Druthers

Would you rather have to sprint through Times Square while naked, or eat your favorite food until you throw up so you never want to eat it again?

Would you rather have the strength of the Hulk, able to lift a car up over your head easily, or be able to turn invisible once a day—but you have to stay invisible for 3 hours every time?

Would you rather spend a week in an underground bunker with nothing to do except stare at walls, or move to a new country with one month’s notice?

Druthers is a game I played for the first time while visiting Brazil, and the name is derived from the opening line of every question: would you rather…? These “would you rather” questions set up some random comparisons you might not normally make, and I couldn’t get enough of this game.

That’s the key, isn’t it? Those random comparisons, I mean. I have the strong suspicion that games like Druthers can help you learn how to think in a more complete manner.

Here in the US, we consumers have an awful lot of choices to make every day. We decide what sort of coffee to drink, which social media platform to use, and which songs to listen to, among countless other somewhat more consequential choices.

Analysis paralysis is a very real thing, and it’s easy to get stuck when comparing two similar choices. The pros and cons seem to wrestle with one another in your mind, with no clear winner.

Druthers doesn’t help much with making comparisons of things in the same category, but it does cause you to think more deeply about the nature of these conundrums. In doing so, you’re taking a much closer look at something you might typically write off or take for granted.

Now, I’m not suggesting there is great value in these visceral images of running through Times Square naked, or eating too much of your favorite food. What I’m suggesting is that thinking about why these things might bother you in very specific ways is both different and valuable for you.

Friends in Rio! We played a lot of Druthers.

The best druthers set up a dilemma between two core values or desires. In the positive sort of druther, it’s all about whether you would prefer to be super strong all the time, or turn invisible for select parts of the day. This fantastical never-gonna-happen scenario peels the curtain back on your deepest desires, though.

The best part of the game is after you give your answer and then justify it to everyone there. This is where the mental rubber really hits the psychological road of self-analysis. Maybe you want to be like the Hulk because you feel like turning invisible is sneaky and dishonorable, or perhaps that 3 hour forced window of invisibility would be problematic and unbearable.

The best druthers create a real dilemma for the other people playing the game. Everyone grimaces and says, “Ooh, good one”, or they groan loud enough for everyone to hear. In other words, a difficult and unexpected dilemma is created, with the idea to perplex the other person.

There are no wrong answers with Druthers. This means you can answer honestly and with a little bit of cleverness, you can entertain a small group with both your questions and with your answers.

Entertain is the key word here! Druthers truly is wild fun, and I recommend it if you’re stuck on a road trip, or really just any place where you and at least one other person (three or more is the most fun) want to have a blast with your minds.

Now, I want to turn the tables here a bit on you, dear reader. Let’s see if we can play a game in the comments today. You can answer any of my softball druthers above, like whether you’d rather run through Times Square naked or ruin your favorite food, or you can come up with your own druther for others.