This guy is a genius
Facts about throwing good parties
181–190 of 431 posts
Re: Facts about throwing good parties
#182Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is ridiculous. When I throw parties I tell a couple of my friends and tell them to tell others and people just show up. Americans are living in some sort of parallel dimension.
There are certain kinds of styles of gatherings that do much better when there are 40-50 people present, rather than 10-20. If you are going for a low pressure hang and want 10-20, it's easy enough to just tell friends and tell them to tell others, you'll hit those numbers easy. If you are trying to do something a bit more memorable and you want to guarantee a higher turnout, you have to invest more effort into ensur…
Low pressure hang of 10-20 people.
Reminds me of an acquaintance who told me he was an introvert; he said after 20 hours of being around people he'd need a couple hours to recharge.
Re: Facts about throwing good parties
#183I don’t like #2 because I hate the game of tricking people to be on time and then people start compensating further and eventually I’m trying to host a Cosmic Comet Party and you’re showing up after the punch has been distributed. I just like being honest and stripping away the layers of manipulation. “Starts at 2:00. Please be on time. If you don’t want to be the first, show up at 2:10. If you want to come early, we…
> Starts at 2:00. Please be on time. This will not work with south american guests. It's a cultural thing, being a little late (but not too late) is cool; being on time seems desperate or too strict.
I would say personally I don't care if people show up late, but I'm also not going to play scheduling mind games to try to trick them into being there on time. The event starts at whatever time the invitation says. If someone shows up late, I have no sympathy if they are upset that they missed the beginning. But I'm not going to be mad they didn't show up right on time, either. It's ultimately their problem, not mine.
Re: Facts about throwing good parties
#184Earlier quoted context omitted.
I had a halloween party once. It had everything: Substance abuse, debauchery, a proper PA system shaking the floor, good lighting, costumes, good people we knew, random other people we'd never met before, a keg of beer, epic bean dip... everything but the police, somehow. Anyway, my boss showed up. I don't know if I invited him or if he just decided to be there on his own. He was having a great time with everything,…
> everything but the police, somehow. I learned you gotta have a “that guy” around and you get police showing up at some point almost 100%. Once upon a time, during my time in sales, some of the permanent sale guys would throw parties at their shared place (near a University campus) that attracted lots of people no one knew and got pretty rowdy. It would be mostly fine, sometimes a pair of cops showed up & left witho…
If you ever played a game called Party House, which is a deck builder that "teaches" you how to organize parties. It's one of many absolutely fantastic games in the UFO50 collection:
https://ufo50.miraheze.org/wiki/Party_House
It teaches you that if you have too many of "that guys" in the mix, the police will come. The fix is to invite a few hippies and the problem is solved by itself.
Re: Facts about throwing good parties
#185I'm already out after Rule 1 (prioritize your ease of being). If I prioritized my ease of being I wouldn't throw a party in the first place.
Honestly, depending on the party I just don't even go. The loud drunk type of parties that a lot of people are talking about here are absolute misery for me. I just wind up standing off to the side, too shy to strike up a conversation with any of the various strangers around, and eventually just leave. Eventually I stopped going to such parties because I just wind up feeling awful about myself afterwards. On the other hand, I love having dinner parties with friends or family, because then I actually can talk to people and have a nice time. Both of those things are parties, but they are both very different experiences for me.
Re: Facts about throwing good parties
#186Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Where is that brain damage they promised us? How would you know? Sure you would know if you were walking but otherwise braindead, but if you are "5 iq points dumber" (whatever that means) or something like that you wouldn't know since there is no way to know what "might have been"
True, but in that case you aren’t really missing anything either right?
You're equally fine with how you are now or having 20 to 50 less IQ points? Of course you're missing something, probably the most important thing in the world after rich parents is being smart.
Re: Facts about throwing good parties
#187I sure miss the kind of parties where they have to get an emergency court order to cut power the building at 3am. I learned everything I need to know about throwing parties from Dave Barry. If you throw a party, the worst thing that you can do would be to throw the kind of party where your guests wake up today, and call you to say they had a nice time. Now you'll be be expected to throw another party next year. What…
Posts like this really make me feel like I'm living in a completely different reality from some people. I can't tell how much of this is exaggerated for comedic value and how much of it is genuine.
"Kids don't follow" by the Replacements.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGxINyXiVgQ
Describes many a Minneapolis party in the early 80s.
Re: Facts about throwing good parties
#188Earlier quoted context omitted.
That makes two of us. I've never heard of (or thank god, been to) a party where a host is forcing people to move around, especially in an unnatural way. Nothing feels like a forced party more than, well, forcing.
> I've never heard of (or thank god, been to) a party where a host is forcing people to move around, especially in an unnatural way. You've never been to a party where you had dispersed throughout the location, and then the host gathered you to eat a meal or a cake (possibly singing a song prior to distributing the cake)?
Calling for dinner is one thing. Forcing seating or forcing rearrangement sounds lunatic but I'm happy I can choose friends well enough that nobody ever tried. Most points in the original article sound crazy to me as well though.
Re: Facts about throwing good parties
#189Earlier quoted context omitted.
Cacio e Pepe, carbonara, spaghetti aglio e olio, spaghetti al vongole, white ragù There's a whole world out there! Tomato sauces can be acidic, so not great when drunk. Also tomatoes stain (if it were to come back up) !
Agreed that spaghetti sauce doesn't have to be tomato based. Just olive oil doesn't cut it, though - you need more than that.
Buttered noodles are good, I have no a priori reason that simple oil wouldn't be also.
Re: Facts about throwing good parties
#190I sure miss the kind of parties where they have to get an emergency court order to cut power the building at 3am. I learned everything I need to know about throwing parties from Dave Barry. If you throw a party, the worst thing that you can do would be to throw the kind of party where your guests wake up today, and call you to say they had a nice time. Now you'll be be expected to throw another party next year. What…
When I worked at LSI Logic in the 2000's, there were a lot of young Europeans (mostly Italian) on the staff. They had rented a house in Palo Alto which was affectionately called "The Pleasure Lounge". It was just one of those houses that had the awesome party vibe. The only rule was that if you had to puke, you had to go in the back yard and do it in front of the Mother of Mary statue. The best part was if you made i…
At least no https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speibecken ?