A guest blog by Nicolas, a Full Member of The Group.
Why The Table and a Weekend with The Group Are Two Very Different Experiences
My wife and I just attended the Lowcountry Lifestyle Weekend in Charleston. When meeting some of the sixty guests, I heard a few times from those attending, this being their first weekend event with The Group, about the disparity in the experience between their initial Just For Dinner event, now known as The Table, and the Charleston weekend event.
It’s not the first time we’ve heard this; we’ve also met others in the lifestyle who attended a dinner some years ago and “weren’t that impressed” and, therefore, never moved forward in their relationship with The Group.
My wife and I have been to three of The Group’s weekend events and thirteen, yes, thirteen, Just For Dinner evenings, so we definitely understand why the disparity exists. So, I asked the co-founders of The Group, George and Ann, if I could write an article about my own experiences and take a stab at explaining why this perceived disparity exists.
Or to put it another way, explain why you shouldn’t “judge a group by its dinner.”
It simply comes down to two things: expectation and purpose.
We’ve met plenty of couples who weren’t sure what to expect with their first Just For Dinner evening, and we weren’t either. The excitement of a new lifestyle opportunity that isn’t the same old thing can easily cause expectations to get out of hand.
Let’s start with The Group’s choice of restaurant. Based on The Group’s promotion as a private, high-end lifestyle community, I think it’s perfectly reasonable to expect a near-perfect dinner experience; the food, wine, service, and everything else should all be close to, or at, Michelin-star quality.
Now, probably a handful of you are reading this and have already attended a Just For Dinner evening but didn’t find it up to par. I’m actually not going to fault you. But remember, no one can bat a thousand. In fact, of the thirteen dinners we had, twelve were excellent, and one particular dinner was so less than perfect I would probably not return there personally ever. It was a steakhouse in New York City. The filet was massively undercooked. The head waiter rushed to fix it, and eventually you end up with this great medium filet, but to get there, the outside is a hockey puck. There was more, but at that point, yeah… I was just done.
But in the bigger picture, you take twelve out of thirteen stellar dinners and then three great weekend events and you quickly realize that sometimes even The Group chooses a place that’s having a really off night.
So, with the choice of restaurant out of the way, let’s talk about attendees’ expectations of The Table. The punch line here is that sometimes people forget the name of the event they’re attending!
I remember we attended a dinner where one of the wives looked especially nervous. George went over and asked her if she was okay. She admitted her nervousness, to which he replied, “Well, have you ever had dinner before?” She was confused by the response, as we all would be to such a seemingly unrelated question, and replied, “Of course I have.” George reassured her, saying, “That’s all we’re doing here tonight; just enjoying dinner together.” After that, she was at ease the rest of the night.
Today, the event is called The Table at Just For Dinner, and the current description spells out pretty clearly what your expectation should be: it is a standalone, invitation-only dinner series for accomplished professionals in the lifestyle. It is a complete evening on its own, not a preview and not a sales dinner, with the emphasis on enjoying a beautifully hosted meal and meeting other interesting people.
That should be your expectation.
There is one more piece of critical detail to cover. For those who do not already have a personal connection inside The Group, The Table is the principal gateway into the broader community. A direct referral from an existing member remains another way in, but for most people, the relationship begins over dinner.
Think about the end goal of why you’re attending The Table in the first place: you may want to belong to a private lifestyle group. But do you really want to be stuck hanging out with a bunch of self-centered jerks who would like to flaunt how rich they are, who don’t engage in interesting conversation, and who get so drunk they’re of no use to anyone? Of course not. You want to meet attractive, like-minded professional people with whom you have something in common and who are fun to be with… in the hopes that later in the evening, they’re “fun to be with.” Did you see what I did there?
The beauty of The Group is that it is a curated community of individuals in the lifestyle who have taken the time to meet one another in person and build real relationships before receiving broader access to the community.
You may wonder, what’s the magical litmus test for continuing the journey with The Group? For the individual or couple wanting to join, putting aside a desire for a more upscale lifestyle experience, it’s relatively simple in my mind: they need to look like their pictures, not be jerks or drunks, and be engaging people we’d all want to hang out with.
To create this curated community, someone has to travel the country on an endless loop, host the dinners, make introductions, and pay attention to whether the chemistry and compatibility feel natural on both sides. That is one of the reasons The Table exists.
Years ago, I might have described the purpose of Just For Dinner more bluntly and said it was to interview you. Having now spent years inside The Group, I think that description was too narrow. George and Ann are certainly getting to know you, but you are also getting to know them, the other guests, and what The Group actually feels like in person. The evening gives everyone a chance to discover whether they genuinely enjoy spending time together and whether the relationship should continue.
I should note that it’s not unheard of for one couple from a dinner to be invited to take the next step while others are not, or are simply encouraged to attend another evening and allow the relationship more time to develop. Not everyone moves forward at the same pace, and not every dinner creates the same connections.
To put it bluntly, membership is not guaranteed. But The Table is not a pass-or-fail examination, either. It is where the relationship begins and where everyone has a chance to decide whether there should be a next chapter.
You can read the current membership journey here.
Let’s return to this article’s premise: folks judging The Group by a Just For Dinner evening. I can tell you with an extremely high degree of certainty that there’s a massive disparity between the experience you’ll have at The Table and that of a Weekend Event, so much so that you shouldn’t be judging The Group by your dinner evening.
Consider the disparities from a few perspectives:
At your dinner, many of the people in attendance may be new to The Group, just as you are. At a weekend event, you are surrounded by a combination of Provisional, Full, Resort, and Equity Members who have already shared more time and experiences together. That creates a very different room and a deeper sense of community than you can reasonably expect at a single first dinner.
In the end, we’re all trying to make new friends and have new experiences. We’ve been to dinners with only four couples, including us, and dinners with sixteen couples. Most have been around eight to twelve couples and one or two single women. In contrast, at the weekend events, we’ve seen a much larger gathering of singles, couples, and yes, throuples, as many as eighty people at the events we’ve attended. That has proven time and time again to be a large enough group to find some folks you vibe with and enjoy the weekend with. We’ve also attended a members-only raft-up of mega yachts in Miami. There were around 150 members in attendance. There were so many stunning yachts that the Coast Guard came along and asked that we split off the “smaller” boats.
Just For Dinner lasts a few hours in one evening, probably not long enough to make any real lasting connections. The Group’s weekend events allow members to attend for three to five days, providing ample time to meet and get to know others attending. Allow me to insert here that the instinct of new members is to attend for just a day or two to “audit” the weekend. That’s a big mistake. It’s equivalent to showing up in the fourth quarter of the big game and not feeling part of the excitement that has been building before you arrived. Everyone else has had two days to get acquainted and you’re walking in blind. If you are new to The Group and you have the opportunity to attend a weekend event, arrive as early as possible. When you do, you will realize that many experienced members have learned to arrive on Wednesday to make the most of the experience.
While the dinner itself is often held at James Beard-winning or Michelin-rated restaurants, there are plenty of cities where dinners need to be held instead at one of the best restaurants that particular city offers. Of the thirteen dinners my wife and I have attended, all but one were upscale restaurants, with the menu hand-selected, the wine list sommelier-prepared, and so on. But at a weekend event, The Group chooses a city and property based on their ability to deliver the finest accommodations, restaurants, entertainment, and experiences, all adding up to a five-star weekend event.
Remember that nervous wife? She was anxious because she wasn’t sure what the play expectation was. In the case of The Table, the expectation should be none. Hint: it’s still right there in the words “Just For Dinner.” You’re meeting for dinner. In the case of weekend events, attendees take advantage of the longer duration and the many opportunities to meet and get to know other members and “make the most” of their time together as each member sees fit. As always, there is no obligation or expectation beyond enjoying yourself in whatever way feels comfortable and consensual to you.
Nearly every member at some point was a dinner guest wondering, “Do I want to continue with this group or not?” And since I’ve hopefully eliminated The Table as the only means of judging the merits of being part of The Group, it stands to reason that I need to give you something to evaluate whether the community should interest you.
Here’s how my wife and I determined our participation in The Group.
We talked to George and Ann… a lot. You should ask questions. Don’t just eat at dinner; take advantage of the evening and find out everything you want to know about The Group.
We looked at their previous events. There’s a list going back nearly two decades. Look at where they went, watch the videos when available, and get a sense of what a weekend event is like.
We paid attention to the people. We asked ourselves whether these were people we wanted to see again, travel with, share a table with, and potentially welcome into our lives. That turned out to be a much more useful question than whether one particular dinner had lived up to every expectation.
As our relationship with The Group developed, we gained access to more of its private world, including The App, upcoming member events, and details that are not shared on the public-facing website. Technology did not create the relationships. It simply made it easier to stay connected after those relationships had begun in person.
We asked, “What’s next?” When we joined, The Group had not yet acquired its yacht, and we’ve since chartered the yacht a couple of times. Today, The Group also has The Resort in Jamaica, additional experiences designed specifically for women, new gateways for younger members, and a growing calendar of dinners, weekends, and international gatherings.
It’s been four years since we joined, four years that have included plenty of trips to new cities, along with great new friendships, experiences, and memories. None of this would have happened had we judged a group by its dinner.
| Continue reading: The Group’s Weekend Events: Is the Price Worth the Hype? |
