I woke up on a sofa bed in my friend’s nerd lair gameroom. It was the best night’s sleep I’ve had in months.

This past weekend we drove up to our friend’s house in Madison, Tennessee for an event we call “Cabin Weekend.” 15 years ago I snuck into this woman’s friend group and it was one of the luckiest redirections of my life.

In the beginning, Cabin Weekend involved an actual cabin. Once or twice a year, in February or October, we’d all split the rental fee on the largest house we could find. No cabin was ever exactly the same but all of the locations were generally north of Atlanta and near a body of water. Bonus points for knotty pine paneling and west-facing decks to watch the sunsets.

Whatever was going on in our lives, whatever state of disarray or overwork we were in, we could count on this weekend retreat to unplug.

A couple of years ago, the Chief Executive Officer of Cabin Weekend (and board member emeritus for several tangential social clubs), came into an incredible piece of real estate. Four bedrooms and three baths on almost a whole acre overlooking the Cumberland River.

From the outside, Stone’s End has the diminutive appearance of a Hobbiton cottage. Inside, it has room to sleep at least 12.

The front door is painted butter yellow with four panels of stained glass roses. The family room is done up in the Tudor style with dark stained trim, hardwood floors and a working fireplace. A screened porch opens up to a fenced lot with a gazebo. There are fish flopping in the river and bald eagles nesting nearby.

Thus “Cabin Weekend” no longer requires a cabin.

The property is so ideal for hosting, you might suspect it was magicked into existence per my friend’s request. But that notion is an insult to the truth.

On the first night of our stay, I looked up from the 1,000-piece puzzle on the floor and saw a scene as cheery as Christmas at Orchard House. In the glow of the flickering fire, I counted my friends gathered together. Our Miss March has Saoirse Ronan’s fox face and a bob haircut more flattering than any movie adaption allowed for Jo. Her waifish sister is wrapped up in a chair with a book. Instead of Laurie’s friends visiting from school, we have two grown men talking about Unity and AI in game development, plus one more watching soccer on his laptop.

Beer is our wassail. No tragic Beth plunking keys on the piano; we have Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. A white chinchilla named Totoro instead of apron pockets full of kittens.

Every corner is full of comfort and happiness. None of this is an accident.

This weekend was carefully constructed, stone by stone. We are all here because our shared friend, an uncompromising force, decided to build the life she wanted for herself—and that life includes periodically corralling all of her people together where she can see them.

Whatever privilege or good fortune played its part, it is altogether overshadowed by decades of clear and calculated choices. Leadership that flips on like a light switch. Hard work when no one else steps up to get it done. Doodle surveys sent. Spreadsheets of Venmo requests reconciled.

The gravitational pull of the thing cannot be denied. I’ve tried to delete Facebook Messenger many times. I gave up. The app has a permanent place on my home screen because it’s the preferred tool for coordinating and memorializing this annual event.

Hosting is both labor and responsibility. When someone gets drunk and breaks a plate in the kitchen, our trusted host handles damage control. When that same someone gets drunk and sticks a crushed beer can in the trash bin, tsk tsk and the can gets moved to the recycling collection.

Hospitality is the choice to keep showing up for other people, despite the real risk your efforts will never be matched.

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Lately I’ve seen quite a few articles breaking down the decline of hosting, aka inviting your friends to hang out at your house.

It’s too much work. It’s too much pressure. We don’t have space. We don’t have time. It’s so much easier to stream a TV show or scroll on our phones.

150 years ago, any household might extend a friendly invitation to a guest who would turn up and make themselves at home. If the novels of Austen and Brontés reflect any truth, falling ill and getting invited to spend the night in your suitor’s house is a reliable romantic device. Hans Christian Andersen stayed with Charles Dickens for five weeks.

My great-grandmother Lois Crain kept her parlor immaculate, untouched for 364 days out of the year lest the preacher stopped by unannounced on the 365th.

So why can’t I be bothered to invite my friends over for coffee?

Part of the problem is shame. It’s the shame of failing to maintain a home environment that meets the standards of hospitality I learned as a child.

If you want to have company over, at the bare minimum you must have both a clean kitchen and a clean bathroom at all times.

In the kitchen, that means both sides of the sink must be clean and empty. The countertops must be wiped down. Water glasses must be clear, not cloudy. The ice in the freezer bucket must be fresh, not tinged with the adjacent flavors of Häagen-Dasz and chicken broth cubes.

In the bathroom, that means Windex on the mirror and no beard hairs in the sink. A toilet bowl that smells like bleach without a pink ring or splash marks on the underside of the seat. The bath mats must be fluffed. The soap dispenser must be full. The wastebasket must be lined with a lid. If no Code A custom fit liner is available, a plastic bag from Kroger is fine. One candle with one book of matches. Otherwise, the contents of the cabinets and items on the shelves are none of my concern. If a nosy houseguest wants to poke around, they’re welcome to judge if that keeps them entertained. As long as there’s a dry hand towel, obvious and within reach, I refuse to be embarrassed by stainless steel hygiene tools or medications on display. It is, afterall, a closet for piss.

But you must sweep your front porch and check the corners for cobwebs. You must dust the tops of all of the furniture. That way, if your Memaw comes over and drags her papery finger across every mahogany surface, she won’t mark you a disappointment.

Beyond that, hospitality requires plenty of room to sit. It’s an occasional chair for an extra guest. The leaf to extend the dining room table. An ottoman that doubles as a seat.

It’s the old pillow you keep next to a blanket the dogs haven’t slept on, in case a friend needs to crash on the couch.

And food! Hospitality definitely means food. A tin of cheese wafers to pop open and share. A two-tiered cake for no special occasion. An additional pizza so everyone gets the toppings they want.

Refreshments. Iced tea. Lemonade. Brewed coffee with Baileys Irish Cream. The good bourbon we only drink when somebody gets a promotion.

All of this must be maintained constantly if you’d like to host spontaneously. We haven’t even begun to talk about the work of planned, scheduled events.

Calendar juggling. Mailed invites or evites. The collection of dietary requirements and RSVP’s. Parking instructions. Warning everybody that the front porch steps aren’t up to code. Music and entertainment and fresh flowers to arrange.

It’s a joy! And it’s also work.

Specifically, it’s the type of work that modern American capitalism assigns zero value.

When I read yet another article about how we all need to lower our standards and open up our homes to solve loneliness, my whole body feels threatened, like somebody wants me barefoot in the kitchen without access to my own line of credit.

I don’t want permission to host friends without picking my laundry up off the floor.

What I want is for society to recognize the value of slow, pleasant, and intentionally designed experiences.

“Taste is a moat.” Okay. Where do you think taste comes from?

Taste cannot be rushed. It doesn’t develop on-demand like Polaroid film.

Taste needs space and time to be loud and messy and entirely off the record. It’s born from bad art, poor choices and unrecoverable mistakes. It’s staying up past midnight providing your own alternative overdubs to a marathon of gothic horror movies starring Vincent Price… and then crashing out from cringe trying to make it through the self-indulgent horndog fever dream that is Monster Grizzly.

What matters isn’t whether you’re in a living room or a cabin or a pub or a salon.

Wherever you are, it’s the alchemy of effort and vulnerability. What if nobody shows up? What if the next movie we pick is unredeemingly bad?

Make plans. Show up. Open up.

Intimacy is an asymmetric risk.

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A good host puts on a perfect performance. A great host knows what you need before you need it. A gracious host makes you feel like you belong in the room.

Belonging is something you cannot buy, and you cannot create it in isolation.

Belonging isn’t guaranteed. It’s not a birthright. It can come and go.

But it is something you can choose to give, to bestow upon others.

If for any reason you find it impossible to host

(time, space, shame, fear)

Can you find a way to make somebody feel like you see them and they’re in the right place?

Because I think that’s what we all mean to say instead of, “Nobody hosts dinner parties anymore.”