Fostering Drop-In Friendships
Your stories about trying to open your homes
At Deseret, I’m writing about the benefits of baby bonuses. To wit: “Especially for new parents, benefits work better when they are simple, swift and flexible.” I’ve also written against AI-generated religious art for Word on Fire. (“No matter how pleasing the output looks, AI-generated art cannot be offered in love and is not the fruit of contemplation.” Meanwhile, I’m reading a history of refrigeration in a house with broken AC. Ooops.
A little while ago, I asked all y’all about whether you have neighbors you could (and do) drop in on:
A nice thing about my maternity leave (now mostly over) is that it gave me unstructured time where I might as well put the baby in a wrap, walk vaguely toward the coffee shop, and see if any friends were home along the route.
At other times, it’s easy to stick to scheduling, since I want my own schedule to be predictable (as much as baby naps allow) and I feel more pressure to make every hour productive.
I asked you about your own neighborhoods as (possible!) networks of shared need and conviviality and asked you to respond to these questions:
Where have you most casually shared need?
Where is your family extended beyond the nuclear?
What prevents you from knowing your neighbors or making your existing friends part of your neighborhood?
Crystal is living the dream:
Our friends from church were renovating an old farmhouse and let us know when the property across the street went up for sale. It ended up being a good fit at a good time, and they finished up their renovations as we had our third child... then a month later we moved into our respective houses at the same time.
Our house is set up like a duplex with a basement apartment, and part of the reason we decided to buy it was so we could rent out the space to another family. We found a family from our church that has been a great fit with two kids. We have nine people sleeping under our roof and a couple (infertile and very supportive our of families) directly across the street.
The friend across the street was able to watch the kids with zero notice when I had to take my dad to the hospital while he was visiting from out of state. The three of us homemakers swap kitchen items, ice cream makers, and extra baked goods several times a week.
Liz has made an effort but finds it hard to spark casual, drop in friendships. (Comment slightly telescoped by me):
We bought a home in a suburb of NJ and there's some kids my toddler's age. I never see them around evenings/weekends so assume they have different schedules than we do. We got to know our next door neighbor who has a grand daughter and pool and keeps saying he wants us to come over "sometime" but no invitation comes. I went so far as to offer some weekends we are free... We have invited about every couple we know over for dinner and only one reciprocated. My poor husband was so dismayed he just asked if we could stop trying…
We did just start attending a new Episcopal church and have gotten to know some families there. I am trying to be bold and see if any of the moms would be up to a play date. Coffee hour is always buzzing with activity. No one is in walking distance though - it would require some scheduling and planning.
That's really the hardest thing. I want to get to know nearby people who can "drop in" for dinner if we have extra one night. So far, I don't know where to find them or they don't seem interested when invited. 100% interested in any advice fellow moms can provide!
In warmer months, our family has had some success with same day pitches of “Want to order pizza / bring some food to the park?”
We’re all close to the park, so it’s only so complicated and we tend to bring random odds and ends from our fridges (crackers, cheese, fruit, pepperoni) so it’s not much of a to-do / clears out odds and ends. And we all (I presume) like not having to vacuum.
As a grownup, it’s a big gift to get to have grownup talk, and when we’re outside, minimally supervising kids, that’s a lot easier. I think it really removes any concerns about kids manners when visiting a house, too.
Several people recommended Rosaria Butterfield’s The Gospel Comes with a House Key, and Kate had a wonderful story about her own efforts in that vein:
We have hosted an open invite weekly dinner every week for eight years. It started with inviting over two or three friends, and now two weeks ago we had over thirty adults and ten kids in our (small) house and spilling into the (small) backyard! This week was smaller, only like fifteen adults and three kids. It varies, but there are new people every week.
We invite people we meet walking dogs, people with kids at the library, people who post on nextdoor that they just moved to town and are looking for friends, people at church.
RSVP optional, bringing a dish admired but not required, just bring yourself and a friend.
I do think inviting two or more families is lower stakes than inviting one. It’s easier to say yes to something that’s ongoing, once it gets going. A family who lives very close to our preschool does a monthly pizza dinner in their backyard for everyone in the class. No one has to like anyone in particular to feel good about going.
Melanie told the story of how her community seems to lack a connector who would turn acquaintanceships into friendships.
Lately the younger kids have found a tribe of neighborhood kids to run around with and play with. But again I cannot seem to connect with the parents of any of these kids. This grandmother tells her kids that homeschooling is bad though doesn't seem to prevent her kids from running around with mine, these immigrants seem happy to have their kids play with ours, but don't seem to want to socialize themselves. No one seems eager to connect and I don't know how to overcome the combination of my own shyness and their reluctance. I need an extrovert friend to be the bridgemaker.
I am sometimes that extrovert friend, and for me it depends on knowing enough about new friends to want to put them in dialogue with others. It helps a lot to live in weird and intellectual communities, where people might be interested in how different disciplines shed light on a big question.
When I wrote Building the Benedict Option, my guild to building community, one kind of gathering I recommended was a “show and tell” party. We’ve had events where we ask people to BYOS (saint) and just tell a little about a saint that means a lot to them. We’ve also had some seasonal poetry parties where people bring an Easter or Christmas poem to share.
I just find it easier to build a friendship on liking something in particular about a person, and small talk usually doesn’t give me, personally, enough purchase. Asking people to share something they love sincerely makes them easier to love and it reveals them as a potential friend to others in the room.