I have to say, I had one fine weekend. It was quite nostalgic, in a way.
On Saturday, I had a few friends over for dinner. It was a real community effort. I made the starch/side, and various people brought over everything else. I loved the dining and sharing and everything. (We also went bowling and “out” after that. It was fun, but I think dinner was the high point.)
It reminded me of a time long, long ago. I think it would have been around 2001 or so when a group of us, which included my best friend J and two others—one of whom I’m not friends with anymore and the other I talk to only rarely—used to have dinner each week at someone’s house. We did it on Sundays, and it was really, really fun. Each of us hosted once a month, basically, which meant that no one person was particularly burdened. We were all poor back then, so meals were simple, as were the accommodations. I have fond memories of eating and chatting in a circle on the living room floor. After dinner, we’d usually just talk for a couple hours about things big and small.
Nowadays, it’s harder to even consider doing that with such frequency. Mainly, there’s the problem of finding a time that everyone has free. That’s difficult enough with one-off events; I can’t imagine how hard it would be to arrange a weekly event. No doubt people would be missing with some regularity.
There’s also an issue when it comes to the time on that particular night. While hanging out for hours used to be the norm, I can only think of one or two occasions in the last four or five years when an event has stretched that long. There’s something about just sitting around that is a kind of luxury that most of us don’t have anymore.
That’s really too bad.
There’s a part of me that’s coming up with ways to make these events a bit more frequent. I don’t know how possible that is, or to what extent I’ll pursue it, but it really would be nice.
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