The gang and I have been looking for something new to do. I’ve given up on the whole role-playing DM gig, because it takes all my creativity and most of my time to keep a campaign running, and nobody else will DM. The board game thing is fun, especially with stuff like Zombies!!! and Settlers of Cataan, but as an exclusive social activity it gets kind of old. And the final straw was dropped when one of us decided that he just wasn’t going to go to the movies anymore. Ever. The cost, the rude noisy people, and the poor picture quality have all conspired to make sure he just buys DVDs, but never graces a multiplex again.
So, there we were. A bunch of geeks, looking for something vaguely amusing to do on a Saturday night, batting around ideas without much enthusiasm, when I said “Well, there’s always bowling.”
We ended up at the local lanes just before the Cosmic Bowling mess, and signed up, got the shoes and the balls, and proceeded to have a great time.
Total blast. Fun from beginning to end. Only one of us had bowled much before, and my boyfriend and I had been bowling fewer than five times apiece. We all broke a hundred at one point or another, everybody got enough strikes in to keep things interesting, and everybody gutterballed enough to make everyone else feel somewhat superior.
We talked at length over the inevitable Denny’s appetizers afterwards, and decided that the Cosmic Bowling thing got old really fast; loud, badly amplified music and weak UV added very little to the experience. But we’re all very interested in going again, soon. 'Cause, ya know, it was fun.
Which brings me to my point, at long last. (I like to take a while to get to my points; that way they’re really happy to see me when I arrive.)
I feel vaguely fish-out-of-water-ish in a bowling alley. I’m not sure of the local customs, I’m never sure if I’m about to commit a major social faux pas, and I really have no idea how to bowl. If we’re going to be doing this often, I think we’re going to need some advice. Which is where you, O People of the Dope, come in.
What are the basic do’s and don’t’s of the bowling world? What is the difference between annoying amateurs who you want to see leave the lanes and amateurs you’d like to see stick around? What should we do to improve our games beyond the “imitate what everyone else is doing” stage? How can we keep the cost of this hobby down, so we can do it often? What are the common beginners’ mistakes, and how can we avoid them?
I have no idea how this happened, but I’ve lived almost forty years and never figured out that bowling is fun. Help me make up for lost time with any tips you may have; I’ll be grateful.