Friends, is the answer to the question of this blog title. Chips is also acceptable.
In April a group of friends and I rented a house in Martinborough while we attended a beer festival. We brought a bunch of board games and a bunch of booze, but as we were looking around the house I noticed a Sky TV box. Checking the house guide I confirmed they had Sky Sports.
Excitedly I told Megan about it. I couldn’t remember the last time I had watched rugby with her. Possibly during the World Cup. Neither of us could remember the last time we had watched a full game of Super Rugby (a term I still hate) on TV.
Only two others joined us to watch the Blues take on the Crusaders. I cheered for the Blues, which felt weird. The rest of our party groaned as we cheered and swore loudly at the screen, but goddamn there is nothing better than watching sport with close friends.
There’s something about giving each other shit and waiting for the terrible jokes and complaining about the commentators that really bonds you with your friends.
Case in point: my friend Dom and I have watched sport since... well, we may have actually met while watching rugby. We used to work together and would wander down to the pub some lunchtimes to catch NFL games. Eventually another NFL fan started to join us, he wasn’t a good fit. Because while it’s easy going, there are rules. If you dish shit out, you must be able to take shit as well. This guy couldn’t do that and he was dropped from the team.
Example two: I once purchased two jugs of beer during my round at the bar so that Megan could make a “nice jugs” joke. These are the things you do when watching sport with friends.
As a related side note: I have recently got myself an Igloo box mainly so that I can watch pay-per-view sport and hopefully have friends around to do so. I expect it to be awesome... unless this page is accurate and they actually won’t show any of the All Blacks games.