I am always a Free Guy

I am not a huge movie guy, but I make a habit of making sure I enjoy them when I go see a movie. It could be my crazy desire to make sure I get my money's worth 'I paid $15 to see this movie, I will enjoy it', but it could be..... no, it's definitely the getting my money worth thing.

The desire to get my money's worth lead me to take up a local cinemas promotion to have unlimited movie visits for 3 months for £30. Having always been a discount off-peak movie watcher, I thought this would be a real treat, plus the cinema within walking distance to me has recliner seats. Recliner seats.

So I signed up ...... hang on, I don't think you understood the magnitude of that last sentence. Recliner seats. As in the seats recline. Just amazing.

I know it seems a bit weird to be talking about the luxury of reclining seats in a blog about struggling, but this story has a disappointing twist. But before we get there, did I mention the cinema has reclining seats?

One of the movies I was most excited about was Free Guy. I love comedies, and I am a fan of Ryan Reynolds' work. I had no idea what the movie was about because I never watch the trailers of a movie I know I want to see. All I needed to know was Ryan Reynolds and Videos Games; it was going to be great. But I decided not to see this one alone, but to invite some friends. This was a momentous occasion because all of my friends are new, seeing as I now live 16,000 miles from my home, and this is the first time I organised something. Cue the struggle, please.

It started with asking a mate to come to join me on a Monday. On Mondays, all tickets are £6 rather than £12, so it's an easy sell. I checked the calendar, and we were all free; it should be fun. Unfortunately, my friend couldn't do that Monday but said to lock in the following week. I did so without thinking.

Now because I always try and maximise everything, I then sent out a few texts to other people, telling them to come. I was more than happy to organise the tickets and make sure we got good seats. Two other people asked for tickets, so I booked 4 seats in the best spot. Except it didn't go through. Something weird happened, and the website froze. So I tried again, but those seats were now gone, so I chose the ones in front of them, and it froze again. So I tried on the app, but again those seats were gone. I went to bed.

In the morning, I tried on the app, and those seats were back, but when it got to the payment screen, it took my money but did not issue any tickets and again, those seats were gone; this time though they would not come back. The cinema also doesn't have a phone line anymore, so I had to visit and talk to the manager. He couldn't fix it, so he wrote me a little note saying I had 4 tickets and told me to bring that along on Monday. Great, at least I can quietly show the attendant, and no one will know. Except there was one major flaw in the plan.

Do you remember my actions when choosing the date? I choose a Monday, checked the calendar and invited my friend. He said, 'let's do the following week', and we locked it in. I probably should have started the process again because I didn't check the calendar, so when I mentioned it to my wife a few days before, she reminded me that I was taking all of them to the Mary Poppins theatre show that night. The first time I had organised something and I couldn't go.

The worst part was I couldn't even share their tickets via a message; I had to meet up and give my friend the handwritten note and explain that they were the tickets. I found it slightly embarrassing.

This being the first event I have organised is significant. In Sydney I organised everything, in fact, I didn't really get invited to much if I didn't organise it myself. It's not because my friends were bad people, but I never had a self-functioning group. My events were always well attended, and we all had fun, but those people would only all hang out together at my gathering. So when they met with others, I was not thought about. I was always a Free Guy without anywhere to go. But since moving here, it has been very different.  In the last 6 months, I have been invited to 2 hikes, 7 group family gatherings, 18 coffee meetups and a 3-day wilderness challenge which I went to and suffered greatly (that's another story). So I haven't organised a thing because I haven't had to.

So this particular struggle did get me down until I realised that it was not just showing what I was missing (a fun night with new mates) but also highlighted what I now had. So once again, I am thankful for a struggle.

Plus, Mary Poppins was incredible