Unpopular take: letting characters have separate hobbies actually strengthens the found family bond

Everyone always wants groups like the one in Ted Lasso to do everything together... but I tried a different thing with my own friend circle. We each picked one solo thing to get good at, like how Beard has his chess or Roy has his books. After 3 months of that, when we came back to hang out, we had so much more to talk about and share with each other. Has anyone else found that giving characters space apart makes the together moments hit harder?

2 comments

2 Comments

coleman.jade1mo ago

Three months of intentional solo hobbies is genius because it forces everyone to actually commit instead of just saying they want to learn something. My friends and I did something similar last year where one guy got really into restoring old vinyl records and another started designing tiny models of boats. When we finally got together after a few months, the boat guy brought a half-finished model and spent 20 minutes explaining the rigging while the vinyl guy played us scratched up 70s funk records. Those little moments of nerding out about specific things no one else in the group knew about made us feel way more like a weird little family than if we had just watched another movie together.

wesley_grant331mo ago

My buddy Kevin tried this with woodcarving and ended up spending 30 bucks on a single block of basswood that he barely touched for two months. @coleman.jade your vinyl guy sounds exactly like what happened when Kevin finally showed us a lopsided spoon he made after practicing every weekend. He kept apologizing for the handle being too thick but we didn't care, we just passed it around like it was some ancient artifact.