Free Cake

"CAKE PICNIC is a global cake festival and traveling picnic where strangers gather in beautiful parks to share whole cakes and create unforgettable memories. From London to Los Angeles, Manila to Melbourne, each CAKE PICNIC brings together bakers, cake-lovers, and joyful guests who believe that cake has the power to turn an ordinary afternoon into something extraordinary."

The above paragraph is cut and pasted from "the official Cake Picnic" page. Apparently this Cake Picnic thing has gone viral, with people paying $50 for a ticket that will allow them to enter an outdoor venue, otherwise free to the public, and bring a cake to a picnic to meet people who also have brought a cake to the picnic.

Supposedly this is to facilitate friendships between members of the younger generations who, because of Covid and the societal destruction caused by social media, have lost the ability to interact with strangers, carry on face-to-face conversations and form in-person friendships.

According to an article in today's WSJ, the sad news is that these "cake picnics" have turned into little more than opportunities for people to post selfies with their cakes on Instagram, and thus make no new friends at all since that's what everyone else is doing too.

Here's an idea: Make a beautiful cake (see photo) and go to a public park on a lovely afternoon and put up a sign saying "Free Cake." That might get you a new friend for free.