ENCINITAS — Joe Waltman was surprised by the response to his Nextdoor post.
Waltman offered to host total strangers at his Leucadia home for a dinner party. According to Waltman, he received more than 70 replies from a wide range of people at various stages of life, from empty nesters looking to expand their social circles to retirees hoping to spice up the next chapter.
“Almost everyone said some version of, ‘I’ve been looking for something exactly like this,’” Waltman said.
He said the first dinner party on March 14 started out slow — “I had six people over who I met on the internet” — but quickly turned into one of the best nights he had in a while.
Waltman has worked in technology. He co-founded RestEngine, which was acquired by Twitter, and has held roles as a network engineer at Qualcomm and a product manager at Coinbase, among others.
“I feel like I’ve had a front-row seat to see what this stuff can do to us, both the good and bad,” Waltman said.
He told The Coast News that an observation inspired the idea to host dinner parties with strangers.
“It’s sort of like a post-COVID atrophy, where I think the general trend seems to be less time out and about, less time with other people, more time with ourselves and our devices,” Waltman said. “And, you know, I think there’s a good reason to try to do things to reverse that.”
He now has a website, Con-Vive.com, to improve the operation. Waltman hopes some attendees will go on to host their own dinner parties for strangers.
He added that while the “male loneliness epidemic” is often discussed, he has found that about 75% of those who express interest in attending dinner parties are women.
“I think there’s this loneliness epidemic across all categories,” Waltman said.
To ensure lively conversation and a memorable evening, Waltman said he has been having phone conversations with prospective guests beforehand. From there, he curates each group with an eye toward cohesive dynamics.
Dinner parties consist of six to eight people, allowing guests to get to know one another and build relationships while also branching into smaller conversations as the evening unfolds.
“It’s an iterative process of learning how to do this,” he said. “I don’t have a long background of doing this kind of social engineering.”
He told The Coast News on Friday, March 15, that he had already had conversations with 52 people and expected to speak with more in the coming week.
“The plan is to have dinners at my house on a weekly basis for the foreseeable future,” Waltman said.
