[Festro]

I've got to say that it does seem like the approach to the gaming sessions appears poor. Any given activity like board gaming can be done purely transactionally or not. It's up to the people around the table to chat and discover things about each other.

I'm married to someone I went to board game meetups with before we dated. I'm very good friends with several people from that group now. We play board games periodically still despite the group no longer being active, and our reasons to meet up are now more about socialising than board games. Board games was a brilliant icebreaker, but it took effort from everyone involved.

Perhaps board games are not the best socialisation method, but I'd argue against that too. It's a very good way to get like-minded people in a room, sitting down, and collaborating.

However, "I know many people who say they’ve tried a couple of board games like Catan and really enjoyed it, and are surprised to hear that I think it is a bad game." is spot on and the author cannot be faulted for that opinion. I'd rather play Russian Roulette than Catan.