22Decembre

Everyone says that by having better social relationships, one greatly improves their life, and I have long been disappointed by that.

Around 2019, tired of my slow progress in terms of sociability, I decided to truly determine what would help me be more sociable.

And here’s the trick: one must realize that being social is not innate. It may be something we seek, but ultimately, it’s the case for many other “animals” as well. That infamous phrase “We are social animals.” annoys me to no end. It’s used to justify everything and nothing, without helping at all.

Sociability is a skill. Some of us have to learn it.

Surprise!

It is particularly important to understand in what circumstances each person is social. What is their comfort zone?

That’s when I began to understand what my mistake was.

Knowing What You’re Looking For

So, I decided to identify in which situation(s) I could be socially comfortable.

Small groups
Seeking calm and intellectual challenge
Small talk, not really my thing

What are my aims ?

Once I identified in which situations I could thrive socially, I had to ask myself, what are my goals?

The primary goal is to improve my sociability, my confidence within social situations.

The secondary goals are:

Improving my connection with the Danish society, meeting more Danes.
Enhancing my professional network. Perhaps meeting my future colleagues through this.
Helping other internationals achieve these same goals.
Meeting someone?

Crossing this Information

So now, let’s cross all of this and see what we got.

Implementation

So, I decided to see where I could try to play board games. I went around in several boardgames groups in Aarhus and I quickly understood that I had identified the right method. But I was often disappointed by how they organized it. So I would have to do the thing myself.

On New Year’s 2020, I made a resolution: I will play board games every Friday night.

Friday, because I thought it was a great time to relax; it’s the end of the week and it allows you to enjoy the “Friday bar” effect, with Danes going out and getting smashed from 2 p.m. to 2 a.m. (yeah, about twelve hours…).

Stéphane’s Boardgames Fridaybar

I started at Mundhæld, which had a few board games. And we played like that throughout Corona. Several times, I did rounds of recruitements for new players. Then someone created a messenger group (Liviu, if you read this, thank you). Then we switched to Århus Brætspilcafé. It grew organically with players adding their friends out of nowhere and it has became so big I began to feel like a guru (no) and could go on to be the next mayor of Århus (yeah, you can dream that…).

Results

First of all, I indeed greatly improved my sociability. This is now the place and time where I make new friends, get new connections.

I somewhat think that this part succeeded all too well.

As for the rest ?

Well, about connecting better to the danish society ? Not so much.

But it remains positive, as it’s more of a statistic : the more people you meet, the more chances you have of meeting the good persons.

Help internationals ? It worked quite well. I even have one or two Danes who admitted to me that the boardgames gang was also their main source of new friends.

Meeting someone ?