It is negative three degrees and I am walking to a party I have no interest in attending. I am carrying the game “Cards Against Humanity” under my coat. The party is intended to be a long overdue icebreaker for my writing club. None of us speak outside of our meetings, or even in them, so our president—who was the only member I remembered the name of—organized this informal gathering at her apartment. She asked us to “bring whatever games or activities we wanted,” with a desperate glint in her eyes. I told her I had Cards Against Humanity in my dorm and her nervous look faded a bit.

Cards Against Humanity is Amazon’s best selling game. It is the most popular party activity, aside from the consumption of alcohol, for those in high school, college, and possibly beyond. It’s a lot like the children’s game “Apples to Apples,” but much more obscene and even better for large groups. An individual picks a black card with a question or fill in the blank statement on it and the rest of the players supply white descriptor cards to that individual, who then picks a winner from the white cards. For example, a black card might read, “Next from J.K. Rowling: Harry Potter and the Chamber of ______,” while a player could supply a white card that says “Harry Potter Erotica.”

I get lost three times and arrive at the party a half hour late. Everyone else is already there. They are sitting in silence on a couch that has stacks of books to hold it up instead of legs. Latecomers, like myself, are relegated to a scuffed wooden floor or a rug completely coated with fine grey dog hair. Nevertheless, every person looks up with hope for this miserable gathering when they see the box under my arm. Without even exchanging introductions, we silently form a circle and I begin dealing out the cards.

It is hard to understand exactly what makes Cards Against Humanity so effective, what particular quality allows the game to cure even the most awkward of gatherings.

I’ve always thought that it was because the cards eliminated the awkwardness of small talk. After all, how can someone feel awkward talking about their major when they just answered the question “What would grandma find disturbing, yet oddly charming” with “Viagra?” But lately, I’ve come to realize that Cards Against Humanity is about much more than normalizing trivial conversations. It allows individuals to connect, even if it’s just for a few rounds of cards.

The dog hair sticks to my cards. I am disappointed with my deck: my only good card is “Racially-biased SAT questions.” Our club’s president picks the first question, “War! What is it good for?” she yells, “This is a good question for me. I’m a history major.” I quickly scan my deck, pick “The Trail of Tears,” and place the card in a pile in the center of the circle. As our president reads out the other answers, “BATMAN!!!, the wrath of Vladimir Putin, and Switching to Geico,” she bursts out laughing when she reads my answer. “That’s it!” she says, “That’s the winner!”

Perhaps the magic of Cards Against Humanity lies within its offensive nature. The cards poke fun at every category by which we define ourselves—gender, race, etc.—and that’s what makes it so special.

By immersing the players in such a coarse culture it makes all other distractions, all other personal struggles, disappear. The players forget that they didn’t want to be there or that they have an eight-page paper due on Monday that isn’t going to write itself. When we are playing the game, the rest of the world disappears.

We are now three rounds into the game and it is my turn to judge. “_____ kid-tested, mother approved,” I read, an edge of laughter threatening to overtake my voice. Almost immediately, the other members of my club throw down their white cards so quickly that I feel like I am standing in the middle of a blizzard. “A zesty breakfast burrito, Bill Nye the Science Guy, Punching a Congressman in the face…” While the other players shout for their favorite choices, I pick the card “Pretending to Care.”

Pretending to care. That’s what this party would have been without Cards Against Humanity.

We would have been our slightly antisocial writing selves, which means sitting in silence and petting the fat dog’s roly-poly limbs as he strolled by. Until someone pretended that they had somewhere better to be, most likely their bed and an episode of The Office. That’s the thing about people, especially writers; we find it easier to imagine relationships than actually forming them. For many of us, that’s why we play games; games have the ability to suspend reality, if only temporarily. In situations like these, it’s fun to leave the real world behind. It’s fun to become the witty and charismatic person we’ve always dreamed of being. It’s fun to show how much we do care, which is far more than most of us like to admit.

We play Cards Against Humanity for three hours straight, until I run out of cards to deal. At the end of the game, each player is covered in crushed snacks and stray fur. When the last card is played, the spell is broken. We sit in a few moments of silence before gathering our coats and exchange the standard round of good-byes and shouts of “Don’t freeze on the way home!”

Not much between us has changed. Except now I know every single person’s name.