I don’t have the space to have anything except a very lean collection of board games much less any other physical object in my life so I default to borrowing whenever possible on all things, and return the thing better than I received it and with a lagniappe for the favor. My friends know this.

I started going to board game nights hosted through meetup, and most people there were avid board gamers who brought tons of their own games. Slowly, I learnt new games, which I then purchased so I could play with my own friends.

I was in a situation in the early 00s when money was even tighter than it is now. And I had a good friend that collected games and would get a lot of games. And I would buy fewer games and more rarely, since I was so broke at the time. And I’d bring them and we’d play them and he’d like them and he’d immediately buy the same games. And I’d think “if he was gonna buy a copy anyway, why did I buy one? I could’ve saved that money.”

💸

To answer your question: have as few games as possible and have a situation or group in mind for every game. “Here’s one I can play with my boyfriend, here’s one for work lunch, here’s one that I think mom likes” and maybe that can be it. If you have friends with games they are probably aching to get those games to the table and if they’re happy to play them with you, that’s great.