Hi, Friends

Welcome to the first edition of The Wednesday Waffle Newsletter. A once-weekly addition to your inbox designed to build, maintain, and deepen connections amongst friends, families, colleagues and even those of you courting.

What is The Wednesday Waffle?

A few weeks ago the internet went ape shit droppings when I shared a story about three friends and I sending short, 1 to 2 minute, videos to the group chat every Wednesday, updating each other on what’s been happening in our lives, what we’ve got coming up, while also checking in on how everyone else is doing. We call it a Wednesday Waffle.

Watch the viral video here

With 150,000 people liking the idea, and tens of thousands sharing it, I realised people really want more newsletters friends and a deeper connection with the friends they already have!

And thus, The Wednesday Waffle Newsletter was born with a single mission - to make the world a friendlier place.

I plan on helping us all achieve this by delivering a mixture of fun, facts, actionable tips, and frivolity to your inbox each week.

So whether you’re on a mission to make more friends, reconnect with old friends, or strengthen your connection with existing friends, you’re in luck. In fact, things are already happening, because just by signing up “you’ve got a friend in me”. (Listen to the song here).

Hang On, Who Are You?

Allow me to introduce myself. I’m ZP and (I like to think) I’m a pretty normal person. I grew up in a country town in Victoria, Australia and went to school close to where we lived. So too, as it turns out, did most of my friends.

My first job was at a video store and, to further date myself, I was a teenager when the threat of Y2K emerged and then passed in the stroke of a clock. I enjoyed a childhood free from mobile phones, much less smart phones, and the internet only became a thing while I was at high school. I used it to learn how to kickflip and play the guitar. Then I used it for downloading songs on Napster (sorry Lars), playing Age of Empires online (sorry people I destroyed), and, most of all, I used it to chat to my mates into the early hours of the morning on MSN messenger (sorry parents for those internet bills).

I’d known most of these (then) boys since we were five years old. I met a few more in Year 7, when starting high school, and the rest around fifteen or sixteen thanks to local sport.

There were lots of us and we liked to do everything and nothing together. (I might elaborate on some of the nothing in future episodes, as I have some particularly funny / silly stories).

This all continued on into our twenties when I distinctly remember my Mum saying that I was “lucky” and “not everyone stays friends with the people they grew up with”. The words really struck me because I assumed they did. It was then I realised while I was normal, my friends were special.

It is thanks to some of those friends that The Wednesday Waffle Newsletter exists. Thank you for being a part of it.

If you want to invite your friends and family to receive The Wednesday Waffle Newsletter, drop their email address in here. The more of us there are, the more friendship we can put out into the world.

Until we speak again next Wednesday, keep waffling!