A few years before the pandemic, when I was still living in Brooklyn, I was running around with a sm

A few years before the pandemic, when I was still living in Brooklyn, I was running around with a small group of guys for a bit. One of them was, effectively, the leader. It was funny, too, because he was the shortest, smallest of us, but still he reigned as the alpha of this little crew. 

You don’t see that often!

He was the nicest guy, in a way, but he also had this autocratic way about him. He cared a lot about being chill, and he really actively enforced the whole “chill” vibe in his circle. If you started to get too intense about things, he would let you know. I have noticed that the most laid back people often seem to be the biggest hard asses about conformity.

They want everyone to conform to being laid back.

This guy was really into video games. I don’t like video games much. I’ve gotten sucked into the Charybdis of a game or two over the course of my life (Civilization and Magic the Gathering: Arena, mainly), but largely I’ve been happy to eschew that particular artform. But he was really into videogames, and — like everything else he liked — he would really push you to try out his favorite things.