Boardgaming: Lifestyle or Hobby?

People often ask me about my hobbies, and obviously board gaming is one that comes up, along with painting and reading. However, when I start to describe my hobby, I realize that it is so much more than just a hobby for me. I define hobby as something you occasionally do in your free time for enjoyment. Board gaming has surpassed that for me, and become more of a lifestyle. It seeps into my daily life much further than any hobby should. It is an integral part of my daily life.

Each day I spend anywhere for 2-7 hours doing game related activities. The longer time periods are generally on Sundays, during my game days with my family, but even during the week I spend at least two hours doing something game related. Now, that doesn’t necessarily mean I am playing games for two hours every day, but when you add in the time I spend painting or blogging about board games, I definitely reach two hours. That being said I do play a game almost every single day. It is a part of my relaxation time after dinner, and something that I look forward to immensely.

When I get spare money, the first thing I think about is board games (most of the time). I love the feeling of sitting down for the first time to play a new board game. Of course, I am responsible about my purchases but it does take up the majority of my free spending cash.

Board gaming also defines my friend group and who I interact with the most. My closest group of friends is my adventuring party that I have played Dungeons and Dragons with for years. We spend a lot of time together and have thus become very close. However, my other friends tend to be those who I play board games with at local game nights. When I interact with people online, it is almost always about a board game. My whole social circle is built around the cornerstone of playing games. While I still have friends outside of board gaming, like coworkers or friends from earlier in life, I tend to connect better with people over a game.

It doesn’t stop there either, board gaming also defines our vacations most of the time. The major vacations my husband and I take each year are to conventions. Gencon is the big one, which we consider our major vacation during the year. It is something we look forward to year round. We also attend Gamehole Con each year, and next year we plan on attending Geekway to the West as well. This constitutes the majority of our traveling each year. For us, it is a terrific way to bond and enjoy our time off. We love trying new games and interacting with people from the community.

If I were to be honest, board games are on my mind far too frequently. Those thoughts range from thinking about upcoming games, what I should play that day, what I should blog about, if I like my miniatures latest paint job…it goes on and on. It is not a problem, as I do enjoy the life style. However, I would have to argue that it goes far beyond a hobby for me.