Marisol brought her sister to Thursday game night a few weeks back, first time she’d ever sat at our table, and I wanted badly for it to go well, which is exactly the mindset that leads a person to make a bad decision. I picked a game I love, one I’m genuinely fluent in, on the theory that my own comfort with it would carry a new player through the rough patches. it did not carry her through the rough patches. it mostly just meant I explained things fast, the way you do when a rule feels obvious to you, and her eyes went a little glassy about six minutes into the rules teach.

I noticed it happening and kept going anyway, which is the part I’m still a little embarrassed about. there’s a specific kind of momentum to explaining a game you love, you want to get to the good part, the part where the systems actually click together and the person across from you gets it, and that eagerness makes you a worse teacher, not a better one. I’ve watched other people do this to newcomers and privately judged them for it. turns out judging is a lot easier than not doing it yourself.

the game itself has real depth, real interlocking decisions, and none of that mattered because she never got far enough in to feel any of it. she played her turns correctly and clearly wasn’t having fun, which is a specific quiet unhappiness that’s worse, honestly, than someone just saying the game isn’t for them. by the second round I could tell we’d lost her, and there was nothing to do but finish it out and reach for something lighter next time.

we played a filler afterward, something small and forgiving with about four rules total, and she visibly relaxed. that was the actual lesson, not from the teaching itself but from watching the fix work. the game I love asks for real investment before it pays off, and asking someone to trust that investment on a first meeting with strangers was never fair to her, it was fair to me and my own excitement.

Marisol’s sister came back the next month, which I’m choosing to take as a good sign, and I made a point of asking her what she wanted to play instead of deciding for her. we did the filler again. it was, unglamorously, a great night.

I still think about the rule I broke without meaning to: the game you’re most excited to share is rarely the right one for someone’s first time at your table. save the deep cuts for the second visit, once somebody already wants to be there.