Swap small talk for deep dialogue at Wollongong's Dinners with a Difference

Tired of small talk and surface-level conversation, Mount Ousley communications and engagement specialist Gretel Van-Lane has started holding Dinners with a Difference.

It began at her birthday last year, when, determined to spark meaningful discussion, Gretel threw a themed dinner of a different kind. Rather than fancy dress, Gretel set a conversation theme and invited her friends to delve deep into the subject of ‘milestones’.

“Last year I ran a dinner, and I thought if I get eight people, I'll be thrilled, but I had 27 friends say, ‘Yes, hell yes, I want to do this’,” Gretel said.

“We talked about the topic of milestones because of my birthday, and we just had a chat and it was so nourishing and everyone was like, ‘That was amazing. There's something in that. Let's do that again.’

“So then I started creating them as public events, because it's not just my friends and family that wanted to do this; I came across people all the time that were like, ‘I want to come to these dinners’.”

Inspired, she founded Dinners with a Difference earlier this year, which sees a group of 35 strangers – of different ages, ethnicities, occupations and experiences – meet over a meal once a month at Wollongong’s Uncle Bok’s bar and eatery. The only thing they’re required to bring is an openness to engaging in deeper dialogue.

“Dinners with a Difference is an opportunity to meet people, meet strangers, and talk about meaningful things because often we don't get an opportunity to dive beneath the surface,” Gretel said.

“I know, for myself, I get stuck in lots of small talk and I find it exhausting, and I just wanted to create a space where people can come together and have meaningful conversations that are away from everyday life.

“I’ve run women's circles in the past and I've done a lot of self-inquiry retreats and meditation retreats, and I like creating [and] coming into spaces that are held, facilitated, and enable reflective listening and speaking from your own honesty. I guess, like speaking your own truth they say, and I wanted to create spaces that were more accessible, because a lot of my friends would never go to a women's circle because it's ‘too hippy’.

“Also, women's circles are only generally for women, and I wanted to create spaces where all genders can come together in an inclusive environment and also include food and wine because it makes it even more fun.”

Like her own birthday dinner, guests at each event discuss a topic, which they have the opportunity to ruminate on before they even reach the restaurant.

“The week leading up to the dinner, I send out a questionnaire, and there's a couple of reasons why. One is [because] it starts people thinking about the topic, and also it tells me what people are thinking, because I'm always blown away with the diversity of thinking,” Gretel said.

“Often people will raise things in the questionnaire that I hadn't thought of, and so then I curate the night based on people's answers and my own thoughts and research.

“'Belonging' was probably my favourite topic because it was so rich and we could have talked all day on it. We did 'finding meaning and purpose', 'grief', 'modern masculinity' and 'redefining feminism'. We had 'pleasure' last month; and the next one is going to be on obligation, which is going to be an interesting one.”

Gretel starts the night by introducing the topic, offering her own insight and sharing anonymous answers to the questionnaire to inspire open discussion. Guests then explore a round of new questions over an entrée before moving on and discussing a second round of questions with a new table of people over their main meal.

Though almost every event has so far been a sell-out, Gretel is always surprised at how eager her guests are to open up to strangers.

“I'm constantly blown away with how forthcoming people are,” she said. “I think I've been to enough dinner parties, or even just at the school gate, where I've tried to deepen the conversation and it's gone awkward, they don't really want to talk about things and they change the subject. But in this space, everybody is absolutely willing, and they turn up curious and ready to engage.

“I get feedback like ‘I haven't had conversations like this in a long time’, and some of the best feedback I received was from a woman who's come to almost all the dinners, and she said that it's enabled her to show up more bravely in the other parts of her life.

“She didn't realise that being vulnerable and sharing parts of herself would actually be met by other people, so she's noticing that when she turns up to work or when she turns up to social events, she's able to more comfortably share parts of her life, and people respond so positively so she feels more connected to her community and to her friends and family.”

The next Dinner with a Difference, exploring ‘obligation’, has sold out and will be held on Thursday, September 7, at Uncle Bok’s.

The final dinner for 2023 will be held on October 19, where guests will have the opportunity to discuss activism.

For more information and access to tickets, visit the Dinners with a Difference website. Tickets are $70 and cover attendance and meal costs, and $55 for people under 25 years, persons from single-income households or those feeling the financial pinch.