Middle aged European here. I still regularly go to parties (dinner and otherwise) and I notice that there are two kinds of people: people who throw parties, and people who don't. This sounds like a truism, but what I mean is: there are people who regularly throw a party and people who never do it.
I am solidly in the first category. I throw dinner parties, birthday parties, drinking parties, dance parties, midsummer parties, midwinter parties, game parties, etc. Yes, it costs time and money and is a lot of work. But what people (probably the ones that never bother) tend to forget is how unbelievably gratifying it is to get a bunch of people together, to feed them and to make them talk, laugh, dance, etc. Afterwards you are tired but also grateful and socially energized in a way that feels fundamental to my existence.
It varies a lot depending on people and personality type. What's energizing to you is very exhausting and unfun to others. Extraversion / introversion basically. I don't like having many people over. 3 or 4 people who I know well is optimal for me.
Making a large party could be "type 2 fun" sometimes, ie exhausting and not very fun at the time, but satisfying to look back on as a kind of hard challenge I managed to accomplish, like climbing a cold mountain or so. But few are enough of those.
> 3 or 4 people who I know well is optimal for me.
Even that is a challenge of finding the mental energy to pick the date , see that everyone can come, picking some activity (or if you're hosting - make sure with your wife that the date is fine. What about your kids - you wanna put them in bed before?) etc etc. Some of it is probably no big deal but my brain is making it look big, perhaps because I lean introvert as well. It's so much easier to just think about the idea and say 'naaa fuck it' and open Youtube instead.
Helps if your friends are uncomplicated. We just chat, drink beer, make or order pizza, cook or bake something else, talk about work and family, sit in the sun, maybe play cards or just listen to music, talk about stories at recent events like concerts, rehash old stories, or updates about other friends, etc. There is no need to make a big deal about any of this.
But this is not a networking or new-friend-making style of party of course.
> It's so much easier to just think about the idea and say 'naaa fuck it' and open Youtube instead.
I think this gets at the heart of the concern—it’s always easier to find something else distracting to do, but what’s the real cost? I don’t really know how to measure that, other than to say that American society and culture are doing particularly poorly right now.
This is something that has been going for generations and centuries. We are less and less dependent on people near us and more dependent on father-away large-scale systems. Same with extended families, neighborhood communities, etc.
You're right. But I think it's more than just about being an introvert or extrovert.
In the past, boredome created a reason for most people to visit someone, play cards, host friends, or go somewhere.
At present, more and more people (introverts and extroverts) are already turning to social media, streaming, gaming, YouTube, and any other online platforms as these offer modern, instant, unlimited entertainment with almost no coordination or planning.
I understand the feeling, what worked for me was "you know what, fuck it, I will just plan it more loosely, let's see what goes wrong or who is unhappy".
Most of the times, everybody is happy even if things are not perfectly planned, and then they thank me for the "effort" (which was minimal, and sometimes confusing, as I need to adjust the date or the style as more constraints become evident).
I sometimes think it's a problem of my education of engineering where I want everything planned well, think of all exceptional cases, etc.
kieckerjan · · focus · HN ↗
I am solidly in the first category. I throw dinner parties, birthday parties, drinking parties, dance parties, midsummer parties, midwinter parties, game parties, etc. Yes, it costs time and money and is a lot of work. But what people (probably the ones that never bother) tend to forget is how unbelievably gratifying it is to get a bunch of people together, to feed them and to make them talk, laugh, dance, etc. Afterwards you are tired but also grateful and socially energized in a way that feels fundamental to my existence.
bonoboTP · · focus · HN ↗
Making a large party could be "type 2 fun" sometimes, ie exhausting and not very fun at the time, but satisfying to look back on as a kind of hard challenge I managed to accomplish, like climbing a cold mountain or so. But few are enough of those.
weatherlite · · focus · HN ↗
Even that is a challenge of finding the mental energy to pick the date , see that everyone can come, picking some activity (or if you're hosting - make sure with your wife that the date is fine. What about your kids - you wanna put them in bed before?) etc etc. Some of it is probably no big deal but my brain is making it look big, perhaps because I lean introvert as well. It's so much easier to just think about the idea and say 'naaa fuck it' and open Youtube instead.
bonoboTP · · focus · HN ↗
But this is not a networking or new-friend-making style of party of course.
mcphage · · focus · HN ↗
I think this gets at the heart of the concern—it’s always easier to find something else distracting to do, but what’s the real cost? I don’t really know how to measure that, other than to say that American society and culture are doing particularly poorly right now.
bonoboTP · · focus · HN ↗
grazzie24 · · focus · HN ↗
dncornholio · · focus · HN ↗
vladms · · focus · HN ↗
Most of the times, everybody is happy even if things are not perfectly planned, and then they thank me for the "effort" (which was minimal, and sometimes confusing, as I need to adjust the date or the style as more constraints become evident).
I sometimes think it's a problem of my education of engineering where I want everything planned well, think of all exceptional cases, etc.