When asked if I’d take on a week of challenges designed to help me open up my life to others, I saw “throw a dinner party” on the list of activities and said yes without reading the fine print. That, friends, is how I found myself running with a gang of overly enthusiastic joggers to an allotment on a dark Monday night, weeding a vegetable patch, and then running back.
I wanted to learn something about myself during my week of sharing challenges. Reader, I learned that, while I am too often a cynical husk of a woman, I can be rehabilitated. And if I can, you can.
Challenge one was at the Castle Canteen at the Crossway Christian Centre in Elephant and Castle, where volunteers make a free lunch once a week for anyone who wants it, from donated surplus food. Unquestionably a wonderful project, I was absolutely dreading it; my catering experience starts and ends at being told off for eating the canapés and being sent home for backchat, while my volunteering experience starts and ends at being told off for not listening during the safety talk – and then being sent home for backchat. I had a heavy heart.
To my delight, the Castle Canteen is run by a brilliant lady named Emily, who’s a professional chef. Nobody sent me home and everyone said I did a good job chopping the mange tout. When our lunch guests started to file in, my unsociable side wanted to stay at my chopping board. If I wasn’t there as part of a challenge, I might well have. But I forced myself to go out and find a seat, wondering how to find common ground.
“Hello lovely lady, you’re new, what’s your name?” was the immediate greeting. A fantastic woman called Stella had me laughing in minutes, introducing me to a teacher, a musician and an ex-jockey. Conversation flowed, everybody had a story. It pulled at my heartstrings to see people light up with someone to talk to.
That evening, I met a group of 30, all running with the social fitness group GoodGym, to help out with a gardening project. You meet for a run, do half an hour’s work, and then run back. The cynic in me was wearing away, fast. Who was I to make sassy comments when there are people out there trying to do something genuinely good?
Next, I put a note under my neighbours’ door asking if they’d like to come round for some wine. Not the ones downstairs – we’d had an altercation over a plant pot 18 months ago and no one’s gotten over it – but the ones above. I explained the challenge, which made things less awkward, and next minute they were all round, new baby in tow. Suddenly we’re all laughing at the kitchen table, as if we lived in some kind of Mediterranean utopia.
The dinner party, to which I was supposed to invite people from different parts of my life, made me very anxious. I rarely mix friends because I am not a natural hostess, and get so nervous that people won’t have a nice time that I inevitably ensure they don’t. But I swallowed down my whirlwind of nerves, invited friends who’d never met each other, gave them a glass of wine, and listened to them talking while I tried not to burn myself in the kitchen. “Why have we never met before?” they kept shouting at me. Honestly, I don’t know.
I’ve realised that it’s easier to roll your eyes at the back than it is to get involved, but not nearly as fun. If we dig deeper, there’s probably something in there about fearing rejection. Regardless, I’m officially taking off my big cynical hat. The neighbours are coming for dinner next week and I might even join GoodGym permanently – you get a free red T-shirt and everything.
Three ways to share
1 Learn a new skill
Expand your horizons by signing up for local night and weekend classes – a quick way to find like-minded people keen to embrace a new challenge.
2 Try a supper club
Sharing home-cooked food and maybe a bottle of wine with strangers at a dinner party in a secret location is always going to be an interesting experience. No wonder supper clubs are so popular right now.
3 Join the celebrations
Get to know your neighbours and find out the special days they celebrate. From Eid to Diwali, and Hanukkah to Kwanzaa, there are plenty of celebrations to get involved in.
Made for sharing
Sharing is in the vines at Campo Viejo. In an era when Spaniards only drank wine from their own region, Campo Viejo’s founders shared their Rioja far and wide, bringing people together over a bottle – then and now.
Campo Viejo. Made for sharing. Discover more at campoviejo.com
