Posted by cjbarber 2 days ago
1. If this is a dinner party (or people are all seated), force people to get up and move in a way that they'll meet new people. Do this when you're about 2/3 of the way through the party. Some will complain - do it anyway.
2. Plan 1 (ideally 2) interludes. It can be a small speech, moving people around, changing locations, having people vote on something, etc. For whatever reason, they make the night more memorable.
3. Do your best to make introductions natural and low-pressure. Saying things like "you two would really get along" can put pressure on people - especially shy ones. Bring up something they have in common and let them chat while you back away.
4. Go easy on folks who cancel last minute. They often don't feel good about doing it and you don't want to add more stress to them or yourself.
5. More music != more fun. Some music is good, but if people can't hear each other, turn it down.
If you're interested reading more about this stuff, read The Art of Gathering by Priya Parker.
Better, I've found, for compelling people to interact with others they may not know, is to assign seats. This enables separating couples or others with a preexisting connection. The act of eating offers the benefits of a subject to discuss (if needed) and makes it so it's acceptable to periodically look away from the conversation partner. Just note that depending on the size/shape of the dinner table, it may be necessary to think about who people will be seated adjacent to and seated across from.
NB Such things are really not my natural habitat.
Stendhal thought that the 19th Century French custom that married couples should attend the same gatherings had harmed the quality of conversation. I think he said this of the Empire.
I try not to give folks a hard time, but after a couple strikes I just won't invite them anymore. It's not worth accomodating people who regularly flake, they can hang out with other flakes.
Assume that the vast majority of people you properly invited and that RSVP you DID want to go, even if they flaked at the last moment. Yes, there are some inconsiderate bastards out there, but there's a big subset of flakers that do feel guilty/regret not going, far more than we can imagine.
You need to understand that in the great schema of life, parties for the invitee are always at a lower priority compared to work, health and family issues: A single guy may have finally got a date, a mom can be having issues with their kids at school near exams period, someone may be anxious after a not so great feedback at a work 1:1 with their boss and decided to polish their resume.
And besides life stuff preempting party attendance, there are a lot of other factors. Some people you invite may have been raised in an environment where, due to poverty, immigration, family issues, they were never really in too many parties, and thus, while they may wish to enjoy your party, they may become too anxious to attend what is an unfamiliar experience to them.
Depressed, low esteem people, for example, will have a big probability of believing that your invitation was not that serious, and that you only invited them out of politeness. Actually, you don't even need to have depression issues in the mix for that to happen, some cultures have a marked tendency to avoid directness in communication, and for those people, if you don't have a close connection to them, or if they perceive you as higher status than them, they will believe your invitation is not actual for real, and they are not really expected to attend.
So, for some of those people I think that is worth your effort insisting more than twice, maybe trying to make they really feel welcome and needed a bit more.
It may sound crazy and counter-intuitive, but sometimes, just sometimes, some of the people who flaked do respect you more than some of the people who went and just wanted to have a good time for free.
The least persuasive phrase in English
You've never been to a party where you had dispersed throughout the location, and then the host gathered you to eat a meal or a cake (possibly singing a song prior to distributing the cake)?
This isn't "an unnatural way". I don't know what the point of mischaracterising the previous comments is.
But I think it's a personal preference, not culture. Is there a culture where they don't listen to music at all?
I don't know if there's one that dislikes music but Brazilians definitely like it more than other cultures, music is everywhere here, sometimes a bit too loud
Having a follow up email with everyones contact helps a ton.
I've also given people a prompt of what the question is to ask to get the convo started when people move around. Let people focus with 2-3 people listening mostly to the story of one person.
Many friendships/teams started from these tips!
In Brazil you throw a party to people you like and they all have a hand in helping you, sharing the load. Everyone will be responsible for some part of it, all of it is organized informally, there are no real formalities to the event. No one cares about making a science out of it.
I’ve never heard of a person complaining about party quality or comparing hosting abilities.
> In movies or TV there’s even a common theme of guests judging the host’s hosting abilities.
That’s a movie trope. You can find parties and social groups like this if you search around long enough, but most people are decidedly not like this.
Don’t take American movies too seriously as an indicator of American culture.
America is a huge place with a lot of different cultures
Parties are communal and informal partly because of income: everyone realizes bankrolling a large party by themselves is pretty expensive so everyone pitches in. Even if you can afford it you don't want your guests to think you're too rich as that's not as cool.
We're only exposed to formal dinner parties and large orchestrated events through fiction. Even the Brazilian fiction that features it carries a more aristocratic view of parties like that, reserved for the ultra rich who want to feel European.
So that single classification is pretty correct.
Imagine being in the playground as a kid. You just are there. And if its fun, its not fun because of you, its fun because of the group which is there. So are parties, they just "are".
All these rules you guys have appear to me like watching a movie about a psychopath lining up pens in the living room.
Dong think of it as rules, think of it as someone explaining etiquette. That is hard to write down without sounding weird.
I bet you are oversimplifying how good parties are created in your own culture. If you tried to write down the actual etiquette it would come out sounding weird to us all.
Humans create odd rituals and expectations about everything social. You only really notice it when polling at other cultures - ie is hard to see in your own culture because you implicitly understand the "rules".
#1 is amazingly insightful:
1) Prioritize your ease of being over any other consideration: parties are like babies, if you’re stressed while holding them they’ll get stressed too. Every other decision is downstream of your serenity
Like imagine if during sex you think your partner is just meta-thinking about giving you a good experience - they should just be enjoying and so should you. To me this example makes it more visceral but upon reflection I'm just making a basic "live in the moment" cliche.
From an outside perspective, even fairly casual German gatherings feel like they are orchestrated with a level of precision that would do a military campaign proud - but the Germans I was with don't really seem to notice this (likely because they all already know their roles, and to them it's just part of their culture)
In the US successful gatherings tend to require a fair bit of wrangling - I've been to more than one potluck where everyone showed up with roughly the same dish...
It was interesting to read in part because different people do things so differently: I'm sure we could find successful party creators that have "rules" that are completely incompatible! An example, the writer clearly very carefully curates their invite list; however an opposite technique can be to have zero curation (which can definitely be great). The network of social ties leads to certain outcomes without forcing.
> For me it just "is", and that's a good part of why it works.
Naturalness is great for those that are smart. The implied rule is to "be natural": that rule makes sense to write yet it is simultaneously nonsense.
Overthinking anything is silly. But sometimes it can lead to insight. I think that "Let your irrational mind run the show" is also a good rule for life yet somewhere we need to fit in rationality even though that is a contradiction.
I think their #1 rule is strangely unobvious to some people. I'm a social idiot yet I can think of more than one case where I have tried to encourage a hostess to let go of their hostessing anxiety (when I've felt I could do so tactfully and hurtlessly). It isn't a sexist thing, it is just a personal observation that it is a common issue (I would try and help a guy out too if I saw the problem and I thought I could help rather than harm).
It seems maybe I've pondered the above, yet writing it down is just freaky weird. Perhaps writing is the issue!? Talking of course has its own failures.
Ideally we intuitively soak up good ways to do things. If we are fortunate then our friends help us to learn when we've been misled by our intuitions.
Going too meta is another fail!
It's the conclusions of someone whose understanding of America is formed entirely from television.
If you look at Latin American movies, they themselves are different then American movies and show different culture. They are not the exact copy of their cultures of original, but they certainly show quite different social behavior and values.
I would amend to: what Americans don't like to accept are what they see as preventable mistakes. The least American sentiment of all is "shit happens". Americans sometimes say that, but they don't mean it. What they really mean: "this shit shouldn't be allowed to happen". Hence the rules, and (in the extreme) the litigiousness.
Most high-achieving societies are this way.
Source: Went to college in the US, also have been to stores in America where these cups are sold.
you don't get invited to many parties, do you?
But my guess is that in Brazil many of the things in this list are things that party host(s) (and their circles) are doing, intuitively and without thinking about it. Or different things with similar effects.
I didn't see anything in the OP about anyone comparing party quality or hosting abilities.
But when you go to a party and it's a great party, often it's because someone put effort into it. The better they are at it, the fewer people might notice. and it might come naturally to them, maybe they never had to make a list like this (a very particular kind of brain, sure). But a succesful party (where people enjoy themselves and it feels good) has people putting energy into making it vibe. Again, perhaps inuitivley and naturally and because it's something everyone learns how to do organically in a society. But I'm gonna guess this is true in Brazil too.
This is really a function of the type of party and of the type of people one is inviting to a party rather than a universal among Americans. I was brought up that you don't come to a party empty-handed. If you're going to a party where you know everybody else was brought up that way, you call ahead to see what will be lacking (mostly so everybody doesn't bring alcohol.)
I've brought chairs to parties; if you haven't ever done that you probably don't know what I'm talking about.
There's also a "dinner party" culture, though, where you're going to cook for a bunch of people. They should bring alcohol, but they don't always because people don't always drink, and their bringing alcohol doesn't get you out of providing alcohol. The expectation is that you have a reciprocal party rather than everyone contribute at this party i.e. you're inviting people who also might have dinner parties. They're bringing a guest or two to yours, you'll also bring a guest or two to theirs.
The second type of party is more conversation-oriented, and sometimes the contribution you're making is how interesting your guest is. I'm still bringing wine or something, though. Can't show up empty-handed.
Are you sure there aren't certain people driving these "informal" parties?
1. Sometimes an "inner circle" will co-host a party but the other attendees are not expected to do anything except show up and have a good time, and maybe bring booze. This is common with roommates and in college.
2. What you're describing verbatim is a potluck. Potlucks in the US are popular among immigrant groups, family friend groups, or parties for clubs or associations. But ultimately they're considered a bit uncool/laidback and don't fit the definition of an American party. They're better described as "get-togethers".
As a foodie in the Pacific Northwest I disagree with this statement.
Potlucks are a chance for people to show off their skills. Some of the best potlucks I've been to have a competition aspect to them, complete with prizes.
As a host of a potluck I'll handle drinks, entertainment, and renting a venue, but the guest list is around 80% people who I can rely on to cook a damn good dish.
A friend left her brownies in a Tupperware in the fridge at work. The colleagues decided to help themselves (good people, so I assume with the intention to replace). There were some rather unfortunate outcomes including hospital visits.
Please learn from her mistake: don't ever leave drugged food where other people/minors/animals might eat it.
> I’ve never heard of a person complaining about party quality or comparing hosting abilities.
This is all true in my experience as well, and I live in the US. Maybe I don't go to enough parties, though.
And of course, many US gatherings are also means to move up the social ladder. Meeting new connections, finding mates, or getting intel on an area. Very capitalistic oriented.
just like every other claim on this thread, that depends on who you spend time with, and you can find the same behavior in literally any country
Like any other engineering, it's not about perfection. Being able to peedict that even 10% of these 340m people do a certain thing a certain way is enough to capture and establish a trend. That's all I'm doing here.
Any sooner: my going rate for my findings is $3000 up front to resume and finalize my findings.
Capitalism matters less than the hyper individualistic culture here. But one drives the other in this case (other things can drive individualism too).
The UK has a show dedicated to a competition to see who is the best host of a dinner party. (come dine with me). Its a great show but shows the culture. The poor host has to pay for everything, prep, cook while entertaining the guest and usually put on some show or activity for extra points.
Yeah, you're expected to help in some way. The idea being that a party at someone's house is likely an inconvenience to that person so if you want more of that to happen you should make sure the host feels barely any pain. Even if you don't bring anything to the party you should be helping place the table, carrying furniture, doing dishes...something.
People who don't help at all aren't well perceived and will probably not be invited again.
> Host Forbes Robertson, the only man in the group, is Ayr's answer to Donald Trump, and his menu plan includes pigs' trotters, which don't appeal to his guests
How many is that? It's comfortable being with people I like, but I just consider that "hanging out".
The appeal of parties to me is it's a social expectation to mingle with new people I otherwise would never have had the opportunity to speak to.
There’s no real expectation in a party here. Usually you’ll call up people you know from different parts of your life. People bring plus ones so someone from work will be chatting to your family member, a high school friend to someone’s plus one, etc.
That’s usually how people strike new relationships after a certain age.
Alright, so you're 18, you're in college, and it's a Friday night, what're you gonna get up to? You're still a raging mess of hormones from puberty and want to seek out people you find sexually interesting, and it turns out alcohol is a social lubricant. But you can't just go to the store and buy some alcohol, so you have figure out something else. You can try and have fun without alcohol (which, to the future alcoholics out there: this entirely possible!), or you can figure out a way to acquire some. You can steal it which then they can't check your id, you can try and fake the system with a fake id (which needs to be created or purchased). You can try to get someone you know or a stranger to buy you some, and give them a generous service fee. Or you can simply attend a house party where there is underage drinking where you have to know somebody to get in, but you just have to show up and give them money (for a red Solo cup). But therin lies the indoctrination into capitalism because if you organize and source a keg of beer for, say, a nice round $100 to make the math easier, it has 165 cups of beer. If you sell a cup of beer of $5, 165*$5-$100 for the keg = $725. Which isn't a ton of money split out amongst all participants, but once you put that into a calculator, or better yet, a Google Sheet, then you're hooked.
But that wasn't your question. The US was less capitalist before the Internet. Which is funny, because the Internet was supposed to break down walls and eliminate unnecessary middlemen. It might just be a timing thing, though. There is a late-stage private equity version of capitalism that seems more prevalent as of late. Where "late" is defined as since, I don't know, 1920. The particular part I'm thinking of is when grocery stores became chains and those chains had enough excess revenue that they hired psychologists to optimize the store layout to get people to buy more shit. I don't know anyone who thinks that money isn't useful, but it's the concentration of it that has become problematic. That whole "enshittification" thing is borne out of that. Something making $1 million / year being "not interesting to VC firms" comes out of that.
If we weren't capitalist, what would the theme be?
In lieu of cash, the theme would be bring something to the party to make the party better. Mostly alcohol, but also interesting people, music, trinkets; some other token of appreciation and something to engage people with. But because of the above described process, "just show up with cash" is the mindset for many Americans (including me, when I can't help it!). It's moved to digital, like Venmo/Cash.app/Zelle these days, and apparently the newest generation isn't drinking as much, so we'll have to see where it all goes though.
In fact, they are probably a lot more common than having a huge party (so large that you have to invite people in batches of half a dozen at a time) completely planned and executed by a single person.
This article is good, don’t get me wrong, but this type of event planning is not really representative of how folk in the U.S. get together
For the parties as described in the article, I maybe go to one or two a year tops. Before I had a kid I used to host large parties like the kind described (~15 people tops though), now I just attend and contribute.
Ideally, a guest breaks a cheap glass. The sound is heard across the house. The helpers immediately spring into action, leaving their conversations behind, looking for towels and a dustpan. The people nearby go mute with sympathetic embarrassment. Much ado is made of finding every shard. Meanwhile you are laboring over a replacement drink for the guest, which you graciously present in protest to their apologies. The party resumes at 70% volume.
Also happened with a lamp on one occasion.
It made the night memorable and got everyone talking and working together to help clean up!
The host did harm here.
It worked. There was no “harm” done.
“Weeeeey!”
And
“Sack the juggler!”
Tbh the noise volume issue is only smthg that exists in american parties
23) Buy frozen finger food and put into oven in staggered batches. When a batch is ready, immediately transfer to serving tray and walk through party offering people food. Great task to delegate to that one attendee who doesn't know anyone!
24) Polaroids/Disposable cameras are cheap and seem to be universally adored. Get a few and scatter them throughout the party.
25) Sharpies/labels for marking solo cups, drastically cuts down on clutter as the night goes on.
26) If someone brings a bottle of wine or a bottle of liquor as a gift, just crack it open and ask them to share it with other attendees. Same with food. Makes for a good conversation starter.
Yes, there's a risk of breakage & having to clean up, but overall I think it sets a better tone.
I do this on my parties! Also sometimes people ask me to bring my gear to their parties.
The guests can either keep the photo and take home some memories or gift it to the host.
My more advanced version is that I take photos with my "good" mirrorless camera, transfer the photos to my phone, and then send them to the polaroid (Instax mini) for print. Too much work as a host, but as a gift when I'm a guest I might do it :)
(This is also the reason I'm hesitant about the oven tip, given that the kitchen is where the true party is.)
Granted, I'm the same person who accepts any invitation to any concert, and intentionally doesn't listen to the band ahead of time because the experience of hearing an artist in a live setting for the first time is so fun. I may have a bias towards serendipity.
The article discusses this. “Start by inviting your closest friends, get some yesses, then expand from there.”
The trick is that you already discussed the party with a core group. They are basically co-hosting the party with you. You already cleared the idea with them, heck throwing the party might even be their idea. So they won’t be waiting for others to RSVP. And then their yes-es provide the social proof to others that it will be a cool party and they too join saying yes. Thus the party grows like a snowball.
> a dedicated app for inviting people to the party is too much fanfare for my taste
It is not for you. It is for the party organiser so they don’t have to copy paste the same information to everyone (date, location, short description). It also sends reminders to people who want to be reminded.
> A good party fosters serendipity.
Yes. I agree. Serendipity at what happens at the party, who do you meet, what do you folks do or chat about. Not quite sure how a party invite ruins any of that.
Then again the entire thing seems predicated on having large (> 10 people) house parties, which, at least in my social circle, is something teenagers do, not adults
I agree. We threw a halloween party. We just discussed who we wanted to invite and threw everybody together in a whatsapp groupchat to announce the thing.
It means you could make your invitation on Facebook and everyone was on it, with maybe a few exceptions that could be dealt with separately.
Serendipity is nice, but if you are the host, you need to at least get an idea of how many people will be there. And while we may all be friends, things can get tricky when you start inviting friends of friends.
Partiful, specifically, has a setting where you're not allowed to see who's RSVP'd until you've RSVPd, precisely for this reason, I imagine.
I learned everything I need to know about throwing parties from Dave Barry.
If you throw a party, the worst thing that you can do would be to throw the kind of party where your guests wake up today, and call you to say they had a nice time. Now you'll be be expected to throw another party next year.
What you should do is throw the kind of party where your guest wake up several days from now and call their lawyers to find out if they've been indicted for anything. You want your guests to be so anxious to avoid a recurrence of your party that they immediately start planning parties of their own, a year in advance, just to prevent you from having another one.
If your party is successful, the police will knock on your door, unless your party is very successful in which case they will lob tear gas through your living room window. As host, your job is to make sure that they don't arrest anybody. Or if they're dead set on arresting someone, your job is to make sure it isn't you.
Anyway, my boss showed up. I don't know if I invited him or if he just decided to be there on his own. He was having a great time with everything, and then he went into the back where some folks were enjoying the not-booze.
It was at this point that I lost track of him.
His jacket was still there. His motorcycle was still parked on the front sidewalk. But he was nowhere to be found, and his phone went straight to voicemail. It was like he'd simply vanished.
"Fuck," I thought to myself. "I've only had this job for a few months."
It turns out that he'd walked home, a couple of miles away. He woke up the next morning sitting at the picnic table in his back yard, shirtless, in the rain.
After that, I always made sure that I invited him to my other parties -- and he always made sure to decline, and tell me that he was never doing anything like that ever again. I consider this to be a win.
See what you did there!
I learned you gotta have a “that guy” around and you get police showing up at some point almost 100%.
Once upon a time, during my time in sales, some of the permanent sale guys would throw parties at their shared place (near a University campus) that attracted lots of people no one knew and got pretty rowdy.
It would be mostly fine, sometimes a pair of cops showed up & left without incident -- until later in the night/morning after this one shady sales guy 20+ years our senior, who could sell sand in the Sahara but failed at life, became “that guy”.
Not usually violent (unless his buddys were trying to stop him running into traffic etc), typically property damage related; he would mix a lot of alcohol with a lot if other substances by late in the party basically becoming the guaranteed way to clear people out. Also pretty sure the holding cells were his second address.
Anyway, when you went into talking about the boss I thought he might be “that guy” but he declined.
https://ufo50.miraheze.org/wiki/Party_House
It teaches you that if you have too many of "that guys" in the mix, the police will come. The fix is to invite a few hippies and the problem is solved by itself.
Perhaps another day.
This is definitely jointly directed by Rogen and Tarantino and I will be watching all 3 hours of it.
It was just one of those houses that had the awesome party vibe. The only rule was that if you had to puke, you had to go in the back yard and do it in front of the Mother of Mary statue.
The best part was if you made it to 4 am, the Italians would break out the spaghetti, cook a big pot of it and serve it with just olive oil (no tomato sauce). Sitting around the kitchen table wicked hammered eating plain spaghetti is the correct way to end a party.
There's a whole world out there!
Tomato sauces can be acidic, so not great when drunk. Also tomatoes stain (if it were to come back up) !
Could be the recipe with the highest ratio taste/effort you can find, something that even a drunk student can pull off a 4 in the morning, so they probably just continued their tradition from the university years
Oil needs a bit more help, otherwise it's just grease on noodles. The starchy water the pasta was cooked in can do most of the heavy lifting there, but the addition of garlic helps too.
I threw a party (illegal, on the beach, with great music) so successful the police just provided security at the parking lot entrance 1km away because they didn’t want > 400 wasted people roaming the affluent neighbourhood if shut down. Oh there were also nudists at the beach when we were ferrying in our gear at sunset who stayed for the whole thing and ended up on the dancefloor in their birthday suits at 2am.
The second time we were not that lucky, it was a warehouse, and they came with flashlights and kicked us out.
Police asked if they are all safe, nodded and wished them a nice party.
The Dave Barry quote is obviously humor. But back from the late 1980s to the early 2000s, I was genuinely at numerous house parties, basement concerts, and un-permitted raves which where broken up by authorities, including some where the power was cut, (or worse, where the music was cut and lights flipped on full bright) and the cops forced everyone to pile into their cars and drive home, with whatever head full of chemicals they might be taking on the road with them. Poor saucer-eyed kids.
Ah, memories, memories. Where is that brain damage they promised us? I'm still involved in a local music scene somewhat. And yeah, there will always be an underground. And yes, some of the underground gets old and had to get up at 7am to pay the mortgage so some of this may be looking back with rozy glasses. But it just seems to get smaller every year. I don't hear bumping bass from the neighborhoods on Saturday night like I used to.
You obviously just moved neighborhoods :)
How would you know? Sure you would know if you were walking but otherwise braindead, but if you are "5 iq points dumber" (whatever that means) or something like that you wouldn't know since there is no way to know what "might have been"
I say this a bit tongue in cheek, but a bit of rowdiness once in a while does good to the soul. Sure. You still need to be careful, but a world without these experices feels a bit bland.
It is very common for the addicted to ignore obvious signs of their addictions and the downsides thereof so it probably is a sign, but it isn't enough to be proof. (I'm thinking of an alcoholic who "had a bad ice cube" and now won't drink their whisky with ice)
I'm a nobody from nowhere with an unremarkable brain, but I've made it far in life just chumming it up with way smarter and luckier people than me at the Burn or poly parties or other random shit I get up to.
I cry a small tear for that limited world view, if it even was meant seriously or just as sarcasm.
Not everything is about wealth in the above, I skipped them in the discussion but if you are not familiar with the whole you should find and read the whole list because it is insightful what I skipped.
Remember money is an abstraction of wealth. It is easy to say I have X dollars (euros), it is harder to say what the picture on my wall is worth but there are a group of people into that type of art that will give that a high value (while others not into it will consider it worthless) as such wealth isn't an exact measure, but it is at the root of a large part of the good life. It is never the important thing itself, but it is behind a lot of important things and so a useful measure.
What you do with that after is up to you, but those two factors will make for the easiest lives.
As a conceptual shorthand to describe the concept of intelligence? No.
Even the second definition is not really a thing. Intelligence as a concept doesn't mean much and needs to be defined properly. Using it this way is just another way to divide people superficially.
I cannot say what other intended, but at least some people are reading this whole thread in that context and I would expect you to as well even if others didn't intend that. (that is "respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith." - hopefully this helps you see context better)
I read that as a within a single individual, case A (no brain damage from cause C) vs case B (with brain damage from cause C), where using it as a shorthand for intelligence differences within a single individual makes it a useful shorthand for most readers, IMO.
Hats off to OP if this is their original writing, it nails his style.
Because of this, I both like him and associate him with my early nerdiness.
I’m now banned.
If I want to feel bad, not remember anything but have a good story, I’ll read a book then run face first into a wall.
Describes many a Minneapolis party in the early 80s.
No no, the trick is to just keep the party going. Indefinitely. A good party will have several police callouts over the course of several weeks. You will need to recarpet your home afterwards, but the takings from the roulette and poker tables will cover it. You will make friends, lose friends, and people will thank you for it in 20 years, never mind the next morning.
I think my longest party stretched to about five weeks - of course people came and went, and having a core of unemployed/student insomniacs to keep it going through the wee hours of Tuesdays helped (for many saved themselves for Wednesdays, which had a particular focus on gambling) - and in the end it only ended because some wag decided to list the party on google maps, and I only narrowly squirmed my way out of charges over running an illegal casino.
Anyway. Parties should not be single night or day affairs, in my view.
https://www.hindustantimes.com/cities/bengaluru-news/police-...
I will never forget the nice 70 year old lady who lived in the apartment above us. She said, “If it gets too loud, I’ll just turn my hearing aid off.”
[0] Letitia Baldrige's Complete Guide to Executive Manners
Once we had police knock on our door for playing music too loud at 10 PM on a weekend - f'ck Boston NIMBYs
Turns out a lot of them like a good party too.
Love the number one advice of the post: focusing on yourself having a good time. Although the more you organize the easier it gets.
> 5) Use an app like Partiful or Luma
I refuse to use an event page personally because I think it makes it less personal. I always DM people directly if I want to invite them.
Also always try to get people to invite their friends as well. That'a the upside of gatherings: you get to meet new people effortlessly. And this solves a number of the problem in the post's list.
> In a small group, the quality of the experience will depend a lot on whether the various friends blend together well
Na, just invite everyone, diversity is a feature.
IMO most of the advice are over engineer. Here are more from mine:
- soundproof with plants and rugs and stuff in the room so it doesn't get echo'y
- play some background music at low volume
- always prepare a punch. People don't realize it but there's alcohol in this thing
- don't have seats otherwise people will sit down, and sitting down is the party killer
- don't prep anything. The place will get messy anyway. Just make sure people bring food and drinks.
My Nan used to always say to me:
"You know what happens to girls that sit down at parties?"
"What Nan?"
"Nothing!"
> I refuse to use an event page personally because I think it makes it less personal. I always DM people directly if I want to invite them.
These parties you've organized, I'm sure they were quite lovely, but can't have been truly epic, yeah? DMing, say 30 people is one thing, but if you're looking at, let's say 500, is another matter. If you need to spend 30 seconds per attendee to get their name and their telephone number and then paste in the same message, 500 attendees makes that take over 4 hours!
I also organize pretty large meetups with easily 500 people trying to get into the guest list and it's the same amount of work to go through the list and vet people tbh
Why is it that alcohol seems to be a necessary ingredient to people having a good time? Or at least everybody assumes this to be the case?
Why is nobody able to be themselves and relax and have fun without being intoxicated, mildly or more?
Serious question, I don't get it.
Getting drunk helps people feel uninhibited from all of that. There are a million other ways to feel safer with new people, but drinking happens to be extremely easy and quick.
And how is any of that related to alcohol? My friend can open up to me when we are in a safe environment without the need for first ingesting a drug. It's not the alcohol that causes the safety.
Maybe it's a ritual, that could explain things partially. But maybe a ritual worth abandoning. Just like we did with smoking, and everybody gained (well except the tobacco industry).
I'm sure the boozemakers won't let go without a fight though. But so far they have plenty of help.
It talks about how harmful alcohol is, but also how it benefits society.
Alcohol relaxes and you often get judged less when you are silly while you are drunk.
Think of it as lubrication, the gears spin fine without it, but it's easier with some grease.
But that's not a party. I mean, there are people that open up when drunk, but they do it with strangers. But if you are opening up to a friend, a real friend, I would say the norm is to do it without any substance involved. Because the barriers are already not there.
But obviously not everyone is the same in that regard and also the very definition of "party" and "great party" can change.
And over the lifetime people almost all the time had alcohol when they where at parties. You start to associate alcohol with fun and parties.
Of course this is generalized and depends on cultures and groups.
That's what I like about them young Gen Z, they drink less alcohol. Sadly they also socialise less.
I once heard a story that Inuits in Greenland did not have access to alcohol so everyone could drink. Instead only half drank, and the other half had water but where allowed to act as if they where drunk. I'm not sure this is real, but I can see it happend.
That's probably it. It's a ritual. A costly one though, in terms of money as well as health. Direct cost (liver, brain cells, ...), as well as indirect (accidents, fights, ...).
> That's what I like about them young Gen Z, they drink less alcohol.
I wouldn't celebrate to soon. Every movement eventually spawns a countermovement. Next gen might be the most booze consuming ever.
I agree with all your points but this one. My parties go for hours, people wanna chill. Usually there's some corner playing board games or smoking hookah, it's the perfect couch scenario and a great way to let a party go loooooong. People's feet get tired! Also I've had all sorts of all ages, people with MS or whatever else, pregnant people, etc.
I would say split your house or apartment into sections, just like clubs do: the biggest area is the music area, the kitchen is the stand around and snack and have ridiculously deep conversations area, wherever the couches are is the smash bros / hookah / just take a break area, the balcony or backyard is the smoking / drunk wrestling area. Definitely no seats in the music area. And NEVER let someone bring a guitar.
My flake rate is close to zero, mostly because people personally told me they’ll join.
It doesn’t hurt to get the group chat hyped up on the day of the event. The activity is enough to get people excited. I also pin the time and location so people find it easily.
Besides that, just chill. It doesn’t have to be perfect. Once a few good people are there, the thing mostly runs itself. Try to relax and enjoy your own party.
Creating a group chat with everyone invited is a terrible idea because of the snowball effect of the first "Sorry, can't come, but have a good time for me!" message triggering a neverending stream of similar cancellations until sometimes the entire event ends up cancelled on the day of.
People are way less flaky if you invite them 1-on-1 (even if you copy/pasted the invitation message) vs. a group chat.
Now, nobody is on Facebook so those event invitations get missed and you need to hustle much harder with individual chat messages to get people to attend.
Reminds me of an acquaintance who told me he was an introvert; he said after 20 hours of being around people he'd need a couple hours to recharge.
Sometimes you also need to know who will be there because if half the group flakes out, the logistics fall apart. Not every party is a house party.
It's everything from the organization of the space and the flow of people during the night, to the mix of invitees, to possibly having some kind of gimmick there for people to connect over and for the shy people who need some social lubricant (like palm readers, a caricature artist, etc), to the music, to the decor, to the food, to people hired to help pass out the food, to the theme / dress, to the interlude that brings people together (like a vote / contest)...
When done well, it looks effortless, and it can be really fun to attend!
It's interesting to consider the full correlation matrix! Groups of friends may tend to flake together too, people who live in the same neighborhood might rely on the same subways or highways...
I think this is precisely the same problem as pricing a CDO, so a Gaussian Copula or graphical model is really what you need. To plan a great party.
Then sometimes you need the "max + min souls" (seats, plates), and account for what we call "the S-factor" if someone brings an unexpected guest, roommate, etc.
Lastly: there is a difference between a "party" and a "soirée" (per my college roommate: "you don't have parties, you have soirées!")
All the advice is really accurate, makes me miss hosting. If you want to go a little deeper, there's a book called "How to be a Gentleman", and it has a useful section on "A Gentleman Hosts a Party", and then "Dads Own Cookbook" has a chapter on party planning, hosting, preparation timelines... there's quite a bit of art and science to it!
I made myself a "food and drinks amount" calculator for weekends/week-long party events a few years back and it was eerily accurate once you take in unexpected plus ones, flake rates, hangovers and other computable-at-scale events into the formula!