Potlucks Aren’t Killing Community. Passivity Is.

Sep 9

I skipped a nude social event to do laundry, and I did not regret it. That may be the real crisis facing social clubs.

I skipped a nude social event to do laundry, and I did not regret it. That may be the real crisis facing social clubs.

I have been staring at my club calendar lately, trying to decide whether to go to another event.

And I keep landing on the same answer:

I would rather do laundry.

That should scare the hell out of any club organizer.

Because when laundry beats your social event, you do not have a scheduling problem.

You have a pulse problem.

A club organizer recently sent an email asking some big, worthwhile questions:

Who are we as a club? What is our mission? Has that mission changed over the years?

Then came the question members ask most often:

What events do we have?

But the email made a sharper point after that.

Maybe the real question is not where we go for nude recreation.

Maybe it is how we do nude recreation.

And honestly, they are right.

How we do it matters. Coming together matters. Trust, friendship, belonging, spending time outdoors, sitting around a fire, taking a hike, visiting a beach, planning a campout, enjoying a sauna night, or taking a trip with people who make you feel safe. That is the good stuff.

That is why a naturist club can become more than a mailing list and a collection of people who own beach towels.

But if the practical answer to “What events do we have?” is always some version of a potluck, movie night, board game, and a brief meeting about future potlucks, we may have confused showing up with actually living.

I am in my late 50s. I am not asking for a nightclub. I do not need a DJ, strobe lights, or somebody trying to turn the living room into a goddamn Ibiza pool party.

But I also do not want to spend the rest of my good years sitting naked at a folding table while somebody unwraps a cheese tray and asks whether rain is expected Sunday.

That is not community.

That is a waiting room with fewer clothing options.

And before the potluck loyalists send me hate mail, take a breath. I am not saying potlucks are bad. Some of you make a dip so good it could heal a family rift.

I am saying a potluck cannot be the whole damn culture.

If You’re Curious, Stay

And if you are not a naturist or nudist, stay with me.

Maybe you are curious.

Maybe you have thought about trying a nude beach, a clothing-optional resort, a hike, or a social gathering. Then you immediately imagined something awkward, creepy, overly sexual, or painfully boring.

Fair enough. A lot of people have.

But at its best, nude recreation is not about showing off. It is not about hooking up. And it is not about proving you are brave enough to take your clothes off in front of strangers.

It is about removing one small layer of performance.

It is about discovering whether people can meet one another as human beings without judging every body, outfit, income level, job title, or social signal in the room.

You do not become a better person because you get naked.

But sometimes you become a more honest one.

And that is why this conversation matters beyond nudism.

Book clubs. Hiking groups. Bowling leagues. Neighborhood associations. Social organizations. Even friend groups.

They all face the same danger.

They get comfortable. They stop evolving. The same people keep coming to the same events. The same conversations happen around the same folding tables. New people show up once or twice, feel the sleepy vibe, and quietly disappear.

Then, five years later, everyone wonders why the room feels smaller, quieter, older, and harder to fill.

Age is not the problem.

Potlucks are not the problem.

The problem is passivity.

Board games. Casseroles. Small talk about the weather. Repeat.

Is that really what we took our clothes off for?

Most of us did not discover nude recreation because we craved lukewarm tuna casserole or another three-hour game of Monopoly. We found it because we wanted something freer. More honest. Less performative than the clothed world we navigate every day.

We wanted the relief of being around people without all the usual armor.

So how the hell did we end up recreating the most boring parts of ordinary social life, just with fewer pants?

A living room. A folding table. A conversation that never gets deeper than, “Looks like rain on Sunday.”

Nobody is saying every gathering must become a life-changing emotional breakthrough. Sometimes people just want chips, dip, and a quiet evening with decent company. There is nothing wrong with that.

But if quiet evenings are all we offer, we should not be surprised when the energy starts draining out of the room.

Safe is good.

Safe matters.

But safe is not the same thing as alive.

When Comfortable Becomes Dead

Here is the uncomfortable truth.

We have accidentally curated a culture of passivity.

We schedule something easy because it is easy. A potluck is easy. A movie is easy. A game night is easy. Everybody understands the assignment. Bring a dish. Sit down. Eat. Watch. Play. Go home.

Then we do it again next month.

And again.

Eventually, nobody is really choosing the events anymore.

The events are choosing the culture.

A potluck can be warm. A potluck can be generous. A potluck can be a damn fine time when the people in the room are engaged, curious, and actually interested in one another.

But when it becomes the entire program, it turns everybody into spectators with paper plates.

Same with movies. Same with board games. Same with any activity where people can spend three hours in the same room without revealing one single interesting thing about themselves.

That is not connection.

That is occupancy.

And passive programming attracts passive attendance. People come because it is familiar, not because they are excited. They bring the same dish, tell the same story, sit in the same chair, and leave at the same time.

Meanwhile, the people you desperately need, the younger people, the curious people, the people who might bring fresh energy and ideas, walk in and think:

Oh. This is it?

Then they quietly ghost the club.

I do not blame them.

If someone tries a nude social event for the first time, we do not want them walking into a room full of people waiting for the casserole to heat up. We want them to walk into warmth, laughter, movement, curiosity, and the unmistakable feeling that something might happen tonight besides someone asking whether the coffee is decaf.

That does not mean turning nude recreation into a circus.

It means giving people a reason to care.

A Better Kind of Nude Night

I showed up for three years to a music festival that shall remain nameless.

The music was not really for me. But honestly, the music was not the issue. The issue was the same crowd standing around, nodding, shuffling from one place to another, waiting for something to become exciting.

I was not dancing.

I was surviving.

This year, I skipped it. I took the PTO anyway, stayed home, did laundry, and did not regret it for one damn second.

That should scare every club organizer reading this.

When laundry beats your event, you are in crisis mode.

So what is the answer?

It is not complicated, but it does require someone to go first.

Create one event every month that is not about food, movies, business meetings, or pretending Monopoly is more fun because nobody is wearing socks.

Call it Story Night.

The premise is simple. People sit in a circle. There are a few drinks, if that fits the group. There is a bowl filled with questions. People pull one, answer it if they want to, and pass if they do not.

No scoring.

No debating.

No fixing anyone.

No turning every story into a lecture about politics, the economy, or why your chosen candidate should have won in 1984, 2004, or last Tuesday. This is not cable news with potato salad.

It is a night for people to tell stories.

Real ones.

Messy ones.

Funny ones.

The kind that let you see the person sitting across from you as more than “that guy who brings the pasta salad” or “the woman who always organizes the beach trip.”

Try questions like these:

What is the dumbest risk you ever took that actually paid off?
Who changed your life in five minutes or less?
What is a piece of advice you gave your kids that you should have taken yourself?
What is the most embarrassing thing you believed when you were younger?
When did you feel bravest, even if nobody else noticed?
What is one mistake that turned into a better story than success ever could have?
Who was unexpectedly kind to you when you really needed it?
What did you think you would have figured out by this age that you still have not figured out?

Now we are talking.

Nobody is wrong. Nobody has to perform. Nobody is there to win.

Everyone is there to listen.

And when you really listen to someone’s story, you stop seeing them as a club member.

You start seeing them as a human being.

That is community.

That is worth showing up for.

That is worth taking PTO for.

The Rules That Matter

A good Story Night does not need to be overproduced. In fact, it should not be. But it needs enough structure that the loudest person in the room does not turn it into a one-person show.

Keep it to about 90 minutes.

Use a bowl of prompts, not a rigid agenda.

Let people pass without having to explain themselves.

Aim for stories of three to five minutes, so everyone has room.

Ask people to listen without interrupting, correcting, or giving unsolicited advice.

Keep political arguments out of it. Personal truth is welcome. Debate-club bullshit is not.

End with one question for the group:

What would make you excited to come back next month?

That last question matters.

Because too many clubs plan events from the top down. A few people decide what is manageable, and everyone else becomes an audience. Then everyone wonders why nobody volunteers, why attendance drops, and why the same exhausted people keep doing all the work.

Ask members what they want.

More importantly, ask them what they would help create.

There is a big difference between asking, “What events should we have?” and asking, “What kind of night would you be excited to host or help make happen?”

One question creates a wish list.

The other creates ownership.

An Invitation, Not a Challenge

We have to talk about newcomers.

At your next gathering, look to your left and right.

Are those the same faces you saw five years ago?

There is nothing wrong with familiar faces. Familiar faces can become lifelong friends. That is one of the best things a club can offer.

But if familiar faces are the only faces you see, then you have a problem.

A healthy community needs continuity and fresh energy. It needs people who remember the old stories and people who arrive with new ones. It needs longtime members who can show newcomers what respect, safety, body acceptance, and genuine friendship look like.

It also needs newcomers who are not afraid to ask, “Why do we always do it this way?”

And if you are nudism-curious, consider this your invitation.

Do not picture a room full of strangers judging your body.

Do not picture a hookup scene.

Do not picture people demanding that you become instantly comfortable with something that may feel vulnerable at first.

Picture a respectful social space where nobody is pretending their body is perfect. Picture people who are not asking you to perform confidence. Picture a place where you are allowed to take your time.

You do not have to prove anything.

You do not have to be a certain age, size, gender, shape, or level of free-spirited.

You need curiosity. Respect for other people’s boundaries. And the willingness to show up as yourself.

The right club will explain what to expect before you arrive. It will respect your pace. It will make clear that social nudity is not sexual pressure, and that consent, privacy, and basic human decency are not optional.

And if a group cannot offer that, it is not the right group.

For those of us already in these communities, our job is not to pressure people into getting naked.

Our job is to build a kind of community people might actually want to risk being seen in.

Invite the neighbor who could use a better social life.

Invite the friend who has been curious for years but assumes every nudist gathering is either a retirement home, a hookup scene, or a place where someone hands them a brochure and a potato chip.

Invite the coworker who keeps saying they want to meet more interesting people.

Invite people responsibly. Be clear about the club’s expectations. Respect guest policies. Give people the information they need, the time they need, and the freedom to decide whether the experience is right for them.

A good welcome is not just, “Come on in.”

A good welcome is, “You are safe here. You are respected here. You do not have to be anybody but yourself.”

And if you are hosting, make it unmistakably clear that new faces are not merely tolerated.

They are the whole damn point.

We Are Not Done Yet

I want to attract people who love living.

People who laugh loud.

People who tell messy, funny, human stories.

People who are curious enough to try something new and generous enough to make room for someone else.

People who make me forget I am looking at the clock.

I do not want to be the young one anymore.

I want to be the average one.

Not because youth is better. It is not. Every age brings something different to the table, and some of the best people I know have enough life behind them to fill a bookstore.

But I want a club that feels alive across generations.

A club where people are not just aging together, but still growing together.

We started this because we believed in something bold.

That human dignity does not require clothes.

But dignity does not require dullness either.

We should not confuse comfortable with connected.

We should not confuse safe with stagnant.

And we should not confuse a full calendar with a living community.

Picking a date and an activity is not community.

Coming together with intention, energy, curiosity, and a willingness to actually know one another is community.

That is the answer.

And if we are going to play a card game afterward, then for the love of all that is holy, let’s at least play strip poker.