A year of Sunday Dinners

How I made way more friends.

For the past year, I’ve hosted dinner at my apartment every single Sunday.

(Okay, I skipped one. But only because we saw each other that Saturday.)

This dinner is nearly always the highlight of my week, and is the best thing I’ve done for myself in years.

We have a core group of about eight who almost always come. Then a dozen more who attend sporadically. And maybe ten more who show only occasionally. I’m happy to see people from each group. The regulars feel like family, the occasional drop-ins feel like distant cousins it’s a treat to see.

I cooked for the first few Sundays, then switched to ordering take-out. Cooking for friends had more warmth, but I knew I’d quit hosting if I had to do it every week. Turns out it doesn’t really matter. The gathering is the important part.

Towards the end of the night, we do informal lightning talks. Three minutes, no slides. People get up and share whatever is on their mind: books they’re reading, events they attended, things they believe, psychedelic trips they survived. It’s Quaker-esque, but with more drug references.

Lightning talks in action.

People thank me for hosting, as if I’ve done some challenging task, but I really haven’t: I delegate nearly everything. I live in an apartment building, so every guest must be buzzed in on the intercom. I teach the regulars to do this, and whoever is closest just handles it. I provided seltzer for ten months, and then someone volunteered to make sure we always had enough on hand. I used to monitor my phone for the food delivery, but this week someone realized they could see the delivery status as well and grabbed the food proactively. I provide the container, but the event is co-produced by a crew.

No seating, no problem.

The hardest part of hosting is that some Sunday afternoons I really wish I didn’t have folks coming over. I’ve learned to just ignore this feeling. Inevitably, thirty minutes after people start arriving my energy surges and I find I’m enjoying myself. (Surely there is no broader lesson to be learned from this.)

When I’m out of town, someone else hosts the dinner in my apartment. I find this absolutely heart-warming.

The dinner has been so successful that it’s spawned an entire community much larger than itself. Now, other people host events every week for folks in the broader group. There were nine on the calendar for the week I published this.

When I meet someone potentially interesting, I usually invite them to dinner. It’s so handy to have an obvious first step for getting to know someone. Sometimes they cringe and tell me they’re busy this Sunday. “No problem, come by another week! I’m hosting every Sunday until I die.” I say it playfully, to get a laugh, but secretly I think I might be serious.