It was just another Wednesday night of trivia. Clusters of young, urban professionals crowded around tables, blocking the aisles for the waitresses and pondering such mysteries as “What American islands were once called the Sandwich Islands?” “Who produced the song ‘Muscles’ for Diana Ross in the 1980s?” Scribbling with golf pencils onto uniform sheets and wagering significantly less than they do online, the patrons hoped to score big points for their teams. Teams such as “Margaret Thatcher has tasted my cum five times,” “Michael Jackson didn’t molest those kids, he made love to them” and “Horsecock.” Trivia night is little more than a way to practice the same covert phone skills required in high school, but it is a significant outlet for the disgusting and one way of viewing a societal shift.
Fifty years ago, if you wanted a strawberry milkshake, you might ask for a “shake in the hay” (trivia question), and back then if you wanted to call your team “Horsecock” your female friends might object. Not today. “Coed” no longer applies to a handful of colleges; it now applies to a whole range of social activities, including barhopping and strip clubs. As relatively successful and decently dressed twenty-somethings scan the bar for potential mates, they spar in trivial knowledge, and rival each other in lewd comments. No one seems to mind. In fact, trivia is good clean fun. Hearing the trivia coordinator read the team names into the microphone is the only moment of joy shared by all the teams (who can’t all be winners).
What are the gender dynamics, if their terrain has shifted? Trivia seems predetermined to favor men. Statistically they are less educated than their female peers, but we all know who is most likely to get the questions on “sports” and “comics.” Sure, there are plenty of “geography” and “world history” questions, but I have yet to hear “art” or “Babysitter’s Club.”
Team dynamics are noteworthy. Alphas assert themselves, always convinced they are correct. Others will defer even knowing they possess the truth. Many don’t know enough to make a reasonable guess. The competitive types worry about other teams gaining a lead. Some will snatch pencils and paper from others to write their preferred answers. The slightly more subversive will change an answer while walking it up for submission. All teams despise the player who says the answer loud enough for neighbors to hear. Human nature is on display.
Trivia night is one in which the bar is unusually full for a weeknight. Yet despite the crowd, and their overdressed approach to “80s sitcoms,” little mixing takes place. There is plenty of “the gaze.” However, the team nature of the night makes one suspicious to outsiders. If one is not suspicious, one must be exceptionally useless to a team in order to wander free around the bar, hence becoming less attractive to some. The tension is broken when the songs play and patrons take their answers to the trivia coordinator, flashing smiles and nods to competitors, all the while banking more on a ten dollar gift card valid the next day than on the chance of meeting someone special.
Who always wins? The bar of course.
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