Intro to #TacoTuesdayTalks

What's #TacoTuesdayTalks all about? Well, it actually started a couple of years ago when I aimed to get coffee with old friends at least once a week. It's inspired by Dunbar's number, which found that humans on average have about 150 "casual friends" and 50 "close friends."

If you're like me, it's truer that you have maybe 5-15 friends that you hang out with regularly, and everyone else is a friend/acquaintance/former colleague that you see at functions — some you might've even been close with at one point — but for the most part you haven't seen many of them in person in years. 

Unless you make time to talk pretty regularly — *liking* and commenting on their social media posts doesn't count — it's hard to call someone a "close" friend if you haven't even hung out in years. 

So getting a coffee once a week was my aim to rectify that. One person a week equals 52 people a year. And that's closer to Dunbar's number of "close" friends. It went really well for a while, but it died down — as things do. Plus, grabbing a coffee is sometimes understood as a "quick" thing that you do on the way to another thing.

Enter #TacoTuesdayTalks.

Why does this work better than "Let's grab a coffee"?

  1. It's an instant time commitment. Tacos take more time to prepare than coffees.
  2. It's a finger food, meaning you're connected to the food and by extension: the moment.
  3. This also prevents you from instinctively grabbing your cell phone with your messy taco hands ;)
  4. Who doesn't like tacos?!
  5. Seriously.

I've put the invite on Facebook and Twitter, to anyone and everyone on my friend list. And as of this writing, it looks like more than a year's worth of #TacoTuesdayTalks will need to be scheduled! I'm incredibly humbled by the people that have replied. Friends from middle school, university, people that I've never hung out with one-on-one before, and of course, even the friends that I already hang out with regularly.

If you think this is a good idea, feel free to take it and run with it! Social media is amazing for staying connected. But there's no replacement for connecting with someone in real life.