Last night was a rough night for basketball. Not only did Gordon Hayward suffer a horrific leg injury... but three (three!) of the guys I like playing with were unavailable for pickup, because it was "date night."

​What are the odds, right?

But it got me thinking, "How come I've never done date night before?"​

Cyber bullies are mean -- especially to women, but also to men. Which is why so many public figures, from Lindy West to Ed Sheeran, have "quit social media" and "left Twitter."

But bullies can also be a blogger's greatest ally! My email list basically doubled this week because a few damaged people decided to call me names on our high school alumni page.

That's the silly thing that bullies don't realize. By "hating" on me... they're kind of giving me exactly what I want. (Kind of like how protestors of conservative speakers take what would have been a one-time audience of 50-100 students, and turn it into an international sensation

​So I saw this funny video on my newsfeed last night. Though I enjoyed watching it, it also made me a little sad. Like... Watch it. What man actually thinks the first guy would ever get a woman's number?

My "thing" is adult playfulness, happiness and leisure skill development. But I also love language. Which is why I notice spelling and grammar mistakes. It's why I wrote Not to Nitpick, But Try Takes The Infinitive (Or a Gerund), NOT a Conjunction. It's why I wrote It's Not "Rediculous" -- It's RIDICULOUS. Here's Why. 

And it's why I'm writing today to share this important public service announcement: it's not "prejudice." It's prejudiced. Here's why:

I recently found myself sitting by a river in Idaho with no agenda or technology - for a whole day! So I read Loving What Is: Four Questions That Can Change Your Life, by Byron Katie.

"I peed on the campfire last night, and it steamed my lady parts," I told my backpacking companions last night, in what I thought would be a helpful contribution to a conversation about relieving oneself in nature. 

The response was one I'd already heard several times that weekend: "Eva! You're... something else."

I suppose it could be argued that I'm socially awkward -- though I definitely don't feel that way. And I'm pretty sure most people don't see me that way. Why? Just because you say and do awkward things... doesn't mean you have to be awkward or unpleasant to be around.

There's a super exciting new book out that I urge everyone (especially teenagers and parents) to read at once! It's called iGen: Why Today’s Super-Connected Kids Are Growing Up Less Rebellious, More Tolerant, Less Happy--and Completely Unprepared for Adulthood--and What That Means for the Rest of Us. 

​It's about how growing up with a phone in your hand makes you sad, anxious, and bad at social skills.

When I did my master's research on adult playfulness and leisure skill development, I spent, like, forever trying to recruit 60 people to participate in a study. Then I entered the startup world and learned about CRM (customer relationship management) software, marketing automation -- and even just A/B testing (sometimes called split testing), which is when you compare two versions of a web page (or marketing email, or whatever) to see which one performs better. This allows you to maximize your reach and chances of success by making data-driven decisions.

And this is exactly what Taylor Swift has done with her new single, Look What You Made Me Do.

Love is pretty much the greatest thing ever. People who don't understand evolution think sex is the most important thing ever -- but without love, our species wouldn't exist. It doesn't matter how many women you can knock up if no one loves or cares for anyone and all the babies die.

As such, we evolved to be acutely sensitive to loneliness (and other negative emotions, like jealousy). And we evolved to love love. 

Sometimes, spaces look playful... but you can't actually play in them. image: reddit​

Don't get me wrong. I love ball pits as much as the next guy. I spent pretty much every afternoon of my childhood at Chuck E. Cheese (and, unlike kids today, I actually got to run around and play by myself while the parents drank pitchers of beer). I'm all about play, and I'm stoked that so many Silicon Valley startups want ball pits.

But here's the thing: many designers and office managers think their job is complete once they've got that ball pit installed.

Creating a playful office space requires more than that.