alt Hacker NewsI was the head of the men's group for my town's Newcomers Club and when it comes to having a blueprint for organizing a small, quick gathering I cannot say enough about Nick Gray's [0] book The Two Hour Cocktail Party [1]
It has tons of small but useful tips:
- host it Monday or Tuesday from 7-9pm. People are usually free those nights and make sure it ends at 9pm for the folks who have to wake up early
- don't send an evite with "0 of 60 guest have responded". Start by having your core group accept and then send the invite directly to each new person
- have name tags. but make sure YOU fill out the name tags or you will have "Batman" and "Superman" at your party
- introduce people and have "get to know you games"
Now, I'm sure someone will say "this is so formulaic and doesn't feel natural!". That's kind of the point. You need to give folks some structure to be able to interact. The name tags for example remove the "oh, I met this person before but I can't remember their name so I just won't talk to them" etc.
In a general sense, I think two things about this suggestion are universally useful in solving the epidemic: structured activities with clear expectations, and people who take the initiative to design and execute them.
For those people who I'm personally trying to reach, those who sit at home alone all day, and you only see them on the way to the grocery store and back, who desperately want to interact with people but don't know how to begin, they need someone to initiate the interaction, and they need to know the rules of the interaction, since this is mainly the reason they don't feel comfortable with freeform interactions with strangers and so avoid them.
Thank you for helping me realize that.