Things I've Learned Around the Table
Most of what I have learned about people did not come from books, conferences, or social media. It came from sitting across from them.
Over dinners. Over coffee. During conversations that lasted longer than expected. In rooms where people felt comfortable enough to be honest.
Over time, I started noticing patterns. Not business lessons first. Human lessons. The kind that only reveal themselves when people stop performing and start being themselves.
People do not need more options. They need better environments. Meaningful conversation creates its own momentum. Interest does not always appear immediately. Presence is increasingly rare. Safety changes everything.
Those observations became the beginning of XVI. Not a formula. Not a program. A better room.
Why I Started XVI
After living in Los Angeles for thirteen years, I moved back home to Dallas. One of the first things I realized was that the experiences I loved most were not difficult to find. The difficult part was finding the people to experience them with.
In Los Angeles, I had learned the value of thoughtfully curated environments - places where conversation flowed naturally, friendships deepened, and memorable experiences seemed to happen without being forced. When I returned to Dallas, I started recreating those experiences myself.
In 2012, I hosted my first gathering. Friends flew in from Los Angeles to attend. Local friends blocked their calendars months in advance. Many had never experienced an invitation-only dinner built around great food, wine, conversation, and intentional hospitality.
What surprised me was not only how much people enjoyed the evening. It was how difficult it was to get them to leave. The evening would officially end, but midnight became one o'clock. One became two. Somewhere around 2:30 or 3:00 in the morning, people would finally begin saying their goodbyes.
They were not reluctant to go home because of the menu or the room alone. They loved being there. They loved being in a room where conversation felt effortless, laughter came easily, and people felt comfortable enough to relax and become themselves.
Over time, I realized they were responding to something deeper: the environment itself.
The Lesson I Learned in Los Angeles
Years earlier, a place in Los Angeles had shown me what extraordinary hospitality could feel like. It was an Afro-Cuban rum and cigar lounge called La Descarga.
The line often wrapped around the block. People waited for hours to get inside. Yet the owners somehow made people feel like family. Eventually, they treated me that way too.
After closing time, they would invite my friends and me to stay. They would tell us to grab tacos from next door, bring them back, finish the conversation, light another cigar, and stay awhile. No performance. No pressure. Just hospitality.
Before I had language for it, I had experienced unreasonable hospitality firsthand. What made it unforgettable was not only the venue, the drinks, or the exclusivity. It was how they made people feel: seen, welcomed, valued, and at ease.
Years later, I realized I had been carrying those lessons home with me all along.
The Room I Could Not Find
For years, I carried a quiet conviction: certain environments reveal parts of people that other environments unintentionally suppress.
A worship service creates one kind of experience. A classroom creates another. A family dinner creates another. A thoughtfully curated gathering creates something different again. None of those environments is wrong. They simply serve different purposes.
I noticed that many environments available for Christian men and women to connect felt either unclear, awkward, or incomplete. The purpose was ambiguous. The expectations were uncertain. The opportunities for genuine conversation were often limited.
At the same time, I had repeatedly seen what happened when people were placed in a different kind of room - a room designed around hospitality, conversation, presence, privacy, and discretion. People relaxed. They listened differently. They laughed more. They became more fully themselves.
I especially wanted a space where Christian men could display sides of themselves that are not always easy to see in church settings: confidence, playfulness, attentiveness, masculine ease, and relational strength. I also wanted women to experience men in an environment that made those qualities easier to see.
Men often receive a poor cultural narrative, inside and outside the Church. For decades, popular culture has often portrayed men as incapable, emotionally deficient, or relationally inferior. Over time, those stories get internalized by both men and women.
XVI exists as a counter-environment. A room where men and women can encounter each other with dignity, clarity, curiosity, and respect. A room where connection is not forced, but allowed. A better room.
Hope. Harmony. Handles.
When someone leaves an XVI gathering, I hope they leave with three things: hope, harmony, and handles.
Hope - because many people arrive carrying disappointment. Some are exhausted by dating apps. Some have experienced rejection. Some wonder if marriage will ever happen for them. I want them to leave encouraged that God has not forgotten them, and that He is providing spaces where dating can begin with hope again.
Harmony - because men and women are often more at odds than they should be. Dating apps, social media, and modern commentary often amplify suspicion, cynicism, and frustration between the sexes. XVI creates a different kind of room: privacy, presence, proximity, purpose, and a curated guest list. These become counters to modern dating culture.
Handles - because people often need something practical they can carry with them. At XVI, a married couple shares brief moments of wisdom between courses. Those four or five minutes can be life-giving. A single insight can help someone get unstuck, understand themselves more clearly, or approach dating with more maturity, freedom, and faith.
Hope restores courage. Harmony restores trust. Handles restore clarity. Together, they form one of the central outcomes of XVI.
The Thread I've Been Following My Entire Life
Only recently have I realized there has been a common thread running through much of my life: restoration.
In 2008, I took the StrengthsFinder assessment and discovered that Restorative was one of my top five strengths. At first, I thought that simply meant solving problems. Over time, I realized it was much deeper than that.
I have always been drawn to seeing things returned to their intended purpose: broken systems, disconnected people, strained relationships, missed opportunities, and environments that no longer serve the people inside them.
The more I walk with God, the more I realize this impulse did not originate with me. It reflects His heart. The story of Scripture is, in many ways, a story of restoration: a God pursuing relationship with His people, reconciling what has been separated, making beauty from brokenness, and ultimately restoring people to Himself through Jesus.
From Genesis to Revelation, restoration is everywhere. And perhaps that is why XVI feels so personal to me. In its own small way, XVI participates in that same story: restoring hope, restoring dignity, restoring environments for meaningful connection, and restoring opportunities for men and women to see one another more truly.
Why Environment Matters
One of my deepest beliefs is that environment shapes what becomes possible.
The same person can show up differently in different rooms. A loud room creates one kind of person. A rushed room creates another. A safe room creates another. A beautiful, intentional, hospitable room can reveal qualities that were already there but had not been invited forward.
That is why XVI is not built around volume. It is not a mixer. It is not a crowd. It is not a room full of people hoping something happens. XVI is sixteen people: eight men, eight women, one table, a four-course experience, and a setting curated with balance in mind.
The name XVI means sixteen. Sixteen people at one table. Eight men and eight women. That balance matters. Many traditional singles events become asymmetrical, often with women far outnumbering men. That imbalance changes the energy of the room before the evening even begins.
XVI was created as a thoughtful alternative: equal presence from men and women, a single shared table, gently guided conversation, and an experience that creates proximity without pressure, clarity without awkwardness, and opportunity without chaos.
Even the name carries the tone of the brand. XVI feels strong, minimal, masculine, elegant, and a little mysterious. It does not overexplain itself. It invites curiosity. Because XVI is not meant to feel like another singles event. It is meant to feel like a better room.
What XVI Is Becoming
XVI is becoming a place for people who value depth, discretion, presence, and meaningful connection.
It is for people who believe that the right room can shift the conversation. It is for people who understand that the best conversations are not always the loudest ones. It is for people who want connection without the awkwardness of forced mingling and without the fatigue of modern dating culture.
XVI is not a dating app, not a singles mixer, and not a church program. It is a curated dining experience designed to help Christian men and women encounter one another with hope, dignity, wisdom, and ease.
It is also becoming a bridge between generations. I believe the Church was designed to be multi-generational, with older men and women teaching, modeling, and encouraging younger men and women. XVI creates space for that wisdom to be shared naturally around the table.
The vision is not merely to introduce people. It is to restore an environment where people can be seen, encouraged, challenged, and helped toward healthier relationships.
A Calling Before A Company
For nearly three years, XVI existed as an idea - or perhaps more accurately, a conviction. Something I believe originated in God's heart before it appeared in mine.
I delayed. I questioned. I waited. Eventually, I began moving. Not because every answer had appeared, but because faith rarely works that way.
The more I stepped forward, the more I realized XVI was never primarily my idea. It was an assignment. An opportunity to use the gifts God had already woven into my life: hospitality, connection, leadership, problem-solving, influence, and a desire to help others flourish.
I love the Lord's Church, His Bride. XVI was never born from disappointment with the Church. Quite the opposite. The Church has shaped me, taught me, corrected me, encouraged me, prayed for me, and loved me since the Lord brought me to Himself at fourteen years old.
I often say God keeps backing the truck up and pouring His love toward me through His people. Week after week, without fail. That love roots me, establishes me, teaches me, fills me, and fuels me.
Because I love the Church, I want to contribute where I see an opportunity for restoration. XVI is not a competitor to the Church. It is a complement. A worship service and a dinner table accomplish different things. A sermon and a conversation accomplish different things. Both matter.
Ultimately, XVI is not my business. It is His. My role is to steward it faithfully, protect the environment, and keep building the kind of room where hope, harmony, and restoration can take root.
Still Learning Around the Table
This section is intentionally reserved for continued reflection. The emerging theme is elevation: every dinner has been built upon, and designed to exceed in some meaningful way, the dinner before it.
The posture is not uncertainty for its own sake. It is craftsmanship, stewardship, humility, and attentiveness. XVI is still teaching me what people need, what restores hope, and what a better room can make possible.