[simonsarris]

> You're not going to make friends over one dinner. ... Friendship takes repeated exposure in mundane situations.

I agree... so why not host multiple dinners? On your own?

I started hosting my own dinners[1] at my house every Wednesday and it's been fantastic. Really super great. I can't advocate it enough, especially for someone introverted like myself who may not want to go out of his way to interact with new people every day.

The people that come to the dinners are people I meet through my roommates, or old friends, or workers at the local cafe (original and ongoing source of roommates too), or their friends. Sometimes we invite acquaintances on an off chance. Neighbors are fair game too. GrubWithUs would just be another "source" of potentially great people. After all if they don't click, you don't have to invite them next week.

Another similar event I started was a recurring beer tasting event with the owner of the cafe. This is a completely different crowd, fairly varied in age, but still small enough to be intimate and regular enough to make good acquaintances and bring people together.

There have got to be a lot of ways to introduce regularity into your life with acquaintances. Hell, even going to the same cafe regularly can help with that.

GrubWithUs may not be good for long term friends, but it does provide a sampling of people that you can in turn invite to your own regular dinners. It's a launch-pad for finding people to invite to your own regular events.

[1] Some photos: http://imgur.com/a/X2Zoj

[wallflower]

Congratulations on leading the dinner parties! That is awesome!

Weird book recommendation that you very well might like - if you are open to it.

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2035352.What_French_Women...

Dinner parties are the engine of French social life. It's part of their culture. In such a small country, you have to know someone before you 'date' someone.

In France, dating is something that is just not done. French women throw dinners on Friday to bring together men and women - no such things as 'Girls Night Out'. A guy invited to the dinner cannot expect much - opposite of a date with built-in social expectations - and both parties get to see the person in a real social setting, not an artificial one.

You may find the chapters about just living and the dinner parties interesting.

[klipt]

France isn't that small...

Frankly I wish this kind of thing were more popular in the USA too. Dating strangers is nice and individualistic and all, but I'm way more comfortable meeting people through friends and more to the point it's fun - which is more than I can say for spending hours writing OkCupid messages which will 90% of the time be ignored.

[kscaldef]

I'm glad that hosting dinners has worked well for you, but my experiences attempting the same almost exactly mirrored the descriptions in the NYT article. I.e., long and exhausting back-and-forths trying to find a day that works for all parties. Even trying a fixed day, as you did, didn't work so well, as it became this complicated and frustrating experience of having to "book" someone's Weds weeks in advance and keep track of which of our friends and acquaintances were available when.

[Willwhatley]

I don't do this based on specific people; it's more, "I'm having some friends for supper this Wednesday. You coming?"

K.I.S.S.-- this admit's of a binary argument only.

[chewxy]

Wow. You had just what I had in mind. I created Strangers for Dinner to that extent. We've had about 4 dinner parties so far and they were pretty amazing.

The amount of conversation you get with strangers, learning more about different people.

Hope I don't sound too self-promotional, but you can check out Strangers for Dinner: http://strangersfordinner.com

[yequalsx]

Nice website. Would love to check it out but I don't use Facebook. I really don't understand why websites don't have alternative means of creating an account.

It's worth considering that people who are more likely to use such a site might be more introverted than the average person and perhaps less likely to have a Facebook account.

[chewxy]

We actually target INTJ and INTP people for Strangers for Dinner. And yes, we're looking to move away from Facebook, but right now, Facebook has a wealth of information about a user.

Our system can make heuristic guesses (and validate that you're a real person) about your interests by using Facebook, so it's gonna be difficult to replace for the time being.

Sorry about your non-experience with SfD

[benmccann]

Why target INTJ and INTP? Do you do anything on the site to verify the personality type?

I thought it was a bit weird you used Pyongyang as the default. If you had picked any other foreign city I would have assumed it was a foreign website and given up then. Probably better to leave blank (I had to delete Pyongyang, so this would have saved me typing) or fill in using IP geolocation.

[chewxy]

no we don't verify personality types. That'd be creepy. I started SfD for a personal reason (in fact I posted it here at HN first saying I didn't have friends). People like me would be my target audience, I decided. Them extroverts have enough friends already.

I used Pyongyang as a form of negging. The idea was to use repugnance to force people to change the form. There is a IP geolocation version coming out really soon (as well as other features)

[achristoffersen]

Very nice, for what little I can see. One of those loonies who have deleted my facebook account. I have twitter, openID etc.

[HaloZero]

How do I finish filling out the profile? Apparently I can't respond to "Bring a plus one" to the party?

[chewxy]

If you click on the Plus One button it will toggle and automatically save the status. This is a clear usability issue.

Do you have any suggestions on how to fix it?