May I suggest a thing my wife and I started doing a couple years ago: the monthly brunch.

First Sunday of the month or whatever, we send out a reminder text, we provide coffee and a little food, people bring way more food than we can eat, and we invite everyone we know, from our different social circles. No pressure.

It’s a moderate amount of work, but it’s very gratifying to bring people together. People have made good friends at our brunch that they hang out with all the time now. It’s been interesting to see how hungry people are for social interaction, some people have driven or taken the subway more than an hour to come. People bring their kids or babies if they have them, age range is from 20s to 60s, it’s very chill.

It’s also a great “next step” when I meet someone I’d like to be friends with: “hey, my wife and I do a monthly brunch, it’s really low-key, you should come!”

For the record, I’m an introvert, but I can tell this is really good for me.