You asked me once how I was able to have 20 people come to my birthday party, even though at the time I’d only been living in Berlin for less than a year. The simple answer is that I invited 30 people.

The secret to having more people in your life is inviting people to things. Because people want to do things with other people, but often, people don’t want to be the people organising those things. You can be that person. No, you should be that person.

And here’s the thing: you don’t even have to be the one organising the things. You just have to find things you want to go to anyway, and then invite a couple of people to join you.

Recently, you confessed to me that you find it difficult to connect with people here in Berlin. You mentioned how you don’t think this city fosters serendipity. How there are no third spaces, and how people are flaky and just fall off the face of the map.

Part of it, I believe, is because the city is huge and has no centre, so people in Neukölln tend to stay where they are, as do those in Kreuzberg and Friedrichshain. I mean, does the East even exist for people in Wilmersdorf?

I think proximity is a feature in relationships, not a bug. When I meet new people and I find out they live in the North of the city, I make a point to invite them to things I go to in the North. And if I’m ever going to the South for something, which happens rarely, I reach out to the folks I know on that side.

One of the best nights I had in Berlin happened because I invited people to a thing. There was a music lecture at Savvy Contemporary by a South African journalist and DJ, and I invited two friends who live in Wedding to the talk.

Those two friends each invited two other people, and when the event ended, the seven of us went over to Sinema Transtopia to hang out.

We talked about the music we’d just heard. How surprised we were by the Muslim representation in the South African jazz scene. Eventually, the topic moved on to everyone’s favourite pastime: dating in Berlin.

At midnight, when Sinema closed and two of the folks went back home, the remaining five of us went to the bar next door and chanced upon an impromptu karaoke set where eclectic renditions of Amy Winehouse and System of a Down were sung with flair.

I spent most of the night talking with one of the people one of the friends I invited invited. It started with us talking about the band Tokio Hotel – because of the karaoke – then on to how we were both very attracted to Bill Kaulitz, specifically his look in the “Monsoon” music video. And somehow, the night ended with us talking about each of our decisions to have or not have kids.

That person I was talking to ended up inviting me to their birthday party before they left. I may or may not go to the party, but if I do, I’ll probably meet some new people, who I can then invite to other things, and who in turn may or may not show up to those things.

I know that you sometimes worry that your friends won’t get along in a group, which is why you often prefer one-on-one hangouts. But I believe creating situations where people might connect, and then trusting them to make the decision of whether or not they want to connect, is the respectful move. There’s a metaphor somewhere in there about taking a horse to the river, which at the end of the day is all you can do.

There are people I’ve invited to things who came once and then stopped coming. And I’ve been invited to things that I didn’t enjoy and would never go to again. But I don’t hold it against the people who invited me, and I don’t fault the people who don’t come to the things I invite them to.

So next time, instead of inviting me over for dinner, invite me to a thing you’re doing with other people. A one-on-one dinner feels like doing something nice for me, but meeting your friends feels like actually being a part of your life. We probably won’t all get along, but some of us will.

And then just keep inviting us to things; we probably won’t all show up, but some of us will.

Because the point is not perfect attendance. The point is perfect invitation.

I invite people I know to things where they’ll meet other people I know because I want to feel less like a link in a chain, and more like a node in a mesh. I don’t want to be the single point of failure. I want to be part of a web that would hold even after I’m dead and gone. It’s the reason you know a lot of my friends in this city. It’s the reason you hang out with some of them without me.

Moving here in my mid-thirties as a freelancer was lonely. I didn’t have an easily accessible community to tap into at work or university. And when I got this flat so far up north, I knew that things would get dire if I didn’t do anything.

So I did something.

I became the third space.

And I believe you can do that too.