Will You Be My Friend? - Making Dinner Friends

Will You Be My Friend? - Making Dinner Friends

MOST OF US, the old saying goes, can count our true friends on one hand; yet another maxim reports that if you have five true friends, you have four more than most people. So what about the other nine fingers on your hands? If those represent possible friends, don’t they matter?

I think the other nine are incredibly important to our overall state of happiness and intellectual development. I call these my dinner friends. These are guys and gals that I just enjoy hanging out with. They make me laugh, they are interesting, they are kind, and they like to eat. (Eating is a big plus for me.)

Many people don’t have dinner friends, and I think I know why. It takes time and patience. To make and keep dinner friends, I’ve learned three important things:

First, you have to be flexible and call in advance. Unlike your backdoor friends, dinner friends need a call a week or two in advance. Also, if either one of you has children living at home, you might feel you can commit to only one Saturday night per month with your dinner friends. That’s okay. The important thing is that you’re developing new friendships for your next life stage.

Second, dinner friends require that you accept them as they are. Be prepared, in advance, to accept that they are going to have vastly different political, religious, and social views from your own. If you can embrace this, instead of being disappointed, or worse, challenging their views, you’ll probably come away a bit more enlightened. Remember, you’re just having dinner—you don’t have to adopt one another’s philosophies.

The third thing you have to do: you have to do the calling and the planning. Most people are poor at making arrangements in advance, and though they would greatly enjoy an evening out with you, they just aren’t gifted in making the call, selecting the restaurant, making the reservation, etc. Many people are even more uncomfortable entertaining in their homes. So if you’re waiting around for an invitation—don’t. Pick up the phone and make the call yourself.

How wonderful and pleasant it iswhen brothers live together in harmony! (Psalm 133:1)

Our busy lives, hectic kids’ schedules, and that noisy TV are robbing us of something that is critical to our health and well-being: dinner friends.