Pokémon party for games or otherwise; I look forward to see it happen.

In addition to my clique, I'm also involved with a local association of Pokémon players. You might have read in this blog about the first tournament we held if you've been with me from the very beginning. Unfortunately, while we were fervent about things from the end of last year (when we decided to form the association), it seems things have gotten the better of us, and now we also haven't been into things as much as we would like. Plans to get together or even for a second tournament have not been borne out; we haven't even kept up with each other lately. It's somewhat of a shame, but I hope things work out closer (read: we can be more free) toward the middle of the year.

Not only am I involved with a local association, but I'm also involved with a national group of players - but many of them reside closer to the economic center of the country, so it hardly qualifies as a national group in that way. It's still a national group nonetheless because I and several other regional players are in it. What's funny is that I was introduced to this group by someone in my clique of friends, yet now he's not very active in Pokémon anymore. Regardless, I'm still glad that I have these links, because I found them useful when I dropped by for a visit last year. They've been very active playing the games, and I'm shameful to say that I haven't been. I want to change that somehow.

So there you go: I'm friends with Pokémon players on three levels. I have some in my clique, I have relations with other local players, and I'm connected with national players. While we're all currently active at different levels, at least we're all still connected by the fact that we like Pokémon. In the end, I'm proud to share this life with many other Pokémon players; we make our world as lively as that of these creatures.