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.
I wonder if the cultural existence of the 'introvert vs extrovert' idea has reinforced this to a degree. I'm too young to know, but I doubt this was a discussion in the 80s. I'm also not too sure it's a good thing. I've seen introversion used as an excuse to hermit; extroversion as the sole reason to use drugs.
We put limits on ourselves psychologically in all sorts of ways, and we follow the ones we believe. There's a study that showed people who believe willpower is finite have finite willpower. I thought "well obviously, if you had finite willpower you'd know because you'd run out". Maybe we do just think too much?
If I don't feel like running and I go running, about two thirds of the time I feel like running after a few K. It's the same socially. The goal of introspection shouldn't be to freeze in a minute now.
Imagine if you didn’t feel like running, and you made yourself do it, and after a few K you were like “this sucks, I wish I’d stayed home” and you finish your run and you didn’t enjoy it at all. But people keep telling you how great it is so you keep doing it and you keep hating it and after a while you eventually decide that running is not for you.
Would that be a reasonable conclusion? Or should we conclude that this is a psychological limit and we just need to stop thinking so much?
Not everyone gets that. I have exercised very hard at times in my life (American football in high school), and while I feel better in general when I’m active, and playing sports can be quite fun and rewarding, I have never gotten anything from running or other pure exertion other than tired and hungry.
It's called "runners high", and true maybe not in the beginning, because we're all different, but we're also all the same, and over the course of a lifetime, the odds are in favor of you eventually experiencing it. Realistically, I only get it about 20% of the time I go out and the other 80% of the time, am relying on the knowledge that I'm doing good for my body.
If in five years of strenuous exercise, four days a week, for ~30 weeks a year, along with significant exercise for 20 of the other 22 weeks a year, I never once experienced anything like it, I'd say that the odds are as close to zero as they could meaningfully be.
Not to mention riding a bicycle as my only mode of transportation other than foot for ten years before I had a driver's license.
I enjoyed tackling people. I did not enjoy the exercise itself and would not have done it if I could have skipped right to the games without having done all that other stuff.
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.
ddek · · focus · HN ↗
We put limits on ourselves psychologically in all sorts of ways, and we follow the ones we believe. There's a study that showed people who believe willpower is finite have finite willpower. I thought "well obviously, if you had finite willpower you'd know because you'd run out". Maybe we do just think too much?
If I don't feel like running and I go running, about two thirds of the time I feel like running after a few K. It's the same socially. The goal of introspection shouldn't be to freeze in a minute now.
wat10000 · · focus · HN ↗
Would that be a reasonable conclusion? Or should we conclude that this is a psychological limit and we just need to stop thinking so much?
davsti4 · · focus · HN ↗
devilbunny · · focus · HN ↗
davsti4 · · focus · HN ↗
devilbunny · · focus · HN ↗
Not to mention riding a bicycle as my only mode of transportation other than foot for ten years before I had a driver's license.
I enjoyed tackling people. I did not enjoy the exercise itself and would not have done it if I could have skipped right to the games without having done all that other stuff.