In Bowling Alone, Robert Putnam uses Yiddish to distinguish between two kinds of people that build social capital:

schmoozer

“One who chats”, from the Hebrew “to report gossip”. Informal, friendly relationships; exemplified by two activities: eating dinner together and playing cards.

macher

“Big shot”, from the German “to make”. Relationships based on membership in formal groups, from churches to bowling leagues.

Both activities are correlated with education and income but Putnam says that schmoozers and machers tend to be different people. The rate of both schmoozing and maching has been declining in our society, but maching has possibly been declining faster: bowling is less popular than it used to be, but bowling in leagues especially so. This analysis of folksy politicians gets the definitions a bit wrong, but I think it’s worth considering whether there’s a cultural divide between schmoozers and machers.

The standard advice for getting more friends is to do maching: volunteer, take a class. I’ve been doing some of those things to build my social capital. But if you’re looking for friends to schmooze with, macher activities are probably the wrong way to go.

How do you foster “less organized and purposeful, more spontaneous and flexible” social activities? I’m pretty good at random dinners and drinks, although I probably don’t incite them as much as I could. Do I need to get better at entertaining at home? And what’s the contemporary equivalent of bridge – a Wii?