Premature Exasperations: Ice Breakers

January 25th, 2008 . by contemptster

This week Bryan discusses why introduction games should meet their end. To catch up on past columns, you can find them in the Premature Exasperations Archive.

Ice Breaking is for the Titanic
By Bryan

In the annals of bad group activities, one type ranks as the worst. It trumps Uncle Milton’s Bedroom Marco Polo and certainly beats a room full of hookers doing it with each other on a table I refer, of course, to ice breakers.

It goes by many names such as “Shoe Pile” and “M&M Game.” Yes, even the popular drinking game, “Never Have I Ever” falls into this category; a testament to their shape-shifting abilities. They are all intended to spark interactions and facilitate conversations filled with ego inflation.

Circles are always involved; I guess circles make the activities more ritualized and allow everyone to see each other, but that does not justify them. I don’t trust circles, never have. Human sacrifices happen in circles. Death Stars happen in circles. Wagons attack Indians in circles.

And they are liars. The games are liars and it makes liars out of people. They lure participants in with fun names like, “Silly Scrumples” and “Toilet Paper Roll.” In “Toilet Paper Roll,” all the idiots sit in a circle (of course) and are told to pull as much toilet paper as they think they’ll need. What the leader doesn’t tell everyone is that for every square pulled, you must tell one fact about yourself. There’s always that one asshole, who pulls half the roll and has to lie about his favorite color and then accidentally digs too deep for his 64th fact about how he almost went to Tibet but decided to work that week to save money for a ticket to see Hootie and the Blowfish. I should know since I was that asshole the first time I played, and I figured they were telling me the truth about the TP. And I had a bad case of Mexican food.

I took an informal survey of 100 people asking if they enjoy ice breakers. Ninety-nine unidentified respondents said “No” or open- handed slapped me in the face. One guy named Bill Mueller from Delaware said he loved them and his favorite car was a Saturn.

Perhaps you’ve attended a party where someone tries to make these games risqué. That doesn’t help and in fact only leads to awkward, morning after encounters and social worker involvement. Ever played drunken, sexy “Light Sabers?” A corollary question, ever had to register as a sexual predator after a nosy neighbor spies you doing it in their gated backyard?

I was wrangled into one called “Ice Cream Flavor,” where each person has to describe themselves as an ice cream flavor. Have you ever heard of such a thing?! What kind of world does this breed? Sketch artists drawing criminals that look like banana splits? Christian Children’s Fund kids reading letters from a same-sex bucket of rainbow sherbet sponsor? The blind being duped into marrying pint-sized Peaches n’ Creams but actually coupling with gallon-sized Rocky Roads?

In ice breakers—particularly “Two Truths and a Lie”—everyone’s either a bore, braggart or comedian. One guy with particularly bad posture said, “I have one brother, I once stayed up for a week straight, and I’m an invertebrate.” Turns out he had perfect posture; he was just playing the game and playing us all for fools in the process!

In the future when a group of new people are meeting each other, let’s keep it simple with a little game called, “Cereal.” Everyone stands up and walks to their respective places, and if you find yourself eating a morning bowl of cereal with a person you’ll get to know them. No one likes anyone in the morning so if you’re eating breakfast with them, then you’re probably friends. All of the others can stay in their own circles.