Getting Dinner with Friends Who Don’t Know Each Other: Into the Friendship Multiverse

I was having a quiet evening at home when, suddenly, I received a text. It was my friend Laura, asking if I was free Friday. But I already had plans to get dinner with a different friend—a woman Laura had never met, named Erica.

I yearned to invite Laura along but knew, sadly, that I couldn’t. The laws of friendship dictate that getting dinner with two friends who don’t know each other is impossible, as they come from different, parallel universes.

To bring Erica and Laura to the same dimension—eating dinner with me at an Italian restaurant in the East Village, on the same night, at 7 p.m.—could be disastrous, shattering the friendship multiverse and generating awkwardness at unprecedented levels, with pauses in conversation so long, so vacuous, they’d fill with dark matter, sucking us into a void.

My bedside lamp flickered. With that, I considered a possibility from deep in the recesses of my mind, like an echo or a song: What if my running club friend met my work friend? And I was there, at the table, experiencing this extraordinary friend convergence? If we all hit it off, thwarting the friendship multiverse’s force, people everywhere could finally get dinner with friends who don’t know each other—and we would fundamentally alter the friendship multiverse forever.

I had to try.

As lightning surged outside, I texted Erica, “Could my friend Laura join us at Little Frankie’s?” Then I held my breath.

“Sure!” she replied. The plan was in motion—no stopping now. With quivering thumbs, I invited Laura. “Can’t wait!” she said as an unexplainable green light illuminated the sky.

Erica and Laura seemed unaware of the friendship multiverse’s dangers. But I knew I had to ward off a potentially violent collision of universes and treacherous silences at the restaurant. There was only one person I could turn to, one who might know how to navigate this dinner: my former roommate Jenny, who teaches high school science and knows everything about everything. I gave her a call.

“It can’t be done,” she said.

“There must be a way!” I pleaded.

“There isn’t,” she said. “Once, I tried getting ramen with a college friend and a former colleague, but we couldn’t think of anything to say except how windy it had been lately. Unable to find common ground, we all got up to use the bathroom. Then the restaurant exploded with light, and an unusual force levitated us back home. The friendship multiverse was saying, ‘No.’”

“Please!” I cried. “What if we succeed? Imagine the fun dinners people could have with friends who don’t know each other—dinners free of stilted chit-chat about what our commute to the restaurant was like. Dinners that instead launch longstanding inside jokes about gnocchi, include heartfelt shares about feelings, and, eventually, lead to renting an AirbnB in Cold Spring every year for jewelry-making retreats.”

“Well,” Jenny said, lowering her voice, “I have one idea.”

“Tell me!” I begged.

“Think of conversation topics in advance,” Jenny whispered. It was a risky technique, one she recently read about in a book by a fringe Alaskan friendship scientist. “Keep the ideas on paper in your pocket. No one can know about your list. If you show it at dinner, the friendship multiverse may crack, and you’ll kill any good vibes that may be surfacing.”

So, I wrote down the following interests that Erica, Laura, and I shared: therapy, real estate, dating, The Golden Bachelor, and plantar fasciitis.

“One more thing,” Jenny said. “If one of your friends is wearing cute earrings, say so. This book says that might put her at ease and prompt her to share a story about buying them, leading to more storytelling at the table. Godspeed.”

The next day, feeling tentatively confident, I started a group chat with Erica and Laura, texting, “Looking forward to dinner tomorrow!” “Likewise!” they replied.

Then my phone emitted a shrill beep: electricity was down across New York City. It was a sign that the friendship multiverse was becoming unstable. But I had to persist with dinner, for our sake and for the sake of friends everywhere.

When Erica, Laura, and I met at Little Frankie’s, we hugged.

“So nice to finally meet you!” Erica said to Laura.

So far, so good.

But as the host brought us to a booth, I still monitored for signs of fissures in the fabric of time and any sweat stains in my going-out button-up.

Sure enough, after we perused our menus, Erica took a prolonged sip of water. Laura cleared her throat and said she liked the song that was playing. A glow started emanating from them both, and they began to float. This is it, I thought. I brought my dear friends to one table, and now, their universes are colliding. I squeezed my eyes shut.

Then I remembered Jenny’s advice.

“Erica, I love your earrings!” I cried as other patrons shielded themselves and grimaced. “They’re so pretty!”

“Thank you. I found them at a flea market in Toulouse,” she replied as though in a trance.

“I love Toulouse!” Laura said. She was still floating, but was her glow starting to dim?

“So do I!” I called out. With that, they sank to their seats. Everything went back to normal, and we shared tales of studying abroad. Erica and Laura were smiling, seeming to have no idea that, minutes ago, they had been floating. Phew.

Then, as our waiter brought bread, there was a pause. But I knew what to do. “I’m so glad we could all get together,” I said, stealing a glance at my list. “How’s everyone’s plantar fasciitis?”