Dinner Parties: My Introduction to NYC

For four years, I co-hosted a dinner party series called "1+1" with Henrik. Every other Saturday, 20-35 people gathered in my home for connection and a tasty homecooked meal.

The core premise was: If you come you must bring a +1, everyone who attends gets added to the mailing list.

1+1 was created out of a burning desire to meet new people, to make friends, and (even though I didn't know it at the time) to build a community. I moved to NYC in September of 2020 knowing approximately 2 people. Just a couple months ago NYC had bodies on the streets, so it was a very sad lonely place to be and for many many months my life consisted of waking up, walking to work, working on a computer, walking home, staring at a computer, go to bed, repeat. So, to some extent this was my attempt to find any way to bridge a connection to New York City which I believe is the most interesting, magical, unique city.

Starting 1+1 was hard. For the first 20 or so, both Henrik and I were actively personally attempting to convince as many people as possible to come. Almost every party we attended, we had the side goal of inviting whatever stranger(s) we most got along with to the next 1+1. It turns out if you invite all of your friends to a party that happens every other week they will all come to the first one, but then only want to come a couple times per year after that.

I believe there were two or three 1+1s where we got either 0 or 1 RSVPs. On the one hand, at least we didn’t have to sit there waiting for people to arrive slowly, realizing that nobody is coming. But it’s crushing nonetheless. 0 RSVPs was easier than 1. With 0 you can just pretend there was a fantastic event and tell everyone they really missed out with nobody the wiser. With 1 RSVP, we had to email them and be like “hey, you’re the only person who RSVPd we are super down to have you over for a wonderful dinner, but do not expect anyone else to be there.” You have to tell this person—a stranger—that you have effectively failed.

It’s hard to believe how the event grew, beyond our wildest imagination. We ended up constantly oversubscribed. We frequently had a 50% rejection rate. Having to reject so many people was tough. I think repeated interaction is a crucial building block of friendship and community, and a 50% rejection rate means that even if two people meet at 1+1 and like each other and they both sign up for the next one, there’s only a 25% chance that they will both make it in. This makes it so much harder for bonds to form.

Still, 1+1 has brought so much delight to so many people. We hear all the time about wonderful friendships and dates and bonds and general exuberance that have come from 1+1. I certainly think it’s good to be starting a new endeavor in search of connection and with the goal of bringing people together.

I strongly believe the world is a better place if people take more risks. Doing things is important. I think this is especially true when it comes to our social fabric. We live in a world where huge companies have economic incentives to keep us looking at a screen for as long as possible, employing thousands and thousands of people with the sole job of how to increase usage time. I think genuine physical community is one of (if not) the most important thing to human flourishing, joy, prosperity, connection, and meaning.

It’s so easy to see the world as zero sum. In many cases, the success of your own project requires you to beat out others—but when it comes to community in the 21st century, the market is so so so far from saturated. Our culture has lost so many third spaces and they’ve mostly been replaced by algorithms.

Part of the beauty of cooperating is there is unlimited joy to be had. We are not fighting over the scraps of meaning and community that huge corporations have missed. We are creating purpose, joy, connection, thriving, etc., out of thin air. And this really gets at a core belief of mine: Communities are so much better when the members proactively do things that are slightly costly to do but have large payoffs to others. This is really hard to do with strangers because we live ion a world where it's extremely easy to feel like you are not supported, where the world is out to get you. However, in smaller communities this should be the opposite, it should feel like others are out to help you even when it costs them, and hopefully doing this in smaller pockets can very slowly spread these norms as a supportive culture outcompetes cutthroat.

Hosting almost 100 dinner parties over the course of 4 years was of course a lot of work: needing a presentable house every saturday, cleaning up after each one, and most of all cooking for approximately 30 people every other saturday. But not only was it so clearly an immense prosocial payoff for so many others, but I think it has even been individually "worth it" for me. To some extent after 1+1 imploded the success most showed itself in that now I'm not entirely sure if this is the kind of event I would want to start up up with this newfound free floating hosting energy I have. I no longer neeed to meeet new people, I am surrounded by people who I love. That's an insanely good trade given all it took was a clean house and lots of cooking.

Hosting

There have been so many takeaways from all this hosting. Here are the most important:

• This one is by far the most important, if you take away just one thing about hosting it should be this: have at least 1 cohost. Hosting is hard, it's tough to enjoy your own party when you are in host mode, if you don't have any co-hosts you end up being in host mode for most if not all of the event which means hosting is way less fun for you the host. It's a lot easier to keep hosting if you enjoy the event you are putting together. If you have a cohost you can easily take breaks from hostly things knowing there is at least one other person to pick up the slack. You can more comfortably settle into that 40 minute conversation you are really enjoying. Not to mention if you have consistent cohosts you then also get to plan together, coming up with an event is way more fun if you are doing it with someone else.
• Just do it. Hosting is in such shart supply, especially in NYC. People just want to spend quality time with other humans in a comfortable environment. I promise your house is more comfortable than a business: It's not public and it's filled with people who want to be there. The vast vast majority of events are put on by a very small majority of people. Most people host once maybe twice a year. Hosting is easy, all you need is people in your house. You don't need a beautiful home, you don't need a large home, you don't need fancy food. You can work on makign your hosting chops great later, just start with reps now since the bar is on the floor.
• First impressions are super important, and very low hanging fruit. Just like with meeting a new person, the first couple minutes in a new space are crucial. Imagine you are coming to a party where you only know the host and maybe one other person. If you show up to an unlocked door, let yourself in, can't find the host, and are then feeling anxious about going up to anyone since they are all in their own group conversations and you don't know any of them. That sucks, for many people that would feel really bad. If instead you were let in by a host who then said hey I know someone who I think you would like let me introduce you to them and then pulled you over to the person and said hey I think you would like eaother you both ____. This is just such a better start, there's no feelign of not beloning, and instead there's a feeling of beign where you are supposed to be and if you see this as a norm you can start to see that it's actually easful to come up to new people at this event.
• For events that are shorter than 4 hours you should have a pretty tight arrival window, make it clear that if so0meone doesn't show up in the first hour they won't be let in. Containers get comfier over time as the people in it start to all come to the shared understandign that they are in this together and good vibes multiply as it becomes clear that this is a welcomign fun party filled with people who are excited to talk to eachother. However each time a new person arrives they are starting from scratch, they haven't settled in they haven't gotten comfy yet. If this happens throught the party it's much harder if not impossible for the groub vibes to reach that sort of peak since each new guest somewhat resets that progress. There's a reason many emotionally high stakes events follow this practice whether that be a shrooms ritual or a kink event.
• If you're cookign at scale cook things that scale well, big pots, sheet pans, mac and chees, etc. You can find more about this at the cooking node.

[insert a growing tree at the bottom from the node that is bnased on the people who atended 1+1 the idea is anyone who was brought by the hosts will be out of the node, and then the people each person brought will grow downward from the given node etc etc, it should look something like roots growing that show up as the user scrolls further downward. I have all the data here: 1plus1attendees\Copy of 1+1 prod email db - March 7, 5_44 PM.xlsx]