Shelly and I have had three different families over for dinner in the last week. Considering we were out of town for two days over the weekend, that means that we've eaten with someone else for three of the last five times we've eaten at home.

This may be a stretched comparison, but I see inviting other couples over for dinner as very similar to dating, only for married people. And without the angst. We invite people over for the purpose of making friends, getting to know them, and building relationships for the future. There's the invitation and the acceptance, and there is a sense that you're extra cool or popular if you get a lot of dinner invitations.

We had our first couple of the week over because they just moved into our building and we want to make sure we have a really good relationship with them, since we're going to be living in close proximity to them for the next year. Of course, in our ten-story building, there are a lot of families that are living in close proximity to us, but these guys we met through Church, so there's something different. Our dinner table isn't an exclusively Mormon club, though. We've had other friends over, and fully intend to do so again, both people from Shelly's work and people from my school, and one family in particular down the hall that we have decided we want to get to know better (just like when you meet a cute girl you want to get to know better, but without the angst).

The second family we had over consisted of a couple, their two cute daughters (ages 2 and 3), and the wife's brother, who was in town for the weekend. While I was away for the summer, this couple had Shelly over for dinner twice, and took good care of her. So this invitation was sort of a payback for the niceness we had received. It's sort of like when a girl has lots of fun on the first date or two, and wants to let the guy know she's very interested, so she invites him to do something. It's reciprocity, which is an essential element in any relationship.

The third couple, last night, ate the extra lasagna we made for the second couple but didn't get to. This is a friend from both school and church, who is a year behind me at HLS and wanted some advice on the interview process coming up this fall, and on Washington DC in particular. We talked in church on Sunday and decided we should "get together sometime," but when Shelly noticed how much lasagna there still was, she invited them over immediately. I don't know what the dating analogy is here. You could say it was a "charity date," where we're just having them over to help them out, but that denies the fact that we genuinely want to get to know this couple better and become friends with them.

I really like having people over for dinner. It's the biggest social activity we do, and sometimes it's the only significant contact I have with someone other than Shelly during the course of a given day, or even week. It's small and informal and intimate enough to really get to know the other people, and I can say that the couples we have dinner with are closer friends when it's done. We should still invite more singles over (we've done that before, and we'll do it again), and we regularly invite the missionaries over (that's our contribution to the effort). There's just so much fun to be had. Lots of crazy recipes to try, too.