Why (and How) You Should Start Initiating Recurring Social Gatherings

Fitting social gatherings into busy lives often isn’t easy, but let me remind you of their value:

One of the longest studies on human connection found that adults who went to social gatherings regularly reported reduced levels of depression and better life satisfaction.

The good news? You don’t have to wait for life to ease up or to get invited to see your people; you can start creating recurring friend gatherings right now, which is what I’m talking about in today’s episode.

Not only will these gatherings help you keep up with friends – whether they be in your inner circle or neighbors you want to know better – they might even become your secret weapon for meeting new people in a low pressure way.

In this episode you’ll hear about:

• My counterpoints to common fears about hosting (What if nobody shows up? What if my home’s not nice enough?)
• The value in starting small (just one or two people!) and simple, remembering that most people don’t remember the details of a gathering, only the emotional impact
• Tactics for setting up recurring gatherings, such as locking in regular times or activities – plus, how my husband organizes regular movie nights
• Making gatherings easier for people to attend and enjoy (familiarity and comfort are key!) and host (popsicles, anyone?)

Resources & Links

Listen to Episode 6 about the six roles of hosting; Episode 91 about taking charge of your guest experience; Episode 111 about hosting perfectly imperfect (and consequently more frequent) gatherings; and Episode 155 about hosting on any budget.

Like what you hear? Visit my website, leave me a voicemail, and follow me on Instagram and TikTok!

Want to take this conversation a step further? Send this episode to a friend. Tell them you found it interesting and use what we just talked about as a conversation starter the next time you and your friend hang out!

This episode is sponsored by Slowly, a digital pen pal app used by over 10 million people worldwide. If you’ve been looking for a low-pressure way to connect with someone completely outside your normal friendship circle, this is it. Exchange letters at your own pace, no small talk panic required.

Download Slowly free and get 30% off Slowly Plus using my link: https://open.slowly.app/miXL/l8ei5iw6

WANT MORE?

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Dive into The Connection Reset. A 10-day private podcast to help you see the abundance of connection that already exists in your day-to-day (Yes. Really. I promise you have more than you realize). Start today. 

Transcript

Podcast Intro/Outro: 1:28

All right, gang. Here's to nights that turn into mornings and friends that turn into family. Cheers. Hello, hello, and welcome to the Friendship IRL podcast. I'm your host, Alex Alexander. Each week we talk about what is working(and what is not) in our friendships, community and connections. Have you ever wished you could sit down and have a conversation about what is really going on in your friendships? Well, you found your people. Join us as we dive into real life stories and explore new ways to approach these connections. Together, we're reimagining the rules of friendship

Alex Alexander: 2:18

I was hanging out with a friend on FaceTime the other night. By the way, more random FaceTime. I'm calling it into my life, more like, you know, we're just doing the dishes, wandering around the phones, getting, like, thrown all over the place and pointing up at the ceiling, because we're just chatting it up. I need more of that in my life. Anyways, just chatting with my friend. She's washing her dishes. Her kids are running around out of nowhere. She's like, you should be really proud of me. Like, tell me more. Tell me more. Why am I proud of you? And she proceeds to tell me about how she has been inviting all these people over for Taco Tuesday. So before your brain hijacks the potential here, let's talk about Now, she's mentioned this before, but I knew she was it now. I hope, I hope I don't have to tell you why this matters. One of the longest running studies on human connection is out of Harvard. It's been going for 80 years, inviting, like close friends and their kids over. But what I and it's found that strong social connections are key to long term health and happiness. But one of the studies in didn't know is that she started inviting other people. And it particular found that adults who went to social gatherings regularly reported reduced levels of depression and better life satisfaction. And the good news is we can build this into turns out, she invited her neighbor, a neighbor she's never our lives. That's what I want to talk about today. Instead of just hoping that you get invited to some sort of recurring gathering, what if you created it so often, I think we're really met before, just kind of randomly threw it out when she looking for what we hope exists, and we hope we get invited, but you can make it happen yourself, and it's honestly pretty easy. It doesn't need to be anything fancy. We're going to talk about met her, I think, and this week, this taco Tuesday, the only that today. Now, the other huge thing about recurring gatherings is there's that stat that I don't really love but it still is a stat, but it takes 200 hours to develop a close person who showed up was that one neighbor. She goes, and you friendship, and I think that makes a lot of people panic, right? It's like, where do I find 200 hours? We have all this scarcity about our time, but when you have a recurring should be so proud, because I wanted to cancel. I don't know gathering, that's actually a really strategic way to just slowly chip away at those hours. Now you may never hit 200 hours her that well, and now it's just me and her, and there's all this with someone like my friend. Maybe that neighbor becomes a really close friend of hers, maybe. But even if she spent 10-20 hours just getting to know this neighbor, and that's all pressure like, Oh crap. What are we gonna talk about? But she did this ever was, couldn't we agree that there's some value to that, like there's some value in knowing your neighbor and being able to call up this neighbor if you need a hand, if a package it. She's like, I sucked it up. We actually had a lovely got left on your doorstep, if you want them to go on a walk with you around the neighborhood, if you're already out on a walk and you see their garage open, right? It feels evening, but I did have this moment of panic, but I'm really nice to be like, Hey, how have you been? Even if it's a couple minute car Conversation. That familiarity is worth something. So what kind of fears do we need to get over happy I did it. Now it doesn't have to be Taco Tuesday. There to make this happen? Let's name the fears out loud. What if nobody shows up? I think this is most people's number one fear, and I get it. I get it. I don't remember exactly when this are so many examples of this, but what I want to talk about happened, but I have a very vivid memory of sending a message out to a big group of friends and just being like, Hey, I cooked a lot for dinner tonight. Does anyone want to today is starting a recurring friend gathering. And I know, I come over? I think I sent it out around like noon, and I kind of figured somebody would come over, because I had indeed cooked a lot of food that day. But one message after another know your brain is already spinning with all the reasons rolled in being like, hey, sorry. Can't make it today. Been a really long day, super busy. Have plans tonight. I cooked all this food, and nobody showed up, that this will not work for you. and I'm here to report that I am still alive. I still have friends, and honestly, them not showing up really had nothing to do with me, right? I extended the offer, but it wasn't that they were rejecting me. They were rejecting the opportunity to come over for dinner that night because it just didn't work with their schedule. Now, if the idea of nobody showing up just really sends you into a panic. I get it. We all have our own fears about rejection. Then the best thing you can do is really try to lock in one to two people first. It doesn't need to be a big group. One to two people really is enough to start something. I think the next biggest fear is people saying, my home isn't nice enough, or I'm not a good host, and I'm here to remind you that most people will not remember if you served them with paper napkins. They won't remember if your throw pillows match. They won't remember if your countertops are red. True story, the first condo Michael and I bought. I should find a photo and post this on social The first place we lived in, the countertops were red, like bright red linoleum, and they were that way for years when we lived there, because we just couldn't afford to switch them out. And if I look back, and my friends look back Honestly, I'd probably need to remind them that the countertops are red. What they're going to remember is the fact that we all used to sit around on the floor in the living room and, like, pack 20 people into that tiny, little apartment and have family dinners. I doubt any of them, unless I remind them remember that the countertops were red, very, very fire engine red. Okay, I forgot about that. I forgot too. It didn't stop me from hosting. We had people over all the time. If this is a panic of yours, go listen to Episode 111 because I talk about how it really doesn't matter, and we've just convinced ourselves it does okay. Now the next one is, it's really going to be awkward if not many people come, right? If we don't have this big group, then I failed to have a group function. And I'm here to remind you that every group starts with just two people. It starts with me saying, Hey, do you want to come over? I'm starting this taco Tuesday Hangout, and maybe it's just two people for a few weeks, and then one of you invites somebody else, and they finally say yes, and you have three people, maybe you have four people. But here's what I'm going to remind you, is that in those beginning moments, it's like, oh well, it's just, it's not really a group, it's just a couple of us. But if that group grew to, let's say 30 people. 30 people showed up all the time. You would probably look back with nostalgia on the moments where it was just three or four people, and it was like a simple, quaint, casual gathering where everybody really got to talk to each other and catch up. It's like when we're in the moment where that's happening, and we want more. When the more arrives, we look back and wish for what it previously was sometimes. So it's okay. Every gathering just starts with two people. Another objection I hear, or a fear, is people will think that I'm desperate. And this one, I don't mean to laugh at you if you have this fear, but like you want to be invited. People want to be invited. People are flattered when they are invited. So how would you feel if you received this invite? You wouldn't think somebody's desperate. You'd be thinking about yourself. You'd be like, Wow, I'm so grateful they invited me. They thought of me that they considered me. You're just being sociable. You're not being needy. And then maybe the second biggest fear I've saved for last, which is, what if people decline? Right? You're okay if three or four people come, but what if four other people decline, and you spend the whole night thinking about how there could have been eight people, but there's only four people, and I'm here to tell you. That you will get turned down. Sometimes it's just what it is, and the more you do it, the less it will sting. In fact, it probably will sting less than you think, especially when you're in the moment, hopefully appreciating that four people are there spending the evening with you. If this is a fear you have, I would really suggest going to listen to Episode 145 People say yes to this movie, no to that movie, and they'll kind"Reframing Rejection with Tanesha Moody." So if you of send a list, and then he will figure out timing with the believe me that we can move past these fears, that they are specific people that wanted to go to those movies. And totally normal, that there are ways to reframe them, that none sometimes it's just one person, sometimes it's like six people. of them are going to kill you at the end of the day, then let's It creates this consistency where everyone kind of knows they're going to get asked if they want to go see a movie, but talk about how we actually do this. There is power in what I the timing is more flexible. He can go back and forth with like to think of as removing variables right when you have a somebody, and they can be like, Oh, I can't do this weekend, but I can do next weekend. I can't do the weekend, I can do recurring gathering, you are locking a variable in ahead of Tuesday. And so he's kind of negotiating the time, but time. You are making it consistent for people. And in a everybody can trust that they will get contacted regularly world where we now have to initiate one off hangouts and we about the movies. Now he really loves the movies, so he has no problem sending out these messages. It is appealing enough have to go back and forth and compare our schedules, and that to him to have a group to go with that he does not care about leaves a lot of people frustrated and exacerbated, the admin work, because he would rather go see the movies, right? exacerbated, yeah, and that leaves a lot of people The other thing I want to note about this is that he doesn't frustrated. The more you lock in ahead of time, the less friction host this in our home. So if you're somebody who is panicked about getting people together, you don't need to always host in there is for everyone. So you have three options here. The your home. There are other ways to host, and I actually have an first one is you can just lock in the time. This is like my entire episode about this episode, 155 how to host on any friend's Taco Tuesday example, right? budget and not fall into the Martha Stewart trap. Now your third option is to lock in both. This is the most frictionless, the most memorable, the most consistent for people. My friend's example of taco Tuesday, right? Every

week, Tuesday, 6: 17:41

30pm her house. Yeah, we have a location, an activity and a time. Everybody can schedule that on their calendar. But it could be even simpler. It could be weekly Friday night popsicles in your neighborhood, where you just pull out a box of popsicles and you're sitting in your front lawn, and your neighbors and the kids show up to hang out. You always got a box of popsicles. It could be Sunday morning coffee. There are so many examples of the ways you can do this. Another positive of these recurring gatherings is that, over time, they start to develop some familiarity, right? The first time somebody goes, they might be a little uncertain about what to expect, what it's like, but after you've gone once or twice, it becomes way easier to go, that initial anticipation of, Ooh, what's going to happen here? Like, am I going to have fun? Do I know these people? Is it going to be awkward? That goes away? Right? People develop preferences for things simply because they are familiar and comfortable. And so by creating a recurring Hangout, you're building a ritual that people can look forward to, and even if they don't look forward to it, at a bare minimum, they can feel like it's a really easy way to socialize. Now I want you to notice that all of these activities that I have suggested are, in my opinion, very simple, right? A box of popsicles, Taco Tuesday, movie group where you're not even in your own home. It doesn't have to be something fancy, and I think that's a real contrast to this kind of Instagram esthetic that might pop into our brains. When I go on social media and I see recurring friend gatherings like this, I see a lot of fancy supper clubs where people are going out and spending a lot of money to go to dinner. Or a friend like coffee bar that I've seen a few times pops into mind. There's these people that do this big, fancy coffee bar, and they have all these syrups and they have all these pastries, and they lay it all out fancy, and they invite all their friends over every Sunday. That's a decent amount of work. It doesn't have to be like that. If that's something you want to do, go for it. Great. I love that. But it doesn't have to be there is no more value in a fancy coffee bar setup that takes you an hour or two every week to put together than there is with a box of popsicles. Both are a recurring gathering that is bringing people together. That is a very consistent and simple and comfortable way for people to connect. If you're like, Okay, Alex, but hosting just gives me the absolute chills. Then I want you to go and listen to episode six, where I talk about the six roles of hosting, and I give you lots of ideas for ways to not do certain things when you gather people like, how do you determine the things that you dread and not do them? That is what that episode is about. So if I haven't convinced you already, I want to give you one more reason to consider hosting a recurring gathering, and that's that this could be your secret weapon for meeting new people when you host a recurring popsicle day, coffee Hangout, Park meetup, movie group, whatever it is you have now built yourself a very low pressure way to invite new people into your life. Instead of feeling like you have to invite them one on one to coffee, to sit in front of each other for an hour and try and connect. You can just throw it out to someone like, Hey, I'm a part of this movie group. Would you ever want to come see a movie with us? I do Taco Tuesday every week, if you want to stop by. I know you don't live in the neighborhood. You live a couple neighborhoods away, but grab a couple neighbors and come on over and hang out with the Friday night popsicles. No, you don't have to bring anything, just yourselves. It just makes this really easy way to casually throw it out there to people. And you might have to throw it out 2,3,4, times to get somebody to join you. But what does it matter? You're hosting it every week anyways. Now, even if you get this up and running like my friend, right? She's been hosting this taco Tuesday for a few months now. I believe there might be moments when you want to quit, like that moment when other people didn't show up and it was just her and her neighbor and how she was there with this one on one awkward initially feeling Hangout, right? It could be the moment where it's been going great for a month or two, and then suddenly you send out the invite, and nobody can join this week, and nobody can join the week after that, and only one person joins the third week. Here's the thing, plenty of solid social circles start slow. They build one person at a time. They peak because every. One's excited, and then they have a plateau before they pick back up again. There are seasons that are slower. Don't let those slow starts or slow seasons fool you into thinking that it's not working. It takes time for people to feel comfortable, for people to work this into their schedules. You probably have to invite people multiple times, and the first few times they might not prioritize it. That is normal, but the more consistent you can be with the invite, the more consistent people will become over time. So before you start planning the perfect charcuterie board or panicking about how your throw pillows don't match. Ask yourself one thing, what would make this worth it? I talk about this in Episode 91 where I talk about taking charge of your guest experience, and I understand that in this situation, you would be the host and not the guest, but the same principle applies if you extended the invite and you put yourself out there, whether or not somebody said yes or no just because you tried to create what you wanted in the world. Is that worth it? If you had one good conversation, would that make it worth it? If you got the vulnerability in your you know, you you put yourself out there and you allowed somebody into your imperfect home. Would that make it worth it? Would just trying something new be worth it? What is one thing that would make it worth it to give a recurring gathering a try? Because yes, part of is about people showing up, but a big part of it is just about you stretching yourself socially. And I think that is the most beautiful thing, as I listen to my friend talk about it, she is truly proud of herself for trying something new, whether or not anybody shows up. She is truly trying to stretch herself in a way that she never had before. So at the end of the day, you get to decide what makes it worth it. It's not whether everyone shows up or whether it goes perfectly or whether it looks Instagram worthy. It's whether you can push yourself out of your comfort zone, whether you can take one small step towards creating something you want in the world or in your life. So pick a time or an activity or both. Keep it simple. Keep inviting people, and remember every gathering starts small, and someday you'll look back and wish it was the early days with that. I'll see you next week.

Podcast Intro/Outro: 25:25

Thank you for listening to this episode of Friendship IRL. I am so honored to have these conversations with you. But don't let the chat die here. Send me a voice message. I created a special website just to chat with you. You can find it at alexalex.chat. You can also find me on Instagram. My handle, @itsalexalexander. Or go ahead and leave a review wherever you prefer to listen to podcasts. Now if you want to take this conversation a step further, send this episode to a friend. Tell them you found it interesting. And use what we just talked about as a conversation starter the next time you and your friend hang out. No need for a teary goodbye. I'll be back with a new episode next week.