The Tuesday Gang

One really good thing about the pandemic, for me, has been the ‘Tuesday Gang’.

Every Tuesday night, me and a bunch of friends from my secondary school hop on Discord and play some dumb video game with each other. There’s usually around 6 of us.

Of all the habits and routines I’ve used to get through this strange time, the weekly slot to play games and laugh with my old buddies has truly been one of the most helpful. Most of these guys I’ve been friends with since I was 11, nearly 2/3rds of my life. We grew up together.

A shared love of video games was crucial to how we became close in the first place - though we went on to do sports and other shenanigans of course. It’s basically our shared language - and I can’t help but feel us gaming together remotely is kind of analogous to how other men my age might go outside and kick a football to each other while catching up.

To give you an image - a not inconsiderable amount of my time spent as a teenager at school was spent lounging with these guys in a classroom at break, talking about anything from tactics in Starcraft, World of Warcraft nonsense, or just general video game trivia, while other people would be playing some sport outside (I can only assume). We’d say goodbye to each other as school ended each day, knowing that in a few hours we’d all be online for an hour or so, teaming up or facing off, only to discuss the events of our matches tomorrow.

Those were good days.

Prior to the pandemic, we would stay in touch here and there, and maybe meet up every few months and jam and chat - usually, we’d play some video games. We remained close, but we just didn’t talk that often.

But when we all got told to lock ourselves inside and not see anyone in person, my friends and I - because of this hobby - weren’t too worried. Early on, my friend Charles organised these weekly sessions for us to hang out and play. Because of these nights, as a group of friends we’ve genuinely become closer.

A while back I read an article that was written by a married man who, during a period of loneliness, had come to appreciate the importance of reserving a night to see some of his buddies in a pub. He wrote of how it’s easy to lose touch with friends in middle-age. How despite having a loving family, there was a camaraderie that he could only experience in the company of his old buddies. Since organising a ‘boys night’ with his friends, this time had become something sacred to him. At the time, I read it with the classic naiveté thinking that will never be me. Yet, it very nearly was.

During this year of bad art I’ve been meaning to make some video about the Tuesday Gang - not only to talk about it, but also as a challenge of editing together a video about video games. This is a type of content I consume a lot of, so it was a fun challenge.

Matt wanted us to try a new pirate game so we could enter into a tournament together. Three of us agreed, so I figured us learning how to play it, and edited it together.

As an fyi, we’re quite dumb.