How To Host a Friend Friday

Advice for introverts, recovering perfectionists, and socially anxious humans of all ages! Part One: Hosting with kids.

In July, I wrote about my adventures in Deep Casual Hosting, where I’ve been hosting a twice a month-ish Friend Friday dinner, officially since February and unofficially since last year. This is something I’ve wanted to do for ohhh 10 years or so but only recently got the courage to start executing. And a lot of you responded that you feel the same way!!

Trying Not To Be a Fancy Host

So this month, we’re going to do a deeper dive into what this kind of fun, low stakes community building can look like.

I’ve collected a TON of amazing advice — from you, from my own experience, and from people who write and think about this a lot! —on how to execute low-effort, high-reward social gatherings.

I’ve also… digested the advice a bit, because very often it is written by People Who Are Naturally Good Hosts — by which I mean extroverts. Love you, outgoing folks! But there are a lot of us who are more socially awkward, introverted, neurodivergent, etc, etc — and we want community too! We just sometimes need it to look a little different.

I take almost no photos during Friend Fridays but here is a time we casually ate pasta and strawberries.

First up:

Some Thoughts About Hosting (and Guesting) When You Have Socially Anxious Kids