Where are all the parties?

I'm 42 and last year moved back to my home country. We wanted to throw a housewarming party but getting enough people in one place on a specific day at a specific time seemed like an impossible challenge. Everybody had busy schedules for their precious August weekends anyway.

We ended up doing a full-weekend party where people could drop by whenever they can. The first guests came on Friday around 6 pm and the last ones left on Sunday at 11 pm. In the end people were spread out evenly. Some came with kids in the day, others alone in the evening. This way there was really time to sit down and talk with old friends whom I hadn't seen in years or even decades.

For food, we ended up having ingredients in the fridge for a few quick foods like Vietnamese rice paper rolls, and we'd make it together with new guests if they were hungry. It worked out fine.

Of course dedicating the entire weekend to a party is a big commitment, but I think it actually reduced the level of stress compared to trying to do a traditional "dense" party on Saturday night.

I don't invite people over anymore because their fussiness scales negatively - where if you want to mix 5 people who each have a rule about what they cannot abide, the common denominator is rarely special enough to leave the house for. Between the discretionary lifestyle demands of vegetarians, vegans, non-glutens, non-porks, non-drinkers, anti-smokers, non-problematics, non-outdoorsies, hover-parents, maskers, and the increasingly insane milenial need to make all their experiences on-brand and instagrammable, the closed path through those obstacles is a Hard problem.

It recently occurred to me how important my fraternal org is in my life after taking some time away from it. Showing up to see 30 or so guys who aren't family, and who were happy enough to see me, say hello, have a pint, dinner and small talk is maybe a once a year experience for most guys over 40, but for me it's about 10x/year, just with that group. There's a natural filter, where you don't have to re-negotiate all these anxieties every time you try to get people together.

One reason parties disappeared is because we have encouraged widespread neuroticism and anxiety about maintaining purity in different and various forms, and that intolerance has effectively eroded the social fabric. Surely we can hav e new kinds parties, ones that are lame, and that nobody enjoys, but we can have the satisfaction that at least those other people aren't here...

Last memorial day I tried to have a little BBQ... ended up eating and drinking by myself on/near the sidewalk in front of my apartment, while grilling and listening to a festive playlist with songs like Carry on my Wayward Son. I kept asking random people if they wanted a brat, but nobody did... until the guy towing my roommate's broken down car home arrived. The three of us shared one, the tow truck driver finished his as he was pulling away and that was that. It was nice; but a party it was not.

So drunk and frustrated me took to my rollerblades and grabbed a hockey stick to start passing around a puck to myself in front of the local sports bar's little outdoor eating area just a few doors down. The patrons were less than amused I suppose since they mostly looked appalled and irritated at the noise I was causing, but at least I felt like I "doing it right" as opposed to going out to eat like any other night and staring at instagram or reddit while ordering a $30 cheeseburger sitting next to a dumpster in what used to be the gross back lot of the bar. I think I probably unclipped the red velvet stanchion a couple of times just because I found it too comical to remain closed off.

Ultimately, I think it was a pretty weird day. I'm trying to be more at peace with the state of things now, but I can't help but mourn how it used to be.

The scene: https://www.instagram.com/p/CePpDq1rElU/?utm_source=ig_web_b...

One thing I observed moving cities recently, and realized has been true for much of my life: there's a pretty small number of people who actually organize things. As the density of your social network naturally decreases, you may have lost a few eigenvector-central social network nodes.

Think back to those work parties: were they really spontaneous, or did "Janice in Accounting" always seem to step up? For me, there was one guy who always ran the happy hours; when he left, the happy hours' frequency dropped noticeably.

The aging, COVID, kids, busy-ness, general "Bowling Alone" etc factors all do make things harder too (reduce social density, increase difficulty of scheduling, etc.). But that's just friction; it can be overcome.

The best thing I did was become the shameless type of person who actively tries to create/join/combine social circles. It pretty quickly put me in touch with other people who do the same, and my social circle grew naturally after that.

Remote work is hurting local networks for a lot of people. It's true that it's possible to build community outside of work but it takes intentional effort. We spend so many hours at work that it's a natural place for adults to build community and meet acquaintances.

Situation 1 - Years of working in an office with coworkers, attending events, meeting customers in the community. Eventually you end up with a handful of people who you just happened to chat with at some work thing then ran into each other again and now you are sort of friends.

Situation 2 - All of your interaction with coworkers and customers is remote. You get along with people but they aren't nearby so you can't grab coffee or dinner after work. You need to find interesting after-work activities, summon the energy, block out the time, spend the money, procrastinate taking action because you're overthinking it too much, etc.

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I can't remember which podcast I heard about this on but I've listened to most of the audiobook for Nick Gray's "The 2-Hour Cocktail Party: How to Build Big Relationships with Small Gatherings"[0] and will be giving hosting a shot this spring. It still takes a lot of effort to find a crowd and host but hopefully having a framework for organizing and hosting will help.

[0] https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/61212264-the-2-hour-c...

We had a party this summer, my wife turned 50 and we wanted to host a party in our house for all our friends. We thought it would be a blast but there were problems.

First problem, we don't really have that many friends. Back in the day, it felt natural to invite anyone you remotely knew but today, not so much. So, only those that we had some kind of deeper relationship got on the list, in total maybe 30 people or so, almost all couples.

Second problem, we have moved around so a fair number of those we wanted to invite do not live in the same city as us. This meant travelling for them but many were fine to do it, however it gave rise to two other problems.

Third problem. Back in the day when there were parties, people could drop by and so it didn't feel it had to be so ambitious, but now since people were travelling, we have to have a proper dinner party. Lots of cost, lots of arrangements, not something that I want to do very often.

Fourth problem. Back in the day, there wasn't a day tomorrow. At the age of 50. there's always a day tomorrow. We had bought alcohol as if we were 20 but with the economy of two DINKs (they've moved out). Maybe 20% was consumed because "there's a day tomorrow as well", and frankly quite a few were travelling so they did indeed have to be able to drive reasonably early.

It's just very different having parties at the age of 50 compared to 20, it can't be the same thing, at least not in our circle and I'm quite sad for it.

I just turned 50. About 30 people showed up for the party my wife threw for me, and those were exactly the people I wanted to be there. I'm guessing my definition of "party" may be different from yours, but in the last two months, the community we've embedded ourselves in (via our church) has gotten together for my birthday, the darkest night of the year, and New Year's eve. These aren't raucous affairs, but rather 20-30 people getting together to eat good food, drink good wine, and enjoy each other's company.

In the darkest days of the pandemic, this same group got together outside nearly weekly, weather-be-damned.

I have some pretty hard stats on this because I'm a long time employee of PaperlessPost.com an online event invitation company. You are correct that the number of parties is generally influenced by seasonal and life arch trends, social spheres and what is happening in the world.

Generally from what we see, most parties happen because of significant events in peoples lives. A 50th birthday party usually seems important enough for most people to want to attend.

Yes COVID did halt most of this but from what we've seen the numbers came back to 2019 levels early last year.

It could be your friend circles but I wouldn't stop trying to host parties or encouraging your friends from having parties themselves. We all have more responsibilities later in life that make it harder for everyone to show up so I wouldn't take this personally.

I might suggest having a reoccurring party. My neighbor has an Oktoberfest party every year. If people miss out one year they often feel pressured into coming next year, it becomes an event that people look forward to and even offer to help coordinate if it happens on a normal cadence.

I've noticed the same as well. My main hypothesis is that parties are just less interesting to all concerned because they're not that novel, and often just retreading old ground.

When you're younger, parties are full of new experiences, lives are often changing rapidly (e.g. jobs/relationships/homes), so parties feel like a worthwhile way to spend time.

As people get older and get more settled, then parties often feel similar to rewatching the same movie over and over (sure it's a great movie, but you'll never recreate the experience of seeing it for the first time). Often less is happening in people's lives too ("How's the job?" "Good, same. How's the house?" "Good, got a new sofa. How are the kids?" "Good, difficult as usual.").

Free time also seems to be more of a premium for me and my friends (as work responsibilities grow, kids take time, need lifts, etc.), so events like parties need to be worthwhile enough to give up other things for.

One way that I approach it is to think of what it is I'm be trying to get out of a party. Meeting new people? There are other approaches for that. Keeping in touch with friends? Smaller gatherings or individual catchups work better.

I.e. rather than trying to recreate my idea of what a party should be, I try to break it into individual apsects that I'm looking for, then try to achieve those using simpler/smaller alternatives, instead of looking to a single party event to provide them all.

Well, there's https://twitter.com/defconparties of course.

I just spent a good amount of time talking to a therapist (first time) about how painfully lonely I am. I moved to the countryside because the city was too unaffordable but friends I used to see a couple times a month are now a couple times a year. And I just had my 40th where my wife invited one of her friends (another couple with kids) and it was nice, but it wasn't "my" friends, if that makes sense.

My days are wake up - get kids ready for school - work - come home and basically work nonstop dealing with kids (I love them but fuck they're a lot of work), pass out, maybe text an old friend or two, most of whom also had kids recently.

I suppose after your 30's anymore life is just lonely. Maybe it'll pick up again in a decade or so when I'm not getting summoned to wipe a kid's butt or screamed at because I used the wrong cup or plate but it doesn't really feel like it.

I'm hoping to at least move to a walkable city again. Leaving was a huge mistake I bitterly regret.

I graduated right around the time Covid hit, and I feel like that wrecked my social life irreparably. I have 4-5 close friends I can hang out with every other week or so (nobody wants to hang out 1 to 1 every day), but all my friend groups dissipated. Some moved away, some moved on, some just stopped moving at all. I feel miserable and every couple of nights I have dreams of a Third Place where I can just go and make friends with strangers. It's been like 3 years since I went to a club, houseparty, or even a larger get-together (5+ people) outside of birthday drinks, and it's heartbreaking.

Personally, I am no longer in the mood to party.

As I approach 60, living a single life, battling lung cancer, with friends and family around me ill and dying or already dead, it feels like there isn't much left to celebrate.

There probably won't even be any sort of party when I'm six feet under. No celebration of a life endured. The world moves on as we all suffer eternal oblivion.

I held a 30 person NYE party in the house I just purchased, that's 9 years in a row I've been holding this party. We dance, sing karaoke, drink champagne, and catch each other up on our otherwise busy and turbulent lives. Mostly friends from high school, some from university, and others still we've met afterwards. It's a wonderful atmosphere, partially because nearly everyone there has known each other for years now.

When I throw parties, it's for people I love and care about. I wouldn't go through all the time and stress and effort for acquaintances or coworkers; the reason my friends and I get together so frequently is because there's nothing else we enjoy more, so we prioritize it.

COVID isn't the problem and neither is getting older. My parents are in their 60s and still throw classy, drunken, hilarious parties with their decade long friends. The problem, I'm afraid, probably lies with your third point.

- The Covid hysteria was brutal in destroying what was left of the social fabric.

- People have become more and more anti social since the introduction of the smart phone.

- Intense schooling has made people apathetic to life and reluctant towards taking any initiative.

- Wealthy individuals don't need to host parties to impress their communities anymore.

- Sex soliciting apps like Tinder makes parties a place where the action isn't anymore.

- Young adults are extremely poor today. They don't have houses to throw parties in, they're too old to throw them in their parents houses, their landlord will complain if they throw a party in their apartment.

- People are afraid of being filmed when drunk and embarrassing themselves.

- Men are afraid of false sexual accusations.

- It is difficult to cater to people today if you serve food at your party or even throw a dinner. Everybody has allergies, diets and other eating problems, and they're not ashamed to demand you adapt to them.

- Wide spread narcissism. Young women and men stopped having conversations with each other at parties.

- People don't have patience to talk to each other and don't understand how to find something interesting in their fellow man.

- And yes, you're getting older.

But the number one reason I think is that the people who have been keeping up the good fight and throwing parties, barbecues, dinners and other events are sick and tired of always having to host and always invite people. So many people just float along and expect others to plan everything, contributing nothing themselves.

During the many years of schooling in childhood and being raised by parents who were also schooled, most people have had it hammered into their head that the worst crime you can do is come up with an idea or suggest something out of the routine. Of course they will not throw a party.

Spouse and I are mid thirties. We're both a smidge on the introvert side, but have a very healthy social circle. We love to host and generally are the household that brings people out. Others seldom do and when it happens, it's somewhat lackluster. If no one steps up to be host, relationships fall to the wayside and people increasingly feel like you do currently. Be the proactive one because these are few and far between in friend groups. It needs those few who organize and keep things moving; and keep getting people off their couches to get out and have fun. No one gets (too) drunk, no ones belligerent, no one stays to the early morning hours anymore, no one sleeps over, and everyone is just looking for an easy, good time. It's great.

Caveat: we're fortunate and have an open concept house that makes any party very easy to manage. I've noticed that a crammed home full of walls everywhere is a big social turn off. People often come to be stimulated by the atmosphere. Winter can be a slog, but it may be best to do it in a backyard if that's the case.

A hard thing to overcome is removing the fear of inviting people you've lost touch with over the years. This isn't to say where relationships ended poorly, but rather ones where time or a busy life eroded what once was. I saw a friend a couple weeks ago that I haven't seen for 4 years because I reached out and invited him to a poker night party and it was great to catch up. Our last text was in 2018 at that point.

My parents are mid sixties and despite myself feeling fulfilled socially, I don't hold a torch to them. They have huge gatherings constantly and always on the go. Always been that way, even through covid (to my known disapproval...). The parties I saw as a kid were eye opening. My parents own some land and at the end of the night when a lot of people left, they would have large bonfires that were still 3 circular rows deep of lawn chairs. So much chatter. Hearing about their life is exhausting in a positive way. I hope I carry that forward into my later years.

I think work events are definitely in dire need to start up again. I miss them, but they're slowly making a comeback. Cherish your personal friends though, and don't be discouraged to keep arranging things. Friend groups need those types

30s here. Schedules are busier, both in general and due to kids. Health issues and homeowner responsibilities take up additional time.

Interests are different now. Most of the parties I used to go to were either LAN parties or college parties (mostly a single person scene). Also, tech has taken an antisocial turn - consoles can barely play splitsceen anymore, good luck with a sys link or an independent game server (things of the past).

Maybe people get more closed minded or clique-y as they get older. Or maybe interests get more focused. In many cases it seems like there's not that much that's enjoyable to talk about.

In my own life, I try to plan a cookout for my neighbors every year. Life gets in the way and I get to it about every 3 years. I also try to have a gaming party with friends once a year. It usually ends up being just 2 people instead of 4-6. It was canceled this year. It's also hard to plan that sort of party with multiple people having little kids.

I think like most things in life the success factor directly correlates with the amount of tries. If you try to organize one party in five years its clear that the success will not be guaranteed because your friends might either not be partying so much, not used to be participating in parties, other schedule, etc.

Think about it like this: unless you have been declining parties regularly in the past years it is safe to say you have a selective bias in your friends towards people who don't really do parties (either they don't want to or they don't prioritiize them in their schedules).

The upside is the more you party the more you will find people in your friends group who also like to party and it is a feedback loop with increasing opportunities.

It is age, I tried to setup a day outside with my friends in December before the end of 2022, everyone got their calendars out and to make sure almost everyone was available we needed to push it to late February 2023 ... 3 months to get 8 people calendars synced to have the same free day.

I'm getting older and I still feel as bored around older, married people as I always have. I don't want to hear about other people's careers or children anymore.

I didn't experience it but I remember reading a lot more wild stories of the golden era of Wall Street than the tech scene today. Nowadays people just post about putting money in index funds. Too many high-IQ introverts in a room maybe not a good thing?

> Now my kids are older and it seems that only they get to party. I try my best, invited some people for parties, but we never seem to get invites in return.

Wanted to address this first as I feel like there are big cultural differences (even in the United States) on reciprocity for invites.

I was raised by an Italian born mother and a US born (German/Scottish Pennsylvania) father. In our family, if someone invited you to a party or event then the thought was that you should invite them to something in return. It didn't have to be exactly 1 for 1 but if it became too lopsided, some kind of action would be taken e.g. just invite over for coffee etc.

Once I moved to New York City, I tried to carry forward this trend and also ended up in situations where I would invite certain people multiple times and not get any invites in return. You can make a whole "the universe only rewards no expectations" etc kind of point but I was curious as to what was going on.

I asked one of the individuals what the reason was for not invites and he said:

"If you are inviting me to your event, it's because you think I'm cool and fun to hang out with and want me there. Given that, I don't feel an obligation to invite you in return."

This feels like one of those life situations where there isn't a right and wrong answer here but if two people are coming at it from different places, it can lead to hurt feelings.

I'm in my early 40s. My way of having parties is through salsa/bachata events around London. There is always something on and most people are very friendly.

I also drop in on Improvisation sessions in and around London - full of friendly people. And before Covid I used to do workshops around Europe too. Again can get invited to lots of parties that way.

I think I could probably rock this out for another 10-15 years easy - so some people here may find this a good hack. You can of course find other people to enjoy hobbies with on 'meetup.com'

I'm happy in my own company - but I wouldn't know where to begin in organizing my own party. I've spent a lot of my life working on personal projects/working. I do know a lot of people, but I generally meet people one on one. It just seems like a lot of stress and effort to set up a social event - but I think that is because it not well suited to it. I respect men and women who have a natural talent for organising social events. IF I were immortal I might have the time, but honestly I find it more interesting to work on a problem.

At the same time, I do like people and did in my teenage years through to about 25 morn that I wasn't that popular. I really did want to be liked, as I liked other people. If I had my time back, I'd have done improvisation / salsa and bachata at this time too. I wonder sometimes if everyone should do them...

I'm 55 and have gone to as many parties of my friends in the last 12 months as ever in my life. However, I do this by throwing them at my house. Granted, they're more sit-down-eat-dinner-together-and-drink-wine, and less stand-around-and-drink-beer-and-blast-music, but they're still a bunch of friends in my house at once.

If you want a lot of parties with friends, the best way is to throw them yourself. Your friends might also be interested in attending, but have less energy for hosting them.

I'm 43 and partying a lot on a beach in Thailand. I know many other software engineers and testers here who are doing the same, although the climbing around here (Krabi) does compete with our time. One friend works on corporate software while DJing psytrance on the beach.

I'm 36, no kids, yet, and still like to "party" most weekends. My partner and I are quite lucky in that we have a decent amount of friends and family we see regularly. Half of them with kids, half not. Most of the parents do not get to party much since they've had the kids but one couple, we'll call them Alice and Bob, haven't let their child affect their partying at all really. Regular house parties and gigs, late nights, loud music at home and the kid just sleeps through it. Having a couple of good baby sitters and frankly bringing the child up knowing all their friends and joining in has made it very easy for them. I hope if/when we do have kids of our own, we'll be like Alice and Bob.

Back in my 20s, when everyone was single, there were plenty of parties. It was just a matter of putting in the effort to find the right places to meet people.

In my 30s, as a newly wed, there were still parties. A lot of people showed up with kids. Late night parties often had a baby or two who still weren't on a normal schedule.

In my 40s, there's plenty of parties... They just are for other kids. I personally find kids birthday parties fun as long as the other adults are fun too.

> I try my best, invited some people for parties, but we never seem to get invites in return.

I chose to stop caring about things like that. Some people just suck at organizing things, don't think of it, or don't have time for it. So I take the lead (or did, moved just before COVID and don't have as large a social circle here yet). I'd invite people to my place, or convince the friend with the pool at their house to host but do all the legwork organizing it (inviting, getting people to bring food and drinks), just declare "I'm going to be at on Friday, they've got a live band, and there's a concert around the corner I'm going to check out later on."

And I was pretty indiscriminate with invites. If you were a friend, you got an invite. A coworker who was not an asshole, you got an invite. New person I met at the gym or on the soccer field and liked, you got an invite. Neighbor I saw in the hallway, you got an invite. This is part of what helped me develop a large social circle. Throwing an invite to an event to 30-40 people + their partners who I may not have known beforehand, you'll get takers most of the time. And if you don't, you have fun anyways.

I felt like there was a downward trend in parties before COVID hit for me. This would be me in my late 30s. In our 20s I feel like we still went to a lot of parties and tried to at least "drop by" when we could. But then we had kids and it became a lot harder - but we still try to make the important things ( bdays, graduations, etc ). This was the micro ( and just where I was in life ) now, with COVID I feel like a) there are not as many parties - just kind of like a covid hangover on social gatherings and b) it is much easier to say "no" without social repercussions. One thing I don't like is that now children don't get invited to a lot of other children's birthday parties, where as I remember that was a huge deal growing up for me. You always knew which friend had a birthday coming up and it was a huge deal. Now I feel like most kids in our social circle are fine with just 2 or 3 close friends over to the house for a small gathering. It just seems like the era of big, social parties has dwindled locally/micro.

I really enjoyed this thread as it really is neat to see how other people perceive something I have noticed, but not really acknowledged.

Slightly tangential, but the most effective way to be invited to a party is by hosting them.

My problem with many of the comments is that even at 35 I'd find it quite strange, "taking someone to a party." So assuming that I'm remotely normal by almost 50 there is very little chance of successfully using the host more parties and meet more people that like parties strategy.

If you invite people to a party, I think they are most likely to bring their spouse/SO so you are thus unlikely to meet new people that might reciprocate.

The one exception to this is the dinner party. A main stay of the UK Upper Middle Class that have a dining room that can seat 12 and a cook/housekeeper.

For work parties, COVID changed everything. The company I used to work for used to love parties. There were parties every month at a minimum (last Friday of the month) and for successful projects etc.

With COVID, many people moved out of the city centre with the option of remote/hybrid work. That means less people can drink at the work parties. Instead of just catching a bus home or walking, they need to drive to the office.

The people I'm still in contact with said the work party group is basically dead now.

For personal parties, that solely depends on your friend group.

This is a very interesting post, thank you for writing it. I'm still quite a few years away from 50 but I have been feeling like this since I graduated. The days after graduation felt like the party would keep going but I quickly noticed that my friends were becoming less and less available.

I think this happened because:

1. They got married and therefore priorities changed.

2. They got kids and responsibilities increased.

3. They got older and interests changed.

4. Most of us moved to different cities and/or countries.

But I think the party can, indeed, keep going (with a little effort). There is a reply here that recommends joining different activity groups and I think that is the right thing to do. In school, you didn't have to work hard to meet new people and make new friends because the community is large and full of interesting people you can relate to.

Outside school, the best way to mimic that kind of life is at places like work, Church, sports clubs, etc. [finances permitting :)]

I don't know, somewhat recently I went to a Halloween party because I saw a flier for it and it started early, had food included with the door entry, didn't know the organization throwing it but it looked cool. Turned out to be a senior citizens nudist dance party, I was the youngest person by 40 years. Sometimes you just need to throw caution to the wind and get naked, dance, and eat fried chicken with the elderly, it was a blast.

Just for context: it could be worse. Age 45. Since elementary school I have been invited to probably between 1-3 parties total, and never invited to any party after college.

I'm not good at socializing. Or maybe have bad breath. But point being, some social life is better than none.

For me it is a combination of age, having kids, having moved around, and general deterioration of the social fabric. Especially church-related events are mostly absent in my social circle.

But boy am I glad that I took the decision to join a "Studentenverbindung" (fraternity) in my university days! Three times per semester we put on suits, sit around a long table, drink beer, and sing nonsensical songs. This has been going on without fail for 140 years -- well, almost without fail, there were gaps during ww1, ww2, and covid. I go to about 1/3 of these events. I meet my old university friends, their families, and a bunch of young students. I expect to continue doing this for many years to come.

Combination of all three. I'm about 20 years younger than you. When COVID was a thing, there were a few months to a year almost without parties. But it has ramped up again, I am invited and going to more events than in 2019. However, I made a deliberate effort to improve my social and professional network. I also started a local meetup, which is basically a cheat code to meeting new people and becoming more influential.

If I had to guess, COVID and aging weakened the bonds in your social circle. Just start to reach out to old friends again and try to find new ones. There are a lot of interesting people out there, probably eager to have a good party.

It’s fairly simple…

As people get older,

1. they have more responsibilities/obligations and less free time

2. as well as, they also grow into having new interests besides partying, so they use their (limited) free time differently.

I held one Christmas party and attended one Christmas party.

In both cases, the number of guests were very few, all guests had left before midnight, and the amount of drinking wa modest. People with kids left earlier, and every couple had one designated driver who didn't think they were missing out on drinking anyways.

As an adult, if I want more of an intense party experience, I have to go clubbing.

I just don't have drinking friends any more, and I don't drink anymore.

Argentinan here. 38 yo.

"Parties" Are now dinners with friends, no more than 10. Many of them has child's so is hard for everyone to go, but we do some meetings.

As professional, parties moved to After offices, until pandemic, no more than 1 or 2 hours in a bar with colleagues (even we had the adminbeers for sysadmin community). That was really nice.

Anyway I'm moving to Chicago, so just tell me when you wants to do a BBQ.

My view - adults are generally boring. Something about busy schedules and responsibility ;)

Go to a concert. Buy some overpriced beer - the party happens. (my experience with rock concerts only)

I've never enjoyed parties at people's house (too few people, too intimate) - but very large groups I enjoy. All of my neighbors are the opposite (prefer intimate at home gatherings) which I always skip.

It's just real hard to get people to commit to things. Lots of "maybes" and flaking. I'd way much rather have someone tell me flat out "no" instead of ghosting or maybe.

I faced the same issue and decided to solve it by making an app. The issue mainly boils down to not knowing who is free when and when they want to party. So I made an app where people can input when they are free during the week, and it auto suggests plans.

You can check it out at : https://www.bl1p.app

The best parties I ever went to were when I was in my early teens and my parents were in their late 40s. Massive bonfires, kids running all over playing hide and seek on 20 acres, adults and older teens with impromptu softball games, elaborate plays written to commemorate the party (not necessarily well written, but included wacky stunts!). Parents sneaking off to smoke weed and getting a little weird. The weather just right. Really all the parties I’ve been to as an adult have been a disappointment in comparison.

So I’m saying you still have time for some real good times. But yes, “post” covid my social life has dried up a bit too. Haven’t lost friends, but see them less, and all the not really friends that would just shoot me a text if they were at a bar in the neighborhood have stopped doing that. Just lost the habit I suppose.

As we get older, we (and our peers) tend to have busier lives. It's not a bad thing, but it does interfere with our ability to have get-togethers.

"My husband and I are either going to buy a dog or have a child. We can't decide whether to ruin our carpet or ruin our lives."

- Rita Rudner

Mid 30's, married, no kids here. My social life took a significant uptick midway through 2021, even compared to pre-pandemic. And I can attribute that to one factor:

Weddings.

Both my brother and one of my sports buddies got married in 2020 but had to delay wedding celebrations. And suddenly, not only are there weddings but there are bachelor parties, hey-maybe-we-should-meet-before-the-wedding gatherings, follow up dinners, "hey we hang out every Memorial Day, want to come?" offers, etc.

Of course, my buddy and his wife are expecting now (congrats and I'll see him again in 5 years), my brother will likely be there soon and I just took on a bunch more work responsibilities. The flow of social gatherings will almost certainly ebb this year.

Interestingly, we started having parties around October 2020 with other libertarians that were fed up with Covid restrictions. Our house became known as a bit of a party spot, we’re in our mid-30s and spent some money to make everything nice in our basement for hosting guests. It also served as sort of a semi official “plot to take over the state libertarian party” event, as the official party stance was curiously mum about lockdowns (despite acting as if they were always against them now, revisionist history).

The parties stopped happening after two things. First, they got a bit too raucous. We’re 30 somethings with kids and didn’t want drunk people who have decided to play strip poker in the basement when our five year old is asleep upstairs. What the heck. The things we are looking for in a part are very different than the slightly younger single demographic, and telling them to behave gets their brains to short circuit. All that drama we’d left behind flooding back. So we had to ban a good number of bill headed people who thought they’d done nothing wrong. This caused grumbling and the network effects fell apart since “well so-and-so is banned so we can’t go there”. Second, once restrictions were lifted people stopped showing as much interest as we weren’t the only game in town. It’s easy to have parties when you have essentially a captive audience.

Then I tried running a regular D&D game by soliciting from a local Facebook group, and met some of the most entitled and rude people I’ve ever met (also some great people). It was such a chore managing everyone and people’s weird personalities and expectations that I eventually disbanded it.

I am close to 50 and I get invited to parties a few times a week; in and around the summer and December, that becomes daily. The past 30+ years there are very few weeks I haven’t been to at least one. Of course the term ‘party’ can mean many things to many people, but you named a few and those I go to. And also sometimes to raves in the mountains nearby, and sometimes to bands.

I do work on friendships and social life; I select new places to live based on the liveliness of the place, but also the willingness to connect (which doesn’t happen everywhere; too cliquey).

My friends from school/college have different lives and didn’t fit (maybe like you are experiencing), so I make new ones to fit with my stages in life.

My friends and I had the exact problem. We used to (host and attend) parties all the time.

In my experience it’s because: Covid decimated any chance of gatherings for 2 years. It caused all of our friends to be paranoid. People started getting older and it was hard to communicate with everyone. Platform fragmentation. Some people use SMS or messenger exclusively and no one uses facebook events anymore.

We actually started to try and use different apps, partiful, evite etc… We found the UX to be a challenge to interact with and no one wanted to use them.

So we built our own event planning app that tries to solve these problems: https://dateit.io/

How many parties do your parents go to? When you went to parties when you were younger, were there a lot of 50 year olds hanging around?

Just to counter balance the anecdata, I’m in my mid 30s and have lots of parties in my life. It’s entirely due to my friend group.

Try moving to South America we have someone having adhoc party at least twice a month just among family and friends

At 50 or thereabouts, people's priorities in life changes and they change away from partying. The reasons you have listed are all valid points, but there is nit much you can do, other than befriending a younger generation, who tend to party a lot more than people in your (and mine) age group. But then, you are looking into being called the "geezer" in the group. Accept your new status quo. Be happy with the few parties you attend or host. That is my best advice. Yesteryears are not making a comeback.

Macro trends and averages, so anecdotally everyone could be an exception but my observations are:

If you are 20 you have more parties than when you was 10.

If you are 30, about the same than when you were 20, possibly with different people than 10 years ago.

If you are 40 some of the people you were partying with are unavailable because of work, family, moved to other cities, etc. On average it's increasingly difficult to make new friends because you're starting to be on the downhill slope of the make_friends() probability distribution, which depends not only from you but also by the other people. 20 yo are looking at you as ancient and out of touch with their reality and you might look at them as weirdos and out of touch with reality at all.

If you are 50, more like so. Add that some are not here anymore. The music 20 yo listen to is weird shit and their fashion is in part the n-th iteration of what you already saw. Currently it's some variation of the 80s. A friend told me her daughter is dressing like her mother when my friend had the age of her daughter.

Same and more like that for every extra 10 years, up to when it will be difficult to get out of home or let people in and stay long enough to call that a party.

Add that more time gives people more ways to dislike each other, because stuff happens, people take stances and some fights cannot be forgiven because they define who we are and what we believe.

I hope that this is not depressing :-)

Organise parties, invite people. Eventually people will bring more people who like parties, while people who don't like parties will stop coming. Eventually, you will have got to know party people and will get invited to other parties they know of.

Not sure where you are at in life, but I like the concept of a salon as a form of party (if you need inspiration): https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salon_(gathering)

Anecdotally the regular parties ended for me about 8 years ago (25 y/o). Since then my friends have been distributed around the country and all have houses / kids / professional work ect...

Recently we've tried organising two events. A get-well party for a friend and an in-person DnD session. Both are scheduled to happen soon but planning began back in October or November. When organising 6 people in to a room together takes three months notice i can see why people don't bother so much....

For me, being the first one to become a parent meant saying no thank you to so many invites that they stopped coming. Then aging has dwindled the number of friends I stay in touch with. Covid sure affected things quite a bit, as did breakups and fights between mutual friends, so groups that used to hang out can no longer. Being single as more and more people get married has also been an issue.

For society at large I know many people who still haven't cleaned their home from covid. And for those that are still working from home, it's harder to invite people over to a party at your office.

But for the trend before covid, I think the recent political divides may have had an impact. People on the "left" and "right" are reluctant to socialize with each other, and people in the middle don't want to hear it from either of them. For example, seeing a friend share political memes might make someone think that person will be annoying to be around, and not worth it.

But really I think as we get older less and less people host parties. I know I tried to host them a few times, but I hate it, so I stopped. Certain people are "entertainers" if you're the entertainers in your group, then it falls on you to throw the parties.

Personally it's just being married to someone who's covid-cautious, has a busy job, along with having kids. It's difficult if not impossible to have a social life when all your efforts are dedicated towards work, chores and the kids (and your spouse won't budge on things that would simplify these pressures) There is no real party time, just responsibility and the occasional escape when the grandmothers can watch the little ones.

I use to be.... a pretty big party guy. But eventually I kind "aged out" of that scene. I recognized a few years back that I was missing the hanging out. But I still didn't want to go back to the club life. So I reached out to a few old friends to see if anyone was interested in playing d&d. Now, for years, my wife and I host a game every Friday and Sunday. It's helped fill the niche in an old man kinda way.

I'm close to your age and I don't particularly enjoy parties anymore. I think a big part of that is I don't really drink anymore but in general large loud gatherings don't hold that much interest for me anymore. So when I'm invited to stuff it often feels more like an obligation than something I'm excited about. I would much rather plan a low key game night or a online watch part than big party where we can focus on interacting with a couple close friends rather than 15 minutes a pop with a large group

Life, travel, location etc have exacerbated the issue but even though our daughter is all grown up a lot of our friends are still middle or early years raising families which is a huge time commitment so they aren't throwing many parties either.

In many ways I lived that lifestyle, hard from 17-32 and even then I kept having to make younger and younger friends to keep a party crowd with me because with maturity comes obligation.

I would rather poke around my yard, hop online and game with friends and family and not have to deal with crowds, drunk people, and etc and I bet a lot of your friends fee the same way.

I'm almost 50. Parties change. The last party I had in November was a few couples drinking wine, eating charcuterie, and listening to Jazz records. Not a bad way to spend a night in my opinion.

I still like like to be social, so I took up vinyl DJing! That kindda tempers my urge for parties: https://baus.net/miami-vinyl-dj/

People get married, have kids, and have elderly parents they need to help.

My friends and I don't have the same amount of time anymore for parties that we had even 15 years ago. Most of the time I see my friends is at lunch and even that was destroyed by covid and work from home.

An older friend of mine died last week and his funeral will sadly be the first time I see the majority of my friends at the same time.

I would strongly recommend people who are looking for more music and dance in their life to check out the vr clubbing scene. I've been on it almost constantly for the last 3 months and love having partying back in my life again from the comfort of my own home. (I don't want to say it's a perfect replacement but for me it's good enough to scratch the itch)

See my prior posts for more info.

I blame COVID, but our neighbors started doing low-key happy hours about once a month and these have been wonderful. We've also started meeting people for pizza at restaurants again and that has been similarly great. So I'd like to think that we're all out of practice and it's taking a while to get to ball rolling again.

Speaking for myself, I went to every party (invited or not) with my group of friends when we were 18. In the mid twenties we went to almost every party we were invited to. By the early 30s, we all moved to separate places far away abroad. Me and my girlfriend went to a few parties by colleagues of mine at our new country of residence, and they were nice but not really interesting (too many kids, more like family events). By now, late 40s and early 50s, nobody organizes a party and I don't want to go to a party anyway. They're boring and I'd regret drinking too much the next day, and if you don't drink alcohol, they're even more boring.

So there's that. It was a gradual process. Now if we lived in Beverly Hills and had many acquaintances, I'd probably go to parties. But I'm not working in showbiz, I'm working in academia and unfortunately most of my colleagues are not very interesting personalities.

I went to more parties last year than the previous 10 combined (maybe past 20)! However, I think this is exceptional and it took me seeking out folks that wanted to have fun like that. Life circumstances and mismatched schedules get in the way for sure and I still think there is a strong covid hangover for most people.

Speaking as one who used to host (along with spouse of course) the occasional dinner party, brunch, whatever and now doesn't, there are two factors:

1. Kids (older than the "small and cute" stage). 2. Out of practice due to COVID! Worry about the virus is pretty low now, but in the meantime the clutter has grown, social connections have weakened, and the longer you don't have a gathering the less confidence you have to organize one.

The kids thing has multiple angles. One is that with all their stuff the house is a lot messier than it used to be, so much more intertia to make it presentable. Another is than active social life exists to fill a need for companionship that is just not as strong when you have multiple humans around you 100% of the time. The third is that the social crowd's growing kids have the same effect on them!

Sounds like you need to throw a party instead of waiting for someone else to throw one. You don’t need an excuse!

I felt similarly as I entered my late 40's. Strangely enough I was comforted by a rerun of "Magnum P.I.": Magnum is trying to organize a major party with his friends "like the old days," but finds everybody is too busy now working on their careers, early to bed-early to rise etc. I guess it's all about getting down to business and building a life. I was comforted to see that this seems to be the norm.

Now that my child is a teenager, I've been actively looking into volunteer opportunities in my community.

I've also come to realize that what's mostly expected of older people is money, or at least ability to raise funds. Social opportunities come from getting involved in sponsorship of organizations and people. So it looks like my role model may be switching from Magnum to Higgins.

I go to a lot of concerts so I get a feel of being at a party, but I don't see my best friends very often. Most of them are not in my area anymore and it takes hours to days to go visit. Haven't been to a house party that isn't just dinner with family in quite a while.

Time changes. Individualism is high these days. Back in the past we can have our arguments, conflicts, disagreements but they can be set aside and all are happy. Nowadays, each one of us is too occupied by many things that we prioritize more than getting together.

I think it's the 'old' thing mainly.

Most people in our age range have families and lots of ties and commitments. We recently booked a weekend away with 7 friends and for most of them it was the only weekend in March they still had free. Birthdays, kids trips, judo contests, blah blah..

For me as an expat needing to travel for it, I complained that it was too far away in the future to know if it would work to fly over (eg important work commitments like trainings in the adjacent weeks)

I can't really blame them but as a childless single it's boring yeah. Good thing I have some nice social communities with similar people.

For me it is mostly COVID's fault, because people my age definitely stopped partying as much as they used to. Some are still worried about it, many just realized during lockdown that they don't even like "parties" in the traditional form. We still get together but it's usually a quiet dinner thing, not dozens of people in the same room, drinking and dancing and whatever else. Even karaoke is not as popular in my circle since being in a closed space with people opening their mouths wide feels weird.

I think smaller parties like housewarming and barbecue are still fine though, but maybe it depend on the country.

I've noticed the same thing. I suspect it's a combination of the legacy of COVID and the rise of digital media. As humans, sometimes we are lazy and prefer the predictable, non-messy comfort of a movie, show, news outlet, or digital social network to the hard work of real relationships with real people. Also I think that because of COVID, and the rise of remote working, we are out of practice of the skill of socialization, which can increase the frustration and resignation to not-caring and not-trying. The people I know who are the most social, also have the least amount of screen time in their lives.

I'm closing in on 50 as well. Not into sports, nor alcohol, mostly an introvert, and married with 4 kids. I do a weekly date night with my wife, have a monthly lunch recurring-schedule with my 3 closest friends. I also volunteer at church in the local clergy (Bishopric) and am very involved with the church youth, along with a plethora of administrative churchly duties. There are occasional concerts and double dates smattered in there as well. For me, this is very challenging and I don't like adding anything further to the mix. So ultimately unlike you, Rod Kimble, I don't party.

Life happens, especially past age 30, maybe even less than that. If you’re single and don’t plan to have kids AND have a network of similar people - parties are still pretty common, even if they are slightly less ambitious.

In all likelihood, your peer group had many fewer obligations 10 years ago than it did now. Fewer people with families. Fewer people in management positions. They now have more obligations and less energy. And as people go along in their lives, they tend to have fewer and fewer strong bonds outside of the family, which they prioritize. That's normal. What isn't normal is how many people have their free time eaten up by non-hobbies. My dad's generation was certainly more handy with general repairs and carpentry than mine is. Fewer shared hobbies equals fewer shared experiences. A guy who you know nothing else about can still talk to you about the best way to install drywall. These are prompts for potential friendships that we no longer get nowadays.

Back home in Louisiana, we primarily have three types of get-togethers.

The first is a seafood boil, which usually happens in the spring and early summer months. Everyone takes turns paying for and hosting a feast for friends and family, and everyone in the family groups are invited. The kids do kid things, and the adults sit around and eat, drink, and be merry.

The second type is festivals. These are community-wide events that all happen on different weekends, usually in the autumn. The Des Allemands Catfish Festival will be scheduled on a different weekend than the Luling Alligator Festival, which will also be on a different weekend than the Destrehan Fall Festival. Most of the same people show up to these festivals, so you can always run into and enjoy the company of someone you know.

The third type is Mardi Gras. Mardi Gras isn't a day as much as it is a season. While the media tends to focus on the drinking and debauchery that occurs on Bourbon Street, the vast majority of these parades are small community organizations that just want to give everyone a good time. If you're on a float, you're having a party. If you're catching beads, you're also having a good time with your community. People will schedule the time and location they're gonna be at the parades and be there to have a few beers and catch a few beads. There's even an entire hobby that revolves around the collectible memorabilia from those parades.

So... congratulations. You've made it to older age.

On Good Parties: https://www.plough.com/en/topics/life/on-good-parties

My guess is your first two hypothesis. I'm in my mid 50's, and if I want to socialize, I find I'm almost always the one to have to initiate it. Generally with younger friends/colleagues.

I've been asking myself the same question, and my answer is a combination of post-covid general trauma with human interactions and social media turning people ironically more anti-social (actually having fun is not very instagramable).

Single people that travel may have a different experience, but things are just not as fun as before for most people, and very few of us seem to be actively trying to change the new status quo. I learned this the hard way while organizing a bachelors party for a friend a couple weeks ago.

So work has taken on such a major component of our life that it seems fitting that work is where we do our socializing as well.

The best parties I have attended in my adult age have been sponsored by Microsoft, Veeam, Dell, Salesforce, etc. The bar is open, the hotel shuttles are running all night, Uber for the bougie, and Snoop Dogg, Flo Rida, or Coolio [RIP] is the VIP entertainer. And work pays for it all!

And in the morning I can hold my head high knowing I'll never have to see these people ever again.

Houseparties are out! Tradeshows are lit!

Honestly it just feels like people have less energy these days. People seem more lethargic and they just want to relax alone. I am only 28 and no one my age parties anymore within my vicinity. Even when I was growing up when my dad was 40 he would throw constant parties.

I've also heard that the zoomers don't want to drink or anything, which is pretty surprising to me. I think I caught the end of the crazy drinking party culture when I was at uni around age 20.

People just seem tired and sedated.

All of the above. There were always more parties 10 years ago.

I think it's not the age, because I knew plenty of older people (average age 50+) who would socialize regularly. They did go out drinking pretty much every night, and have plenty of parties. I don't know if that's still going on because I don't live there anymore. I'm also not sure if it's possible to replicate this without alcoholism, cannabis or the usual things that bring people together ;)

I actually find I party with work people more often now, my guys from high school in south London are scattered across NW Europe.

With work people, we're all in the same place regularly so no scheduling issues and, being London, there's always a pub nearby. It's a startup so the engineers aren't siloed off in some dungeon, we hang out just as much with sales and operations, who always bring a bit of party atmosphere.

I used to have a lot of parties. Had kids and moved across the country. Not so many parties after that. Several years pass, had more kids, and moved again. All of the sudden parties all the time. Big ones, sometimes for no reason.

In my case I think it's totally local culture; where I'm at currently people like to get together and if you're a parent they _expect_ you roll up with a bunch of kids.

For me it was definitely COVID. I went last weekend to my first (indoor, winter) party since the pandemic started, and it was absolutely lovely. Still haven't thrown one but it makes me think I should; my 5yo got the bivalent booster in Dec. and we're rebalancing our risk / reward tradeoff. For us, at least, I expect parties to increase substantially over the coming six months.

Here is a relevant song, maybe you find your answer there;-) Jonathan Richman - Parties In The U.S.A.

https://open.spotify.com/track/4axPxMZwpzQWjcNjv1JOP6?si=Jaq...

Definitely a downward trend visible on Google Trends for e.g. "housewarming party":

https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&ge...

I feel the 19th century societal norms (as documented by Austen and Tolstoy etc) are often derided and laughed at for their formalism and rigidness, but while recognizing the many problems there I do also see lot of upsides too. I wonder if we could apply something from that without having those downsides.

People don't know their neighbors anymore -- everyone's acquaintances are online and the guy who lives next door to you is a stranger whom you barely nod to on the street. To have a party you need a bunch of people that you know and like who are in the same geographic vicinity.

You know that parties work both ways and you can organise one? Invite your old friends, your children and maybe some of their friends to a party that's around end of February, so everyone has enough time to book the evening off. Ask to re-confirm their attendance a few day before

> COVID happened and we still haven't restarted partying the way we used to

Only that it's still ongoing. Of course, one thing is that most of us no longer give a s* about it and we don't care getting infected a dozen times in a year with a disease that can sometimes be deadly.

The parties I have are with people whose kids are similar age. We end up playing poker for money while the kids play or we have potluck dinners etc. it was actually getting kind of exhausting so we stepped back but I think that’s basically how it ends up centering around kids.

I'm 45 and went to a lot of parties in my 20s and never actually enjoyed any of them. It was really just to meet people (specifically women). Since getting married and having kids, I just don't need it anymore and have zero desire to attend one.

Have kids. You'll be swimming in birthday parties within a year or two.

If we're asking where are all the parties, I'd also like to ask what are we missing out on by not having them? What is the draw? What are some of the reasons for making the effort to host or go to them?

We used to go out for drinks after work every week. Now lots of people WFH so people aren't around. The other thing is lots of the young people in the team now dont drink, which is a big change for me.

Move to Melbourne I'm in my 40s and still lots of parties. We had a massive house warming with a great Gatsby theme a few months ago. Lots of friends in their 50s still attending parties

Could it be related to COVID or to high inflation / bad economy?

Parties are the result of social interaction, not the cause of it.

I just organised one for next week.

I tend to have to do it because a lot of my friends are poor and live in cramped living conditions.

The equivalent is going to the pub. That's what it's for.

61yo. Still have parties often enough but mostly it is between narrow circle of old friends. Also I have get together with friend or two 1 - 2 times a week.

And now jagged edge is singing “hey where the party at” in my head, and if you know that song the party was 20 years ago and you missed it.

for me it ebbs and flows depending on my current circle and other things. My mid 20s-30s we didn't go out at all, just doing the family thing. Then we clicked with a bunch of people nearby and started hanging out every single week with parties on every occasion and everything, even through covid. Post covid a bunch of people moved and it seems to have died down again.

I like talking to strangers rather, and outdoor, on a walk or a trance music festival, that should be fun

I’ve done enough partying to be honest.

Be the change you want to see. Throw a party!

You’re gotten old

This turned out to be a nice thread :)

I thought mark told us already, the parties have moved to the metaverse. There’s a great #hottub and everything.

In this comment: I'll tell you why you should never host a dinner party, how to make new friends, why "cocktail parties" are better than dinner parties (even if you don't drink alcohol), and discuss the macro trends in parties and relationships.

Hi! I wrote a book called "The 2-Hour Cocktail Party" that people seem to really like on Amazon and Audible.

I've hosted hundreds of parties myself and personally coached 175 people* over the past year on how to host a simple, effective party or gathering to help them make new friends and build relationships.

*see these party photos for proof: https://party.pro/hosts/

Here's what I've learned as it relates to your questions:

(1) YES the macro trends on partying are down, and reports of loneliness are way up. Do a search for "loneliness epidemic" or "friendship recession," two phrases that I track with Google News Alerts, to see constant press pieces with supporting data showing people have way less friends and social interactions today than they did 10 years ago.

I'm less interested in the reasoning for this trend and more interested in how to fix it, which- spoiler alert- I think anyone can learn how to host a great little gathering or happy hour, even if you don't drink alcohol (I don't but my friends do).

(2) Your hypothesis about COVID knocking out a lot of house parties seems to be directionally correct, based on my own experience and that reported to me by my book readers. I hear again and again something like: "We used to host an annual summer party," or "We hosted dinner parties every Friday night before COVID."

Why I say "directionally correct" is that I don't believe parties aren't happening due to COVID concerns, largely, and instead because COVID washed out the momentum that many long-time hosts had. Whether it was the regularity of hosting that built muscle memory for them, or even the geographical displacement we saw of some people during COVID- something major happened and I've never seen anyone specifically write about this. When you have a long-time host who annually throws a Christmas or New Year's bash, and they miss that for two years straight, it becomes REALLY hard for them to pick it back up.

^^ that's anecdotal, and I don't have the data to back it up, but I just feel it from conversations that I've had and heard about: that long-time party hosts have changed their habits post-COVID, not out of fear of infection today, but because they lost momentum or dropped the habit and haven't since picked it back up.

(2a) The habit of hosting, by the way, is huge. I've seen people get the BIGGEST benefits in new friendships and new relationships when they can make hosting a habit. When you can learn to throw a monthly or quarterly event, you start to go through life "collecting" people to invite to your parties. It really is a "life unlock" or "life hack" or whatever you want to say. I did it, first when I moved to NYC, and then later when I moved to Texas. And the relationships I built from hosting those parties helped me launch a multi-million dollar business (Museum Hack), which I say not to brag but to just hint that there are benefits beyond your personal life that come from hosting parties.

(3) If you want to get better at hosting a party, you can! This is a skill that literally anyone can learn. As much as the vibe-shakra people are going to hate me saying this, I've found that success for a new party host largely comes down to pre-planning, logistics, and filling the room.

Here are the key things that will help you host a great gathering:

- DO NOT host a dinner party. They're too complicated and too stressful for a new host. They take too much work, too much time, and WAY too much moderation. Instead, host a cocktail party or happy hour. After hosting dozens of dinner parties and hundreds of cocktail parties, I found that I could get 80% of the benefits of hosting a dinner party — with 20% of the work in a cocktail party. Cocktail parties helped me cast a wider net, too, and connect with more people.

A note about the phrase cocktail party: I personally don't drink alcohol. And there isn't a single drink recipe in my book The 2-Hour Cocktail Party. But we use that phrase "cocktail party" because it represents a simple social construct: an easy, casual, lightweight gathering where you'll have a lot of little conversations. It is low-commitment and generally low-stress.

This is the longest comment I'll ever write on HN and I'm worried I'm talking too much, so apologies if this sounds like spam! I'm honestly like MLM-passionate about convincing people why they should learn to host parties because it changed my life SO MUCH.

Here's my personal website: https://nickgray.net/about/

and an executive summary of my book about exactly how to host your first party with a little bit of structure: https://party.pro/how/

I will wrap this up. Here are the pro-tips:

- 15 to 20 people. You need 15 people, minimum, to show up to your party. Any less than that and the room never reaches a critical mass or energy level and excitement. It feels… a little flat. So I've found that 15 people needs to be your minimum, which means you'll need to invite more than 15 to actually get 15 to attend. Over 20 and things get hectic.

- Collect RSVPs. For the love of God, PLEASE collect RSVPs. Use a free tool online. GenZ loves Partiful, I suggest and use Mixily, you can even use Paperless Post. Please don't use Evite because they have a thousand ads and JavaScript pop-up crap and they'll spam your guests.

Why do we collect RSVPs? Well, the biggest success indicator of a party- for a new host, at least- is whether they can fill the room. People come to parties for the PEOPLE, not for the drinks, not for the food, not for the music… they come for the people.

You have to collect RSVPs to create a social contract to get your friends to actually show up. People who read my book The 2-Hour Cocktail Party report over a 93% attendance rate of those who say they're going to come (people who RSVP) and those who actually show up.

Compare that to the days of Facebook Events, when I'd do the "spray and pray" method of mass-inviting people and be lucky to get a 50% attendance rate.

- Send 3 reminder messages. I like to do: 1 week before, 3-4 days before, and morning of. These are important: they will boost your attendance rate and increase excitement. They also help show that you're a host who actually cares, which is rare in the age of "Let's just show up and hang out!" parties.

- Add a small amount of structure. This helps shy people and introverts, and encourages a lot of new conversations (which in my mind is the whole point of a party: to meet new people). The structure that I like and preach is always using name tags (I will die on this hill), and one or two rounds of icebreakers (please withhold your burns about icebreakers: you're probably doing them wrong, and I've done thousands of them, I will teach you how to do it right).

Anyhow. Sorry this is going so long.

If anyone is serious about wanting to learn how to host a party, you can call or text me at +1-917-635-9967 or email hello@nickgray.net and I will talk your ear off about this. If you want to make new friends and you are interested in party hosting, but you can't afford my book, reach out and I can probably mail you a free copy of the paperback.

I do believe that the loneliness epidemic is real, but I also believe that a simple happy hour- with your friends or neighbors- can help you and your friends meet new people. Nobody really teaches adults how to make new friends, which is crazy, but I think I figured this part out.

Thank you for reading!! This is my longest comment ever on HN!! I love parties and helping people learn how to make new friends.

I hope I have earned the permission to link my book, which I will do here:

The 2-Hour Cocktail Party: How to Build Big Relationships with Small Gatherings on Amazon, Kindle, Audible, Kobo, etc https://amzn.to/39rfb2V

#1 of course

My general thesis is that you have to do cool stuff to make new friends. Do interesting things to meet interesting people.

But it doesn’t have to be hard! The unlock or LPT I’ve found is that hosting a super simple small party- becoming the “organizer of people”- is the fastest, easiest way to become interesting to others.

After hosting hundreds of these small parties myself, I figured out a formula to make them effective, interesting, and ultimately successful. It is a method that can work for almost any person in any town.

First: the good news. ANYONE can learn how to make new friends. There are lots of people out there like you who are reading this HN thread or sitting in your town thinking, “Damn. I’m getting older, I have less friends, I wish I had more friends.”

But: the bad news. The macro trends on partying are down, and reports of loneliness are way up. Do a search for "loneliness epidemic" or "friendship recession," two phrases that I track with Google News Alerts, to see constant press pieces with supporting data showing people have way less friends and social interactions today than they did 10 years ago.

Here are the pro-tips if you want to host a well-run party or event or whatever:

- 15 to 20 attendees. You need 15 people, minimum, to show up to your party. Any less than that and the room never reaches a critical mass or energy level and excitement. It feels a little flat. I've found that 15 people needs to be your minimum, which means you'll need to invite more than 15 to actually get 15 to attend. Over 20 attendees and things get hectic and stressful for a new host.

- Collect RSVPs. PLEASE collect RSVPs. Use a free tool online. GenZ loves Partiful, I suggest and use Mixily, you can even use Paperless Post. Please don't use Evite because they have a thousand ads and JavaScript pop-up crap and they'll spam your guests.

Why should you collect RSVPs? Well, the biggest success indicator of a party- for a new host, at least- is whether they can fill the room. People come to parties for the PEOPLE, not for the drinks, not for the food, not for the music... they come for the people.

Here's what I know works. It all revolves around adding the slightest bit of structure to your gathering.

- Decide you’re going to host a party and commit to it.

- Pick a date for your party three weeks from now, ideally on a Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday night.

- Keep the length of your party to two hours.

- Invite your friends, colleagues, and neighbors.

- Ask everyone to RSVP and confirm their attendance.

- Space out three reminder messages leading up to your party.

At the party, do these four things:

1. Use name tags with first names only. I will die on the hill of why this is important.

2. Facilitate three quick icebreakers. They won't be cringe, I promise.

3. Take a group photo, you'll use this to help invite more people to your next party.

4. End the party on time. My book has a whole chapter on this or if you search for "How to end your party" I believe one of my articles will come up.

Follow those guidelines and you’ll have a gathering better than most. People appreciate the structure.

I wrote a step-by-step guidebook that seems to be generally well-liked enough that it has helped hundreds of people learn how to host their own events to make new friends and meet their neighbors.

The name of my book is The 2-Hour Cocktail Party: How to Build Big Relationships with Small Gatherings and you can find it anywhere books are sold plus Audible. Happy to give any HN readers a satisfaction guarantee if you don’t think it is packed with actionable, helpful advice.

i rent a room from 2 ladies who are ski instructors in their early 60s. They seem to have a lot of friends and party a lot ( i get invited to some) and go to a lot of trips and play/ski/camp in the mountains here in the colorado. They are leaving this weekend to party somewhere in streamboat springs.

I guess its important to have hobbies and put effort into weaving those into your life ? Its also easy to find other people who are into and hang out with them?

Maybe you should try hosting a party?

> COVID happened and we still haven't restarted partying the way we used to

Our reaction to COVID happened a lot more readily than COVID itself.

Playing pandemic has consequences, as it turns out.

Your hypotheses are all false. I partied harder than my parents when we were young adults, but they partied much harder than me in middle age. The decline in festive activity is observed in diverse data and began years before COVID.

The dominant politico-social order in the West has become Puritan in many respects, from drug use to purity of food to purity of beliefs. This may have something to do with it. Or maybe they have a common cause, like the declining rate of economic growth. Or maybe it's substitution of online activity for IRL activity.

Probably a combination of all three reasons you listed. Covid did kill a lot of parties, and rightly so, and it's not over yet. That said, a lot of people seem to think Covid is over and are desperate to finally have a party again. Friends of ours celebrated their 12.5 years of marriage with a party on a big sailing ship. My wife and I celebrated our 15 years of marriage pretty big (food and drinks, board games and silent disco) and everybody loved it.

So if you want parties, organise some. But maybe first check what the Covid infection rates in your area are...