Ben Friedman shares about how a friend’s gathering developed into a tradition.
I first started convening “steak night” in 2010, when I lived in Washington, DC. Myself and a group of recent college graduates got together monthly for a divey pub’s steak special. We had our first paying jobs and spent the discretionary income we had on this ritual. We became such predictable regulars that the restaurant once gave us all beer steins to take home as a holiday present.
When I moved to the Bay Area nine years ago, the steak night ritual continued as a way to connect to a new community of friends, and as a way to explore my new home. Steak night has taken me from Alameda to Balboa Park, from Lafayette to Russian Hill and beyond. We tailgated the last home series of the Oakland Athletics at the Coliseum with our own grilled steak, and have enjoyed countless other venues.
There is a new era of steak night these days. Now, it’s a time for a group of young fathers in their late 30s to get together and trade notes on fatherhood. We check in on one another’s sleep rhythms, troubleshoot partnerships, and share potty-training tips. It’s become an extraordinarily supportive and unique space for dads to check in with another- and our spouses all see its power. More than a few dads have first re-entered the ‘real world’ via steak night after that initial quiet cocooning of supporting an infant and spouse.
Much is being said about adult male loneliness, and I have not been immune to this troubling and very real phenomenon. My advice to others is do not discount the power of ritual, even around the most mundane or flimsy premises. Armed with a little commitment, and a few co-conspirators, your ritual might wind up turning into something sacred- as it is for me. With a Perspective, I’m Ben Friedman.
Ben Friedman works in conservation advocacy at a land trust. He lives in Oakland.