The Fun Scale, Revamped

A1 Fun

I recently read an older blog post by climber/writer Kelly Cordes describing and outlining the fun scale (link). I thought that it was a great post and really liked the idea. However, I decided that I wanted to expand on the idea and add an emotional ranking to the types of fun categories. Yesterday, over a few pints of Terminator, Adam and I hashed out a rough outline on our improved fun scale.

Let us start by looking at the three categories of fun: A, B and C. These categories are universal and apply to everyone and every experience. Very objective in nature.

“A” fun is the same as Kelly’s type 1 fun, and is when you are actually having fun while you are participating in the activity, “in the moment” kind of thing. Kelly’s examples describe it the best, “Good food, good sex, rippin singletrack, powder skiing. Imperial Stouts. Okay, I changed a few to fit my personality…

“B” fun could be described as activities that are not fun while you are doing them, but are considered fun after you finish. Aka retrospective fun. Activities like high altitude mountaineering or really intense training days.

“C” fun involves activities that you thought were going to be really fun, but the actual event and memories turn out to be not fun.  For example, planning a really sweet ultra light speed circumnavigation of Mt. Hood in November, but then having gale force winds, freezing rain and frigid conditions resulting in a rescue from SAR.

The second classification for the fun scales involves amount fun/thrill/pleasure you derive from an activity. This classification relies heavily on personal opinions, so one person’s type 1 fun could be completely different than someone else’s. It’s all subjective.

Type 1 fun: involves the highest, maximum, the extreme, pinnacle amount of pleasure that could be derived from an activity. Hard to get, but you constantly seek it.

Type 2 fun: a general good time, nothing really thrilling. The kind of fun you have most often

Type 3 fun: nothing to complain about and you weren’t disappointed. Not worth repeating, but glad you did it kind of stuff.

Now you have the tools to apply the fun scale, so let me present some activities and show you how I would classify it. Ripping down some long, flowly singletrack at sunset = A1 Fun aka Steak Sauce Fun, (meaning I had fun while doing it and it would be maximum level, hard to get fun.)  or long training run in the rain and wind, but achieved a new PR = B2 (not fun while I was doing it, but feel it was a general good time when looking back on it. Keep in mind this is subjective so some people might classify that experience as B1 if they really wanted the PR, for example

So in the end, the options for the fun scale would proceed as follows:

A1           B1           C1

A2           B2           C2

A3           B3           C3

Keep in mind the for Category C fun, the types of fun are reserved. So C1 would read as: I thought I was going to have fun, but it turned out to be horrible, terrible, the worst experience ever. C3 would read as I thought I was going to have fun, but in the end, it wasn’t as much fun as I thought and probably wont do it again.

So there you have it. They modified fun scale. The brain child of Adam and I. Let me know what you think. Now go out and get some steak sauce!

UNT

Bryan