Germany in ’14

Everyone in Berlin was watching the same thing that night. We crowded into some corporate event—the kind that sounds meaningless until you remember that you actually wanted to be there, that nobody coerced you, that the World Cup mattered and Germany was playing America. The screens were enormous, the beer was cold, and nothing existed beyond the next ninety minutes.

The room held its breath. When the goal came early, the place erupted in that pure, uncomplicated joy that only sports can pull out of cynical adults. We won 1-0, which meant it stayed tight all the way through. Not one of those blowouts where you stop caring by halftime.

Then it was done. Everyone dispersed back to their actual lives, and I never saw most of them again. Watch parties are temporary cities that form and dissolve around a single event. They’re not built to last.