Going out for dinner with your friends when you are addicted to Pokémon GO

AUGUST 2016 NEWCASTLE MIRAGE

Making Plans for Dinner

You booked in Saturday night dinner plans six weeks ago before Pokémon Go equaled life. A few of your friends have made the big trip up from Sydney and are staying down the weekend just to catch up face to face on all the big events that have unfolded with your group over the past few months.. Amazing holidays, adventures overseas, friends moving in together and baby plans… It’s been a few weeks now since your priorities in life have made a dramatic turn and you’ve realized that the restaurant your friend has booked is absolutely nowhere near a Pokéstop, a gym, absolutely nothing. Your first instinct is to outright bail and blame it on Dougal the dog being sick.. But then again you did walk down Darby Street earlier today and remembered that Goldbergs Graffitti Art was a Pokéstop! Ding ding ding, I think we have a winner.

Pre-Dinner Festivities

Dinner is quickly approaching with every minute that passes by. You know you’ll be stuck in the one spot for at least 45 minutes minimum unless you somehow manage to come up with a brilliant escape plan. You need to maximize your rare Pokémon catching abilities in the short timeframe you have left and therefore positioning yourself in a high density Poké area is a must. You head to King Edward Park armed with sustenance in the form of Cheese and Bacon fries with extra Gravy and a Froke from McDonalds and try to grab the holy grail of all parking spots right in-between the pergola and kids play area, prime Lure enabled Pokéstop heaven. You nab a spot and venture out into the Poké-zombie wasteland trying not to seem too excited when you catch that rare Pokémon as there is nothing worse than a Poké-zombie creeping up on you from behind to try to capture that same Pokémon that will defeat you later at the Obelisk.

Arriving Late to Dinner

It’s five to seven and you’ve way overextended your time at the park and there is no way to beat around the bush, you are going to be late. Driving down Darby Street there is no parking space in sight and it has just hit seven on the dot. Suddenly an absolutely genius idea pops into your Pokémon filled brain and you decide the best way to make the most out of an already compromised situation is to park a few streets over and zig zag through the lanes to maximize your Poké catching time. You text your friends saying that parking is a biatch and that you’ve been circling around for the past twenty minutes but should find one soon. It starts to drizzle so you put your phone in your pocket and feel it vibrate meaning another Poké… no wait.. false alarm, it’s just a text back from your friends responding to your message full of lies saying to, “Hurry the fuck up, drinks are served.”

Dessert after Dinner

Every step, every action, every plan now revolves around Pokémon GO and this one is no exception. You cunningly suggest we move this party onto somewhere else even though you know the dessert at Goldbergs is always on point. You think you’ve exhausted all your options here so you cleverly plant seeds in everyone’s brains of having the smoothest ice-cream from Mövenpick all the way over at Honeysuckle. You bum a lift over there with your friends so you can sit in the back, fake laughing and pretending like you give a damn about what they are saying when really all you care about is when that next Eevee is going to appear so you can power up your Vaporeon.

Post Dinner Walk

You haven’t been to the gym for two years and use any excuse under the sun to avoid going outside in the elements. Nek minnit, it’s winter, it’s raining and you are walking alone along the Foreshore, bracing yourself for the wild Newcastle weather with a Harry’s pie in hand as you only ordered a light meal to rush through dinner. Your phone is on silent and permanently set to low power mode in order to conserve life and you keep walking along with it upside down waiting for it to tingle. Back in the day you would’ve been walking around to the mad beats of Bad Gal Riri stuck in your head but now all that spins on high rotation is that dam Pokémon theme song. You used to believe that a Saturday night well spent included drinks at 5 Sawyers followed by a ripper of a night at Finnegan’s, but now for you the ultimate satisfaction in life is beating all those other thug like looking 30-something year old lone rangers loitering around the gym and seeing the look of utter defeat on their faces when Team Mystics empire finally comes toppling down.