<p>Re Friday night dinner: we had very close friends who lived close by – two couples without kids – who started coming every Friday for dinner. I forget how that became such a regular thing, but it was, for years. No pressure to come and absolutely casual, straight from work. </p>
<p>Then my ex started telling other people that they had an open invitation to drop by for Friday dinner. There were probably 12 people invited at the peak but 6 to 8 would show up on any given week; the core group of 4 would come every week and the others would come once a month or so, without kids. He kept that going for 7 or 8 years. He’d know who was coming that day. It was really his thing, not mine, so he dealt with figuring out who was coming and how much to buy etc. Again, the key was that it was extremely casual. I was often late because I got home late from work. </p>
<p>My daughter claimed not to like it. I’ll have to ask her when she’s home from school if she has fond memories of those dinners for all those years.</p>