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Ask HN: Where are all the parties?

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Re: Ask HN: Where are all the parties?

#291

Post by mihaic »

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.

Re: Ask HN: Where are all the parties?

#292

Post by spoiler »

johnchristopher wrote: post #242
spoiler wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A friend recently introduced me to this quote, and even though it generalises a little[1], I think it ring true: > Hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, and weak men create hard times. I think we're entering that last cycle again, where people are inventing trivial hardships for themselves, because media teaches them that only a life with some type of adversity is wor…

> The recent trend of unironically calling people "NPCs" and "bots" just reinforces these beliefs, IMO. I missed that one, though now that I read it I realize there's a lot of bot calling going-on on an FPS server I regularly visit. By the way, is this site done with calling regular people "normies" ?

I think calling people bots in FPS games was always a thing. It's when people have poor pathing, or make seemingly nonsensical decisions. I meant more in real life

Re: Ask HN: Where are all the parties?

#293

Post by nickgray »

molsongolden wrote: post #127

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…

Howdy, just saying Thank You for giving my book a shoutout! Tell me if you accept the challenge at the end of Chapter 1 and I'll personally help you out. I think you'll do great. This will be fun.

Re: Ask HN: Where are all the parties?

#294

Post by nickgray »

curiousllama wrote: post #204
wheats wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"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." Any advice? That's a hard thing to do!

For sure. Assuming you have a few friends to start: (0) Reach out to everyone. Everyone. That old college acquaintance you just noticed is in your city? Get coffee/happy hour. You never know who's looking for more friends. (1) Encourage people to invite/bring their friends when you organize something. Hit up one friend for happy hour/food. "You've mentioned [coworker] a few times before - would he/she want to join us…

^^ this is great advice

Re: Ask HN: Where are all the parties?

#295

Post by ch4s3 »

andai wrote: post #272
motohagiography wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A generation of immunocompromised guys with AIDS built the entire electronic music and rave scene in the 80s and 90s, the fashion business, and most of the culture you consume today. It's not condescending if your issues are in fact discretionary. I travel with someone who will die within an hour of exposure to peanuts, regularly spend time with people in their 80's and 90s who have been on deaths door for years, rid…

>A generation of immunocompromised guys with AIDS built the entire electronic music and rave scene in the 80s and 90s, the fashion business, and most of the culture you consume today. Zoomer here, could you elaborate on this?

Before good treatment was widely available something like pneumonia could kill you if you had AIDS which was tearing through the gay communities in major cities at the time. These men basically built rave culture, ran most of the fashion houses, ran magazines(think GQ), and built a lot of popular culture in the 80s/90s. There was a culture of celebrating life in the face of gruesome and painful death. Magazines an zines from the community of the period often listed dead editors in memoriam while sardonically listing current editors as the future deceased.

Re: Ask HN: Where are all the parties?

#296

Post by mingusrude »

edding4500 wrote: post #102
mingusrude wrote: post #27

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…

I am currently reading '30 lessons for living' by Karl Pillemer and one chapter is about aging fearlessly and well. Most elderly realized in hindsight that they imagined being old as a terrible thing. They feared getting older by the age of 40 because they felt what you describe: life seems to get more serious and more boring. Friends don't want to party like they used to do. One of the advices of the chapter was the…

Yes, this is very true. My experience is that as you get older you make fewer new contacts. It's not illogical, at first there is school, then university, then kids. All of these are excellent at making new friends but once the kids get old enough you stop naturally meet people outside of work, at least you have to put in some work for it to happen. I realized the other week that if I would not have my wife, it would easily be weeks between having a somewhat deep discussion with anyone outside of work. It's a terrifying thought.

Re: Ask HN: Where are all the parties?

#297

Post by pmontra »

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 :-)

Re: Ask HN: Where are all the parties?

#298

Post by wsetchell »

motohagiography wrote: post #184

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 t…

What is this fraternal order and how did you find it?

Re: Ask HN: Where are all the parties?

#299

Post by blacksqr »

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.

Re: Ask HN: Where are all the parties?

#300

Post by EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK »

QUrprUd1nCeicw wrote: post #209
motohagiography wrote: post #184

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 t…

As someone who has health problems that forcibly put me in at least a few of those "discretionary lifestyle demands," it's a little condescending for you to just dismiss it later as "neuroticism and anxiety about maintaining purity." The worst is probably COVID-related -- immunocompromised people have been complaining for these past couple of years about how the world just stopped taking COVID seriously and they stil…

If you go to a nightclub and present your list of illnesses to the bouncer demanding to accommodate it, will they let you in?
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