Honestly I’ve never had that issue.

One of my favourite things to do at a holiday get-together is hijack the TV with my MacBook. Most people think Apple stuff only talks to other Apple stuff in the Ecosystem/Walled Garden and that Android is some rebel front against Apple. Most people are also fucking stupid. If I’m on your WiFi and you have a smart TV, best believe I can take that shit over with like two clicks. My family has one of those TVs, I think it’s a Roku? where if you don’t watch anything, it goes to this city skyline screensaver with billboards advertising the streaming services it has? Like there’s a Netflix billboard, there’s a Disney+ one, you might even see one for Apple TV at some point. But it’s just a looping video. When I see that — nobody’s picking something — I pull out the MacBook, find a movie, and cast to it. Nobody questions why the TV did that without anyone touching the remote.

Last time, it was KPop Demon Hunters. Maybe a couple people assumed I had something to do with it, but within minutes, all the kids were occupied with it. By the second or third song, even the adults were singing along (I was playing the Sing-Along version). It was great. Might do it again. I can’t just put on anything. It has to hook a few people, which in turn draws others.

So, distraction.

Also, I sit at the kids’ table. They have far more interesting conversations. And there’s always some kid, almost always a girl, usually one around 7-12, who will tell me I don’t belong there. Like some little Philosopher’s Stone-year Hermione, some little know-it-all. I’ll wait until none of the other adults are looking, and she’ll catch a pea or a carrot slice to the face, look at me, and see my look of “I’ll do it again” on my face. That usually settles it. Once in a while it turns into a food fight, which I never get blamed for because I know when to stop.

We only do these whole-family get-togethers a few times a year. It’s usually a good time. But honestly, by the end of the day I just wanna take my pants off and wind down watching TV (at home I mean, and we don’t have kids so I don’t mean anything weird). Get tired of people after a while. Even the fun ones. But the time I gotta be there? I make it work for me.