So, the NFL season is done and over with, the NBA is not quite to the home stretch of its regular season, baseball has not yet gotten started, college basketball has not started the madness of March, and Deadpool has come and gone. In the wake of all this, you may find yourself wondering what there is to do with your free time. This article will seek to introduce you to a wonderful new hobby, one that may very well become an addiction if you let it: board gaming.

Now, I know what many of you may be thinking. Who wants to sit around playing Monopoly on a Friday night? Well, let me tell you, board games have come a long way since Monopoly and Scrabble. Let me assure you that there is a board game out there for any and every interest that you may have. There is Pandemic, where you and a group of friends are agents of the Center for Disease Control and you must work together to cure a rare disease before it kills mankind. There is "Game of Thrones" the Board Game, where you and five other players take on one of the noble houses of Westeroth and compete for the Iron Throne. There is "Battlestar Galactica" the Board Game, in which you will take on the role of someone from the show, protecting the ship against the evil cylons as you travel around the galaxy. There is Dixit, which will have a group of friends using pictures on oversized cards to relay some message which the others must find matches to themselves. The variety of these games are truly endless, but this is not the primary reason to get out and play board games.

The primary reason that I would recommend board gaming as a hobby is the interaction. The games are wonderful and the strategy challenging but it is the interaction among players that makes each game unique. The ability for a group of people to meet over a game and have actual conversations while playing means that every game you play will be a unique event and allow you to satisfy whatever need you may have for human contact. For an extrovert like me, playing a new game with a group of people is a wonderfully satisfying social experience. Through gaming, I have made friends that I never would have met had I not joined a board game group. So, while you are in the malaise of February and looking for an activity to fill your free time, give board games a try. You may just find your next favorite activity.