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I have a hypothesis that almost all of the US's current cultural problems would be solved if once a month we all cooked and shared a meal with another randomly

I have a hypothesis that almost all of the US's current cultural problems would be solved if once a month we all cooked and shared a meal with another randomly chosen family.

deregulateMed 5y ago
That sounds like fun. Although I hope you are ready to meet lots of Christians and a few alcoholics every year. Just remember that the 90% doesn't like talking about their jobs. Hope you know the latest sportsball news... That being said, there's usually other commonalities to discuss.
- war1025 5y ago
  > Although I hope you are ready to meet lots of Christians and a few alcoholics every year. Always good to lump the Christians in with the alcoholics.
  - iammisc 5y ago
    They're just jealous that christians have more fun.
  - Notanothertoo 5y ago
    I do believe the modern (us) conservative evangelical "back to basics" movement started in the 30s/40s as a response to rampant alcoholism from the great depression. Church of christ and similar denominations. They take a (claimed) "hyper" literal approach over a few key issues, like alcohol, sex, drugs, taxes, tithing, homosexuality.. Recent history was the 90s abstinence movement.. And in the last 7 or so years these have been the churches taking the brunt of the exodus and have been largely deflated, with churches across the nation dying due to lack of new young people. I would wager good money that most modern conservative US Christian families have a male alcoholic relative not too far removed. The alcoholics and Christians go together.
    - war1025 5y ago
      > I would wager good money that most modern conservative US Christian families have a male alcoholic relative not too far removed. I think that has more to do with the pervasiveness of Christianity and alcoholism independent of each other.
      - abeyer 5y ago
        Or reverse causation, even... I've known more people turned alcoholic to cope with their christian family than people turned christian to cope with their alcoholic family.
  - deregulateMed 5y ago
    No offense to the christians. I was just trying to think of groups that compose more than 10% of the population.
    - war1025 5y ago
      Fair enough.
    - tclancy 5y ago
      Oh, I thought they meant it the other way around. At least when one of us gets too into wine we don't start a crusade.
- fidesomnes 5y ago
  Even as a non christian I find your lack of tact pretty uninteresting.
- stolenmerch 5y ago
  Depends on if this proposed program is voluntary or involuntary. I suspect the folks to self-select to sit down with a random family to cook and share a meal may not identify with the demographics you point out.
  - iNane9000 5y ago
    Certainly the Mormons won’t show up, nor JWs with their watchtower pamphlets./s If there’s one thing Christians love, it’s inviting strangers to dinner. It’s biblical. They will also pray for you and thank God for the good food and company. Some find this “do good always” attitude horrifying, but probably because they’ve never been exposed to good Christians. Remember, most humans are good, even the Christians!
- munificent 5y ago
  I've met lots and lots of Christians and a decent number of alcoholics. Most are very nice folks, just like all the non-Christians and non-alcoholics.
  - deregulateMed 5y ago
    I think the alcoholics depend on what time of the night you catch them.
  - Kye 5y ago
    People can be very nice and polite while saying horrible things. I've heard plenty along the lines of "I'll be your friend, but I'm going to miss you after we die since you're going to burn in hell." Said with the kindest, gentlest tone you've ever heard.
    - munificent 5y ago
      I don't think most things are intrinsically objectively horrible or not. The speaker's context and intentions and the framework you use to interpret end up saying much more than the words themselves.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
scotu 5y ago
yeah, and please talk about social issues and that you have a partner of the same sex! just like in family meals that's going to go down super well! /s
- yaitsyaboi 5y ago
  I think you're overstating this based on the internet. Sure, there are aggressively intolerant folks and maybe too many for this to work. But the vast majority of folks aren’t going to get into a flame war over diner while staring into someone’s face. They might say crude things but they’ll probably also learn something. I think the only thing that makes this idea really questionable is the proliferation of firearms in American culture
  - squeaky-clean 5y ago
    I have at least 3 friends who were kicked out of their homes as teenagers for coming out to their parents. It's far more common than you'd think.
    - alisonatwork 5y ago
      It's a little bit different when it's outside the family, though. Inside the family, a homophobic parent might feel emasculated, or like a failure, if their kid turns out to be gay. But when meeting an adult gay couple at a social function, or working with a gay colleague, the same person will probably at least remain cordial, if not explicitly supportive.
      - coding123 5y ago
        don't search for "angry public" on youtube, it may change your perception of the world. 99% of my problems in the world are related to the random public, not my family.
        munificent 5y ago
        I mean, you're basically self-manufacturing bias and then claiming the bias reflects reality. If you search for "red heads" on YouTube you'll end up thinking everyone is a ginger.
galfarragem 5y ago
You may like: https://nautil.us/issue/62/systems/eating-for-peace https://nautil.us/issue/62/systems/eating-for-peace
babblingdweeb 5y ago
This is wonderful. I have been studying communities and food as a way to rebuild trust...this sums it all up nicely. I have been looking to start up a local "potluck" type idea --note: not my idea, many people do this already. I just thought a little rough organizing might be nice.
mc32 5y ago
This already assumes people are good and get along and are high trust. What if I’m in a crew am a nice talker and get to scope things out for my crew as we chit chat? It’s the same thing that did in the lonely hearts clubs. Swindlers came in to the rescue and take advantage of a lonely set of people. In this case people who are open and inviting and trusting of random strangers.
- munificent 5y ago
  > This already assumes people are good and get along and are high trust. It does assume most people are good, but that is something I believe deeply in my bones. (A simple logical argument is this: if people were on average harmful, we would all choose to be hermits. Since we don't, it implies that in aggregate our human interactions are a net benefit to us personally.) It does assumes that people can choose whether or not to get along and that most people will choose to do that when placed in an interaction with strangers. I think that's a safe assumption for probably like 90% of groups of people. It does not assume high trust. You only need to trust your dinner companions enough to not poison you or attack you, which is not a very high bar. > It’s the same thing that did in the lonely hearts clubs. Swindlers came in to the rescue and take advantage of a lonely set of people. I think the stakes a low enough to not make the situation much of a honeypot for bad actors. There's little to gain beyond a meal and my hypothetical "game" would require all participants to sometimes be the cooks.
  - jvalencia 5y ago
    The problem is that it only takes a small percent to ruin it for all. If one in 10 people is awful, and you have 10 meetings with an even random distribution, then everyone will have a story about how they got swindled.
    - ceilingcorner 5y ago
      But the other 9 uniting against the 1’s craziness might actually be more effective than having 10/10 good people. “We just need an alien invasion to unite humanity.”
iammisc 5y ago
We used to call this going to church. When literally everyone of all political stripes attended the same churches, going to a church potluck was basically being paired randomly. However large political factions have made church membership out to be undesirable. We are reaping the rewards. I realized yesterday reading about cornel west, that even though I disagree with his politics, I see from his Christianity we have the same concerns, and values. I can't honestly say that about other people
- edmundsauto 5y ago
  This is a rosy view of religion, although I accept that is your experience and perspective, and thank you for sharing it. To me, church attendance is about making the in/out group very clear. You may feel close to different political views based on your single church or flavor of Christianity, but that's still a pretty limited group. I think church membership has become undesirable because 1) fewer people believe in the supernatural and 2) the stated positions of many major religions on issues of abortion and inclusion.
  - nine_k 5y ago
    It's not about religion per se, but about a common religion which has rituals that make people meet each other more, piercing their bubble of like-mindedness (smaller than the religion). It's like going to a supermarket makes you see people more varied than your family circle and your chosen TV show characters. (It does not nudge you to talk to these people, though.)
    - edmundsauto 5y ago
      I am not a religious person or church goer, but are the perspectives really that different? To me, it looks like a church is a self selected group of geographically proximate people who tend to look alike and dress alike. You don't usually see much ethnic diversity in a church photo. It's more diverse than sitting at home, but I think exposure to a few TV shows has more diversity of thought, ethnicity, sexuality, etc., compared to going to church. I'm not saying its bad for people to get together and talk. I see that church was an important mechanism for this in the past. However, I can't get past the negatives (supernatural belief, child abuse, kowtowing to authority, shame, ostracism) to believe it will continue to be a net positive. What we need is more of what I think the Unitarians are after - non denominational community.
silicon2401 5y ago
Your hypothesis is based on some utopian assumptions. I can't tell you how many people whose views or mannerisms I hate, and who I can't stand being around. Forcing me to eat with anyone, let alone strangers, would only make me dislike them more and cause tension. My utopian solution is for people to have more space and be farther apart, rather than everybody crammed up in cities.
- munificent 5y ago
  > I can't tell you how many people whose views or mannerisms I hate, and who I can't stand being around. Forcing me to eat with anyone, let alone strangers, would only make me dislike them more and cause tension. I think you are either an unusual outlier or are very much underestimating how well you can get along with people different from you when sharing a meal with them in person. People are not who they appear to be online.
  - silicon2401 5y ago
    I can get along well if I have to, but I was responding to a comment that talked about these forced dinners being good for society. I get drained enough getting along when in day to day life, which is minimal because I have built a life where I can be very secluded and avoid social interaction unless I want it. Now stick me in these forced dinners and I'll lose a lot of mental health, just like working in an office is a significant and constant drain on my well-being (hence why the pandemic and lockdowns have been the best times of my life, by far).
  - watwut 5y ago
    You never spend dinner with people who spent that time being condescending or insulting something close to you? You can get along with them easily. But then it ends and you are happy it ended and never want to be there again. Because getting along with them requires you swallowing all above, pretending it is ok. Acvepting situation in which they talk and you are silent or submissive.
    - munificent 5y ago
amoorthy 5y ago
There's a startup doing this :-) http://www.makeamericadinneragain.com/ http://www.makeamericadinneragain.com/. They were profiled on NPR a while ago I recall.
tclancy 5y ago
Ha, I thought of trying to build an app for this, even if just to get neighbors to share a meal. No one feels like cooking every day but if we could share the burden thusly it might help foster a sense of community.
coding123 5y ago
if forced, be prepared for a lot of murders on those nights.
- munificent 5y ago
  We will sort out our differences one way or another!
foobarian 5y ago
Earlier on I had hopes that Facebook would implement "random friends" or "guest friends" in order to make the social graph denser and more diverse, thus making the world a better place. Not the direction things went I guess...
- war1025 5y ago
  You can gain the acquaintance of quite a few strangers by joining groups. My town has a general discussion Facebook page. I don't know that any of the people would recognize me on the street, but there are quite a few names I recognize now. This has been really handy since I didn't grow up here, and in small town America that often means people just won't get to know you because you "don't belong". Also my wife is involved in several interest based groups. Mainly related to sewing and thrifting and such. I don't know that it makes the world a better place, but it certainly can expose you to people you wouldn't otherwise ever have interacted with.
Invictus0 5y ago
Sad to see so many cynical replies. When I was at RPI, we had a club that organized dinner parties much like you describe. You can check it out here: https://thedinnerpartycollective.com/about https://thedinnerpartycollective.com/about
socialist_coder 5y ago
You're spot on. Anything that increases your exposure to strangers and builds trust will be a boon to society. This is also the case with social clubs and sports leagues. Membership of these things has been in decline for decades and is now at an all-time low. Being in a bowling league or the rotary club with random members of your community did a ton to increase basic trust in society. Which in turn, makes everything else work better. Source: https://freakonomics.com/podcast/trust-me/ https://freakonomics.com/podcast/trust-me/ This is why consuming video content, specifically streaming services with all-you-can-stream crap is so damaging. People no longer have time for shared dinners, clubs, or adult sports leagues because they'd rather binge watch a new series every week.
- siquick 5y ago
  > This is why consuming video content, specifically streaming services with all-you-can-stream crap is so damaging. People no longer have time for shared dinners, clubs, or adult sports leagues because they'd rather binge watch a new series every week. In my experience it’s not that people would rather watch videos than see their friends or do their hobbies, it’s that they’re working jobs which consume their lives to the point that watching Netflix is pretty much all they have the energy for. And before you know it, you don’t have any hobbies anymore so you watch more Netflix and the circle continues.
  - munificent 5y ago
    ...and it gets increasingly hard to coordinate with your friends because they're also all watching Netflix and can't be bothered to make time.
  - rdtwo 5y ago
    Man I envy you, to have time and emotional energy to invest in a tv show. It’s too much a commitment for me. This must be why folks just want to watch reruns of friends no investment
    - siquick 5y ago
ww520 5y ago
There should be an app like table-for-six to let strangers come together to have lunch, not for dating but just having a meal together.
Nimitz14 5y ago
That's what the draft was great for.
trashface 5y ago
Terrible idea. Families don't want to talk to single, middle aged guys like me. I don't need any new enemies, thank you very much.
tomrod 5y ago
Unless you have had food poisoning from a potluck, or had a schizophrenic neighbor joke about putting ground glass in their chili at said potluck (it definitely had some kind of grit). No, I don't think forcing sociality is the right solution, though I am on board with encouraging community events generally.
nr2x 5y ago
Yet my tolerance for casual racism is low, and depending where you are in the country, that’s definitely on the menu.

I have a hypothesis that almost all of the US's current cultural problems would be solved if once a month we all cooked and shared a meal with another randomly chosen family.

deregulateMed 5y ago

That sounds like fun. Although I hope you are ready to meet lots of Christians and a few alcoholics every year. Just remember that the 90% doesn't like talking about their jobs. Hope you know the latest sportsball news... That being said, there's usually other commonalities to discuss.

war1025 5y ago
> Although I hope you are ready to meet lots of Christians and a few alcoholics every year. Always good to lump the Christians in with the alcoholics.
- iammisc 5y ago
  They're just jealous that christians have more fun.
- Notanothertoo 5y ago
  I do believe the modern (us) conservative evangelical "back to basics" movement started in the 30s/40s as a response to rampant alcoholism from the great depression. Church of christ and similar denominations. They take a (claimed) "hyper" literal approach over a few key issues, like alcohol, sex, drugs, taxes, tithing, homosexuality.. Recent history was the 90s abstinence movement.. And in the last 7 or so years these have been the churches taking the brunt of the exodus and have been largely deflated, with churches across the nation dying due to lack of new young people. I would wager good money that most modern conservative US Christian families have a male alcoholic relative not too far removed. The alcoholics and Christians go together.
  - war1025 5y ago
    > I would wager good money that most modern conservative US Christian families have a male alcoholic relative not too far removed. I think that has more to do with the pervasiveness of Christianity and alcoholism independent of each other.
    - abeyer 5y ago
      Or reverse causation, even... I've known more people turned alcoholic to cope with their christian family than people turned christian to cope with their alcoholic family.
- deregulateMed 5y ago
  No offense to the christians. I was just trying to think of groups that compose more than 10% of the population.
  - war1025 5y ago
    Fair enough.
  - tclancy 5y ago
    Oh, I thought they meant it the other way around. At least when one of us gets too into wine we don't start a crusade.
fidesomnes 5y ago
Even as a non christian I find your lack of tact pretty uninteresting.
stolenmerch 5y ago
Depends on if this proposed program is voluntary or involuntary. I suspect the folks to self-select to sit down with a random family to cook and share a meal may not identify with the demographics you point out.
- iNane9000 5y ago
  Certainly the Mormons won’t show up, nor JWs with their watchtower pamphlets./s If there’s one thing Christians love, it’s inviting strangers to dinner. It’s biblical. They will also pray for you and thank God for the good food and company. Some find this “do good always” attitude horrifying, but probably because they’ve never been exposed to good Christians. Remember, most humans are good, even the Christians!
munificent 5y ago
I've met lots and lots of Christians and a decent number of alcoholics. Most are very nice folks, just like all the non-Christians and non-alcoholics.
- deregulateMed 5y ago
  I think the alcoholics depend on what time of the night you catch them.
- Kye 5y ago
  People can be very nice and polite while saying horrible things. I've heard plenty along the lines of "I'll be your friend, but I'm going to miss you after we die since you're going to burn in hell." Said with the kindest, gentlest tone you've ever heard.
  - munificent 5y ago
    I don't think most things are intrinsically objectively horrible or not. The speaker's context and intentions and the framework you use to interpret end up saying much more than the words themselves.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]

scotu 5y ago

yeah, and please talk about social issues and that you have a partner of the same sex! just like in family meals that's going to go down super well! /s

yaitsyaboi 5y ago
I think you're overstating this based on the internet. Sure, there are aggressively intolerant folks and maybe too many for this to work. But the vast majority of folks aren’t going to get into a flame war over diner while staring into someone’s face. They might say crude things but they’ll probably also learn something. I think the only thing that makes this idea really questionable is the proliferation of firearms in American culture
- squeaky-clean 5y ago
  I have at least 3 friends who were kicked out of their homes as teenagers for coming out to their parents. It's far more common than you'd think.
  - alisonatwork 5y ago
    It's a little bit different when it's outside the family, though. Inside the family, a homophobic parent might feel emasculated, or like a failure, if their kid turns out to be gay. But when meeting an adult gay couple at a social function, or working with a gay colleague, the same person will probably at least remain cordial, if not explicitly supportive.
    - coding123 5y ago
      don't search for "angry public" on youtube, it may change your perception of the world. 99% of my problems in the world are related to the random public, not my family.
      - munificent 5y ago
        I mean, you're basically self-manufacturing bias and then claiming the bias reflects reality. If you search for "red heads" on YouTube you'll end up thinking everyone is a ginger.

galfarragem 5y ago

You may like: https://nautil.us/issue/62/systems/eating-for-peace https://nautil.us/issue/62/systems/eating-for-peace

babblingdweeb 5y ago

This is wonderful. I have been studying communities and food as a way to rebuild trust...this sums it all up nicely. I have been looking to start up a local "potluck" type idea --note: not my idea, many people do this already. I just thought a little rough organizing might be nice.

mc32 5y ago

This already assumes people are good and get along and are high trust. What if I’m in a crew am a nice talker and get to scope things out for my crew as we chit chat? It’s the same thing that did in the lonely hearts clubs. Swindlers came in to the rescue and take advantage of a lonely set of people. In this case people who are open and inviting and trusting of random strangers.

munificent 5y ago
> This already assumes people are good and get along and are high trust. It does assume most people are good, but that is something I believe deeply in my bones. (A simple logical argument is this: if people were on average harmful, we would all choose to be hermits. Since we don't, it implies that in aggregate our human interactions are a net benefit to us personally.) It does assumes that people can choose whether or not to get along and that most people will choose to do that when placed in an interaction with strangers. I think that's a safe assumption for probably like 90% of groups of people. It does not assume high trust. You only need to trust your dinner companions enough to not poison you or attack you, which is not a very high bar. > It’s the same thing that did in the lonely hearts clubs. Swindlers came in to the rescue and take advantage of a lonely set of people. I think the stakes a low enough to not make the situation much of a honeypot for bad actors. There's little to gain beyond a meal and my hypothetical "game" would require all participants to sometimes be the cooks.
- jvalencia 5y ago
  The problem is that it only takes a small percent to ruin it for all. If one in 10 people is awful, and you have 10 meetings with an even random distribution, then everyone will have a story about how they got swindled.
  - ceilingcorner 5y ago
    But the other 9 uniting against the 1’s craziness might actually be more effective than having 10/10 good people. “We just need an alien invasion to unite humanity.”

iammisc 5y ago

We used to call this going to church. When literally everyone of all political stripes attended the same churches, going to a church potluck was basically being paired randomly. However large political factions have made church membership out to be undesirable. We are reaping the rewards. I realized yesterday reading about cornel west, that even though I disagree with his politics, I see from his Christianity we have the same concerns, and values. I can't honestly say that about other people

edmundsauto 5y ago
This is a rosy view of religion, although I accept that is your experience and perspective, and thank you for sharing it. To me, church attendance is about making the in/out group very clear. You may feel close to different political views based on your single church or flavor of Christianity, but that's still a pretty limited group. I think church membership has become undesirable because 1) fewer people believe in the supernatural and 2) the stated positions of many major religions on issues of abortion and inclusion.
- nine_k 5y ago
  It's not about religion per se, but about a common religion which has rituals that make people meet each other more, piercing their bubble of like-mindedness (smaller than the religion). It's like going to a supermarket makes you see people more varied than your family circle and your chosen TV show characters. (It does not nudge you to talk to these people, though.)
  - edmundsauto 5y ago
    I am not a religious person or church goer, but are the perspectives really that different? To me, it looks like a church is a self selected group of geographically proximate people who tend to look alike and dress alike. You don't usually see much ethnic diversity in a church photo. It's more diverse than sitting at home, but I think exposure to a few TV shows has more diversity of thought, ethnicity, sexuality, etc., compared to going to church. I'm not saying its bad for people to get together and talk. I see that church was an important mechanism for this in the past. However, I can't get past the negatives (supernatural belief, child abuse, kowtowing to authority, shame, ostracism) to believe it will continue to be a net positive. What we need is more of what I think the Unitarians are after - non denominational community.

silicon2401 5y ago

Your hypothesis is based on some utopian assumptions. I can't tell you how many people whose views or mannerisms I hate, and who I can't stand being around. Forcing me to eat with anyone, let alone strangers, would only make me dislike them more and cause tension. My utopian solution is for people to have more space and be farther apart, rather than everybody crammed up in cities.

munificent 5y ago
> I can't tell you how many people whose views or mannerisms I hate, and who I can't stand being around. Forcing me to eat with anyone, let alone strangers, would only make me dislike them more and cause tension. I think you are either an unusual outlier or are very much underestimating how well you can get along with people different from you when sharing a meal with them in person. People are not who they appear to be online.
- silicon2401 5y ago
  I can get along well if I have to, but I was responding to a comment that talked about these forced dinners being good for society. I get drained enough getting along when in day to day life, which is minimal because I have built a life where I can be very secluded and avoid social interaction unless I want it. Now stick me in these forced dinners and I'll lose a lot of mental health, just like working in an office is a significant and constant drain on my well-being (hence why the pandemic and lockdowns have been the best times of my life, by far).
- watwut 5y ago
  You never spend dinner with people who spent that time being condescending or insulting something close to you? You can get along with them easily. But then it ends and you are happy it ended and never want to be there again. Because getting along with them requires you swallowing all above, pretending it is ok. Acvepting situation in which they talk and you are silent or submissive.
  - munificent 5y ago

amoorthy 5y ago

There's a startup doing this :-) http://www.makeamericadinneragain.com/ http://www.makeamericadinneragain.com/. They were profiled on NPR a while ago I recall.

tclancy 5y ago

Ha, I thought of trying to build an app for this, even if just to get neighbors to share a meal. No one feels like cooking every day but if we could share the burden thusly it might help foster a sense of community.

coding123 5y ago

if forced, be prepared for a lot of murders on those nights.

munificent 5y ago
We will sort out our differences one way or another!

foobarian 5y ago

Earlier on I had hopes that Facebook would implement "random friends" or "guest friends" in order to make the social graph denser and more diverse, thus making the world a better place. Not the direction things went I guess...

war1025 5y ago
You can gain the acquaintance of quite a few strangers by joining groups. My town has a general discussion Facebook page. I don't know that any of the people would recognize me on the street, but there are quite a few names I recognize now. This has been really handy since I didn't grow up here, and in small town America that often means people just won't get to know you because you "don't belong". Also my wife is involved in several interest based groups. Mainly related to sewing and thrifting and such. I don't know that it makes the world a better place, but it certainly can expose you to people you wouldn't otherwise ever have interacted with.

Invictus0 5y ago

Sad to see so many cynical replies. When I was at RPI, we had a club that organized dinner parties much like you describe. You can check it out here: https://thedinnerpartycollective.com/about https://thedinnerpartycollective.com/about

socialist_coder 5y ago

You're spot on. Anything that increases your exposure to strangers and builds trust will be a boon to society. This is also the case with social clubs and sports leagues. Membership of these things has been in decline for decades and is now at an all-time low. Being in a bowling league or the rotary club with random members of your community did a ton to increase basic trust in society. Which in turn, makes everything else work better. Source: https://freakonomics.com/podcast/trust-me/ https://freakonomics.com/podcast/trust-me/ This is why consuming video content, specifically streaming services with all-you-can-stream crap is so damaging. People no longer have time for shared dinners, clubs, or adult sports leagues because they'd rather binge watch a new series every week.

siquick 5y ago
> This is why consuming video content, specifically streaming services with all-you-can-stream crap is so damaging. People no longer have time for shared dinners, clubs, or adult sports leagues because they'd rather binge watch a new series every week. In my experience it’s not that people would rather watch videos than see their friends or do their hobbies, it’s that they’re working jobs which consume their lives to the point that watching Netflix is pretty much all they have the energy for. And before you know it, you don’t have any hobbies anymore so you watch more Netflix and the circle continues.
- munificent 5y ago
  ...and it gets increasingly hard to coordinate with your friends because they're also all watching Netflix and can't be bothered to make time.
- rdtwo 5y ago
  Man I envy you, to have time and emotional energy to invest in a tv show. It’s too much a commitment for me. This must be why folks just want to watch reruns of friends no investment
  - siquick 5y ago

ww520 5y ago

There should be an app like table-for-six to let strangers come together to have lunch, not for dating but just having a meal together.

Nimitz14 5y ago

That's what the draft was great for.

trashface 5y ago

Terrible idea. Families don't want to talk to single, middle aged guys like me. I don't need any new enemies, thank you very much.

tomrod 5y ago

Unless you have had food poisoning from a potluck, or had a schizophrenic neighbor joke about putting ground glass in their chili at said potluck (it definitely had some kind of grit). No, I don't think forcing sociality is the right solution, though I am on board with encouraging community events generally.

nr2x 5y ago

Yet my tolerance for casual racism is low, and depending where you are in the country, that’s definitely on the menu.