Q of the Week : How often do you have dinner with friends?
Monday, August 22, 2011 at 05:34PM 
The kids distracted by a movie during dessert …
At the beginning of our trip, the boys and I were invited over to an old friend’s house for dinner. By old I mean we’ve all known each other since we were kids, and the stories are simply endless. Between us we have 5 kids, and they all get along well so the adults actually had time to talk without interruption! Reflecting on the trip, I realized that it’s been rather a long time since we’ve had people over, other than for a party. I grew up with hardly a week going by that we didn’t have someone for dinner a least once, and when I struck out on my own I continued that trend for years. Somewhere along the way the practice has faded to a rare event, and I’m not too thrilled with that thought.
In one way we do share our table fairly often, as we rent out our frontroom and have recently started doing it for shorter periods of time so we can have a greater variety of guests (and less entrenched ones to be honest). It’s been highly enjoyable so far, and helped remind me of what I was missing. We’ve had a few invites ourselves too, and it always comes as a delightful surprise to share someone else’s table or BBQ. While I enjoy eating out with friends, and we often do when family comes into town, it really is a different thing to me. There’s something about standing in a kitchen together, and relaxing around a table afterwards while the kids run free that leaves a more luxurious taste in my mouth than the richest food at the fanciest restaurant. Maybe it’s just me, but I love it.
So I’m truly curious … Where and how do friends and food mix for you? Do you have people over for ‘just’ dinner often, or go to friend’s houses for a meal when it’s not a party? Is it always at a restaurant? I’d love to know what your normal is, and if it’s anything like what you grew up with.
Question of the Week, reaching out, relationships, time | tagged eating out, travel
Reader Comments (3)
I have very close friends with whom I eat in my home probably once a week or so. Other people I go out with at least once a month, though that gathering has been on summer hiatus. It's an effort for me, much easier to be a hermit, but I do like to just sit around and talk to friends.
Sounds good, I know somewhat of the hermit feeling, it's been getting stronger with me but I never regret it once I put the effort out there. Just making myself do it is the trick! -- SaneMom
Welcome back! It's funny that you should ask this question because we were at a friend's house for dinner last night. We generally get together at their place because they not only have the best kitchen around, but Rick can bbq deliciously. Our apartment is not great for entertaining, so to be honest we don't recipracate(?) as often as we should.
PS. Hope your first earthquake wasn't scary. I fear we are overdue out here.
Thanks Bridget! Love BBQ, and glad you have a place to do it! The earthquake wasn't scary, just disorienting. Strangely I wish I could go through it again, knowing what it was rather than wondering if I were dizzy or not! Now we're getting ready for my first ever hurricane, though I'm no stranger to super high winds thanks to my years in Chicago so I'm not that worried about it. -- SaneMom
Despite the fact that we love to cook and bake and eat from scratch all the time, and eat as a family every night of the week, we rarely have dinner with friends, maybe 1-2 times a year.
The main issue is conflicting schedules and busy-ness. Even elementary grade kids are packed with weekend apointments, sports, choir, drama, Scouts, these overlap into dinner time Friday, Saturday, and hog up most of Sunday.
Most parents of schooled kids that I know (we homeschool) use Mon-Thurs and sometimes even Friday up with homework, eating dinner, the night appointmetns then go to bed. They do not make themselves available socially Mon-Friday.
Sunday nights every school parent I know holds sacred as the last homework push and family night at home winding down and getting to bed for the early rise on Monday morning.
The only time we share meals with friends is at big events like Boy Scout dinners 4x a year when they present merit badges and rank advancements, or sports picnics, Scout picnics, family camping trips for Scout families, etc.