The story of Alvin playing Sawbones the Catman only because Enzo had discovered it while they were growing separate is based on something that actually happened to me.

My friend and I were trying to reconnect but far too much time had passed.

We had little in common.

I already knew the shortcut was to take an interest in one of his interests, but when I heard the game he was obsessed with, I thought, "there's no way."

The game was called "Dark Souls: Prepare to Die Edition" and that just didn't ever sit right with me.

I play games on Easy Mode; the idea of these super-hard games really turned me away.

But there I was, faced with giving the game a chance, or hoping that we found something else to talk about. [A note about Hope, it's the state we default to when we don't have any strategy in place. Pro tip: Almost always you'll need to get a Strategy instead.]

I played the game.

It confirmed my biases.

I put it down and gave up.

Then I played it with him there, and he helped me see the game through his eyes.

The game came alive.

Dark Souls is now in the top 5 games I've spent time in. At the time of publication I've spent over 500 hours in the series.

And it wasn't just a lesson in finding a game that I enjoyed but was missing out on. The game taught me many valuable lessons that I would not have expected were lurking in there. I didn't give the game a chance, until I was willing to try it for real because of my friend.

We cannot know everything there is to know on the planet; we cannot have encountered already all the best things. We rely on our friends to bring into our lives things we have missed. That is the lesson of Taking an Interest In Your Friends' Interests.