Learn To Play Bridge – Improve Your Social Life

This charming contribution was sent to me by a site reader.  Thanks.

“A Clever Card Game – And Water Under the Bridge…

This is a true story from someone (I’ll call him Jack) to who I spoke recently; he had a problem with his computer and found me through a forum post…

During, and following a few technical issues, our conversation ran a course and developed into a brief discussion about card game of Bridge, which I both adore, and, dare I say it, consider myself rather proficient at too – ahem (fake, discreet, clearing of throat).

The subject evolved towards the Bridge game when I asked Jack “what do you do”.

“Well, I have a daytime job and an evening Internet-based business” he replied.

“The two are quite different, and require different skillsets”

I asked Jack how he got to be where he was, and was presented with an abridged (pun intended) account of his story.

As with many accounts of people’s lives there was a relationship involved, which, as Jack explained, was to prove an element in discovering the card game of Bridge.

Jack, his then girlfriend, along with her ready-made family, had had to make adjustments following his “change” in employment, and her seeking employment having recently qualified as a mature student.

Jack proceeded to explain that after 15 years of continuous employment, he met redundancy face to face in 1992, during the last “recession” in the UK, so since job opportunities in his industry were slim, he made the somewhat hasty decision to go back to college full time to get a degree (in retrospect, not the best decision). So that decision, along with responsibility of having to cope with his “family”… well… time would tell.

It came to pass, and things, almost inevitably, began to become challenging. Jack told me that cutting a long story short, a decision was made that he would be better off living nearer to his college during the week, and finding a room to rent, which would facilitate a better area in which to study and not be disturbed by young children that were not his own – and it was just financially manageable.

A room at the home of a very elderly lady was found in a big old Victorian house, and life continued without drama for a few months.

Not that it was really anything out of the ordinary, but the there was a room in the house that my friend, for some reason found interesting; he never went in there, nor had any reason to, he said it just felt like a happy place on the other side of the door.

My forum friend told me that his Landlady and he had several very profound discussions, about studying, and life in general. It seemed that he was going through a bit of a hard time; difficult relationship, back to education after 10 years and so on.

It became apparent that his Landlady ran the local Bridge club and why didn’t Jack join them one evening? It would be her turn to be the hostess the following week, and it “might take your mind off things a bit”.

Jack told me he agreed, and although the evening remains largely unremembered, he did thoroughly enjoy it. He recalled that he hadn’t realized how many facets were involved, not to mention meeting some super people …and that I was starting to rekindle his interest.  He really could learn to play bridge and improve his social life.

“Yes” he said, “I moved on from that time in different ways, and look back at my relationship as water under the bridge – pun intended!”

The conclusion to our chat on Skype is that he’s asked about Bridge coaching! How good is that?”