I’ve been playing pub trivia games regularly since 2012, and while it’s “normally” been an uneventful experience regarding player harmony? Sometimes…things just don’t work out. Sometimes players don’t get along with each other. I’ve certainly heard plenty of stories about just this kind of thing from other teams over the years, too! One other pub trivia team that used to play regularly had players who couldn’t sit by each other!

As for my own team, I had a player from another team sit in with my team for a game – and afterwards, take me aside – and tell me he didn’t like the way one of my players treated another of my players! As a result, I intervened with these two players – and things improved a bit! Since I knew the two players so well for so long, I didn’t even see that there could be any “problem” with how they interacted – it took someone else – looking from the outside in – to point it out. Point taken!

From about 2013 to 2018, I had just one of “those” players on my team. He just kind of happened to be “in the bar” while trivia was going on one night, and he wound up playing with us that night – and nearly every other trivia night for the next five years or so. As a trivia teammate, he wasn’t bad – he contributed at least a couple of answers each game, and when we began playing MTL games, he was even more of an “essential” player. He was stronger with the MTL format than Sporcle Live.

But outside of trivial pursuits? He and I just…didn’t get along. He was unresponsive and difficult to communicate with (which made it difficult to assemble teams for tournaments, for which he was typically unavailable), he kind of sucked the energy out of the vibe at times (he could be a bit too “serious”), and was a bit TOO politically correct. My teammates can be a bit un-PC on our trivia nights, and… that’s the way we like it! I’ve described our overall vibe as being akin to that of a pirate ship! It’s all true…we’re a bunch of  “scalawags,” with a captain who can be a bit…brutish! I have no apologies for being who I am – sometimes I like to play a bit “rough,” and I take NO prisoners! I also make no apologies for doing whatever it takes to win (aside from cheating in a trivia game of course).

From his end, I can see why he wouldn’t like me. I can be crude and crass, way too off the cuff, and am definitely not an “intellectual.” Though I like to have “interesting” conversations, deep intellectual conversations are not something I dig. We were like oil and water. Here’s an example:

When I thanked him for answering my “trivia booty call” at a game for which he showed up after answering my last-minute call, he…blew up at me! I honestly didn’t mean anything by it – I was just being…me.

“Don’t ever say anything like that to me again,” he said. Uh…OK? Sorry?

That was just it. He couldn’t tolerate me being “me,” and I couldn’t tolerate him being him. It all came to a head just before a venue tournament in April, 2018, when I told him after the game that he wouldn’t have to come out for the venue tournament game.

“I’m off the team?” he said to me, incredulously… then he called me a “fucking asshole.” In front of several witnesses. Very classy moment…

A couple of weeks earlier, I had sent out more than one e-mail to the team stating who my venue tournament lineup would be – which apparently he didn’t read. And because he was typically unavailable to play in any weekend tournament games anyway, I left him out of the lineup. I suspect the real reason he blew up is because I subbed him out for a younger player. I honestly don’t know if that’s the case – that’s just my suspicion.

In my last text message to him, I reminded him to think really hard about who he was calling an “asshole” – and about how I shared $200 in prize money with him from a previous tournament – in which he didn’t even PLAY. That wasn’t my idea – it was my husband’s idea – with his reasoning being that he did help us qualify by attending nearly every game. Point taken, but…I STILL want that $200 back!

Obviously, I was upset about this turn of events – for a bit – but as it turned out, a huge weight was lifted from our team after this happened. Nobody on my team seemed to miss him. The younger player I subbed him out for at that venue tournament has not only helped us qualify for – and  place in at least the top 10 in a few tournaments over the past couple of years, but he’s every bit as responsive – and communicative – about trivia plans – as this other guy wasn’t. He’s become almost like a little brother to me (he’s such a sweetie).

In an interesting twist, my husband said he ran into this other player a couple of months ago, and confronted him about the “asshole” incident. He flat out DENIED using those words. Yup…alternative facts?

My advice for players playing on teams where they can’t stand another player? Life is way too short for this… if you can’t get the other player to leave? Abandon ship! Assemble your own “crew,” if possible. Get the f— out. Chances are the “crew” you’re abandoning will be hurtin’ without you, and what better reason do you need? I think you’ll enjoy the weight that lifts when you’re not dealing with that person anymore! There is nothing like being with your own “crew” – as long as they all get along well enough!