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 agree about the two groups. I spent years trying to invite some friends to our home for dinner, but we always had "scheduling conflicts." Then one time I suggested going out to a restaurant, and we immediately scheduled it and did it that weekend. I finally figured out that they didn't want to come to our home because they thought that then they would have to recipricate and invite us over, which they didn't want to do.

> 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.

As someone who has (and occasionally still does) throw parties, I totally do not relate. It's just tiring. I don't have time to mingle with the guests.

I prefer small, simple invitations. Ideally 2 families. Simple food. Not a lot of ceremony. Get together and talk (or play games, or whatever).

Similarly, I've drastically reduced going to bigger parties - at least with some hosts. These are people I like and want to spend time with, but they only throw large parties, and I get virtually no time with them at the party - they're too busy.

What I'm finding is that - as you noticed - people tend to want to be all or nothing. I'm having trouble finding people like me. I want to socialize, but not this way.

When I read the article, I immediately thought of several reasons he hadn't listed. Too tired to go into detail, but some of them are: Marriage and what was previously a 2 body problem became a 4 body problem (4 being the lower bound). Dual income with kids - we barely get enough time with the kids, and throwing a big party means neglecting them much, much more. Several other factors. This really is death by a thousand cuts.

> 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

Middle aged American here. I go to more social gatherings than I have in any time since college.

I would add a second dimension to your stratification: People who have kids and those who don’t. Once you have kids who enter school age, there are more social opportunity than you have time for. Even many of the people who never threw parties before now host a few cookouts or birthday parties per year.

The events are based on people who attend the same school or whose kids are friends with your kid, so you’re not always hitting it off with all of the other parents as future best friends. However you do get exposed to a lot of new people and each new introduction increases your odds of finding people you connect with.

One realization is that it didn’t actually require having kids to start doing all of this. Inviting people over for a backyard cookout or a simple dinner was always easy. Easier without kids, actually. Most simply don’t make the initiative.

Another problem is the increasing burden that people create for themselves or their friends with social events: Expectations of bringing gifts, showing up with a bottle of wine that isn’t too cheap, dressing nicely, and the biggest event killer of all: Trying to find a date that works for everyone of the guests. Parent get together dispense with all of that. Everyone’s busy with kids. If you show up for 30 minutes in shorts and a T-shirt bearing no gifts and you have to leave early, everyone is just happy you came. A date is sent out and whoever is available can come. If not, we’ll see you next time.

My wife is an extrovert and I'm an introvert. We are also the party throwers. If we didn't throw parties I don't think our extended family on her side would ever see each other. But even as an introvert, I feel very grateful and energized after hosting people at our home.

I love hosting, especially because I have invested a lot in my cooking skills. However, now inviting someone over means hosting an entire family and my job has evolved into cleaning, doing dishes, and prepping food, while everyone else is having the time of their life (we don't have a large space). Just not so enjoyable, so we have slowly stopped doing them and others rarely host them as well. An alternative is that we now do dinner picnics at the park, way more easier and no one is stuck doing hosting work.

I'd get more energy from sitting alone in a dark room than by throwing a - or attending a - party...

That doesn't mean I don't enjoy attending (never throwing) parties on occasion, but it's exhausting to me. Whenever I come home from a social occasion I need time to recover.

It's very much down to different personalities.

I do think it’s possible to move between categories though. I used to have potlucks and house parties every month in my twenties, but now a decade later I just don’t really have much interest in the idea.

It might just be a rationalization, but the way I justify it is that as I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized more what actually matters to me, and being a party host / spending time at parties doesn’t fit that category. I’d rather spend my time doing something else.

This. It’s also why I started celebrating my birthday and throwing a party. I am not doing it for me, I am an introvert and it is a lot of work, but I am doing it for my guests who have a great time.

(For perfectionists: people always have a good time when there’s some food and drinks and other people. Everything else, even music, is really optional.)

We used to have parties. But then my wife had a few realisations:

1. "I hate losing sleep, and there are very few things in the world now important to me than a good night's sleep".

This has been a life changer for both of us. I used to be a late owl, but when she started going to bed at 9:30,I did too. We now have competitive "what was your sleep score" in the mornings over breakfast

2. "I do not enjoy conversations with more than 3 other people at the same time"

I don't mind crowds and can "hold forth" with entertaining stories and have fun doing it, but my wife has social anxiety that really only emerged in larger groups. She doesn't even like going to parties or bars, and after a few drinks, leaves me to it.

3. "I don't like getting wasted, and I don't even like getting slightly drunk if it screws up my sleep"

For me it's more medical. While I'm perfectly healthy, I noticed around the age of 45 that red wine gives me palpitations and tachycardia. Lots of beer (especially really nice beer) does the same. My father is 99 years old because he never drank alcohol. I honestly believe a single hangover would actually kill him. But certainly, years of "not kicking the shit out of his insides with booze" have contributed to his long life.

I used to throw parties not long ago. At least once a week, often more than that. Anywhere between 5 and 35 people.

Then I became a single father and I haven't thrown a single party since then.

Damn I miss throwing parties.

Personal experience and observation so take it for what it's worth: people are more flaky and less committal now.

It used to be if you throw a party and invite a bunch of people, the ones that say they'll come will probably come. Now, you invite a bunch of people, you get mostly a bunch of maybe and half don't show up.

It makes it both harder to plan and have the social risk of a dud of a party. Worst thing you want as a host is people not having a good time.

> 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.

I doubt its that they forget - it probably just isn't gratifying to them. Different people find different things gratifying.

This is my experience exactly. We used to host a monthly board gaming party before we moved and it was very energizing and exhausting at the same time.

After the two kids the games disappeared and it just became a normal party where we could talk and such and a playdate for the our and the other parents kids.

We will probably do it again when we settle into a new home at least I hope.

Thanks you for this comment.

I’m bad at throwing parties and I’m a bad cook.

So instead I invite friends/family to stay over. Even with kids.

Thats also very gratofying, play some board games, sit next to the fire and then have breakfast together.

Best way to copē with the world at it’s current state.

(Also a European here, mildly affectrd ny war)

This is my experience too, and I'm more of an introvert who finds throwing a party both gratifying and exhausting. There are friends who reciprocate and friends who don't, and I don't judge.

I think people who throw parties are invited to parties.

People who don't throw parties might want to think about this. :)

I'd like to share my experience throwing parties, and some thoughts on introversion & extroversion.

I held weekly board game nights at my home for a year or two during the latter part of COVID. I loved board games and missed the weekly meetups that stopped happening due to lockdown. I only invited very close friends, all of whom are still very close. And I genuinely ruined my love of board games from how frustrating the experience proved to be. I put in a lot of effort to be a good host and everyone sure seemed to want to play board games, but over and over it was like herding cats once they were over. They were all acting in good faith, and yet that experience burned me out so much and my brain now associates board games with that experience so much that I barely play anymore, and don't enjoy it like I once did.

Now whether you want to use the label "introvert" or not, I was determined to push outside of my comfort zone that was staying in alone. But each of those dozens of nights drained me in a way that that cumulatively has left an emotional scar deep enough to impact my identity (being a person who loves board games was part of who I was, a part I liked)

I suspect that of the ways people will respond to this story, there are two that will be most common

1. What the heck are you talking about? I can't imagine having that experience

and

2. Yeah, that tracks

Whether or not you call those groups extrovert & introvert, and whether you believe such preferences are inherent, learned behavior, or social conditioning, here is a truth:

Trying to change your nature, however you came to have it, comes with a cost and can go wrong.

So for those who consider introversion to be mere choice, I encourage you to be less flippant in how you try to convince people of that.

100% I have been a "party thrower" for years and it is obvious that the bulk of our friend group never hosts an event. I think this is probably the way it's been with humans for a long time though. It is an interesting observation.

> Afterwards you are tired but also grateful and socially energized in a way that feels fundamental to my existence.

Every culture with a tradition of being a welcoming host has a saying along the lines of, “the pleasure is in the preparation”.

For those of us that live that life, it’s hard to imagine it any other way.

I self-identify as an introvert and don't much like social obligations. Nevertheless it's nice every once in a while that my wife drags me into them. If she's not there as a catalyst, I would probably be rotting at home with vitamin D deficiency.

Grateful for people who host and provide social opportunities even though I'm sometimes not outwardly social.

This also depends on the pennies we have to spare. I also as a middle aged and middle class European like to invite friends over, but the youth these days (and many many adults, at least around here) don't have the money to spend on this. Not the only reason, but a substantial one IMO.

This seems to be the divide between introverts and extroverts.

My wife and I have hosted dinner parties a few times. I have never gotten the same sense of gratification that you have.

there's more than two types, because the type that never throws parties can be subdivided into smaller groups of people who throw parties due to familial requirements - kids, visiting relatives from other countries and so forth.

I got tired just reading this comment.

In the almost 11 years I have owned my home, I just hosted a group for the second time. It was a game night with dinner.

You are right: It was work, it was money. I am not exactly a social butterfly, but even I was able to pull off a gathering of four other people. It was so worth it, because we all had an absolute blast.

It was also very much needed. So I, for one, plan on doing my part to counter this trend.

People might be getting fatter or more unfit. Still there are subcultures where people are fit as all --. The commitment is unreal. The amount they can talk about fitness is truly endless. And if you asked them it would be all about character and social milieu. Things might have changed in the last decades, but that’s at best uninteresting facts to them.

More and more divergence, subcultures, while the mean tends towards a bad direction. And no understanding. Because why don’t they Just Do It?

Edit: But I hear that Europe is a large country.

asabiyyah is a vital component to the survival of civilization

> 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.

Nope. Its a bunch of work and stress and thoroughly beaten by a dull night in. If I want to bring people together, I'll pay for it to be done - e.g. a restaurant.

I can feel equally socially energised meeting people outside and I don't have to spend hours cleaning up after!

Absolutely true about the two divisions in people.

I had an introverted girlfriend who enjoyed my tradition of inviting couples over for small dinner parties, but if said couple didn't reciprocate the invitation within some arbitrary period, she would claim they were impolite and we shouldn't invite them anymore.

My view was and is: the number of people happy to be invited to a party is lower than the number of people who are happy to host. It's not rudeness, nor even selfishness; it's sometimes just a flavor of introvert behavior.

If this weren't true, you'd be too busy with invites to think of some friends as "they always throw great parties".

It's almost unbelievable that people like you exist. Attending a gathering is torture enough. Hosting one, repeatedly at that, sounds like living in the ninth circle of hell.

Thanks for your service to humanity.

One thing you may not have thought about is that not everyone has a big enough social circle to throw parties.

I'd love to throw amazing parties, but I can't reliably expect more than 2-3 people to show up, so I don't try.

alright, where do I rsvp?

There's a third and fourth group. People who get invited to these parties and people who are never invited to parties

>people who regularly throw a party and people who never do it.

I have no doubt it might seem that way, but it doesn't seem like an interesting divide because the categorization doesn't really tell you anything about the people. But it's definitely a good rule of to thumb to remember the next time someone feels annoyed that "so and so never throws parties." It's also true when you visit friends in cities you never been. Some are natural and enthusiastic tour guides, some shun such a role.

But my guess is many the "never hosts" threw at least one party in the past and had a terrible experience and decided they suck at it.

I'm also assuming the never people you know are capable of throwing parties in terms of house size etc, and that you accounted for the ineligible in that respect.

I know people who are self-conscious about their messy houses and the idea of maintaining a presentable tidy house for parties would be enough for them to dismiss the idea outright even though they would like to do it in theory.

You're doing the Lord's work. Thank you so much for that, even though I don't directly benefiting from it.

There is an epidemic of disconnection and loneliness, Putnam and others are 100% right. There's an organized effort by some people to isolate humans from each other as much as possible, and they have their own swarm of useful idiots to aide them.

The solution to this problem needs explicit action, this is not something that will take care of itself, or people would adapt to it.

I bought a domain recently, https://clubs.fyi that I will devote to this purpose of human connection[1], if anyone wants to join shoot me an email, there's nothing there yet but there will be stuff in a week or so. :)

1. Not connection in the SF-sense like Facebook, Meetup, etc.

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