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Facts about throwing good parties

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Re: Facts about throwing good parties

#311

Post by tspng »

crazybonkersai wrote: post #302
cvoss wrote: post #114

> The biggest problem at many parties is an endless escalation of volume. If you know how to fix this, let me know. Ideally, a guest breaks a cheap glass. The sound is heard across the house. The helpers immediately spring into action, leaving their conversations behind, looking for towels and a dustpan. The people nearby go mute with sympathetic embarrassment. Much ado is made of finding every shard. Meanwhile you a…

Or just do not serve alcohol. When people are sober, they tend to keep their voices in check. But then again is it fun?

Even though I drink some alcohol as well, it think kind of sad that it has such a reverse association with not having fun. I am sure almost all people would have an awesome time regardless. It's very deeply ingrained in our culture and just the default behaviour when meeting in the evening.

Re: Facts about throwing good parties

#312

Post by Vinnl »

saghm wrote: post #148
cvoss wrote: post #114

> The biggest problem at many parties is an endless escalation of volume. If you know how to fix this, let me know. Ideally, a guest breaks a cheap glass. The sound is heard across the house. The helpers immediately spring into action, leaving their conversations behind, looking for towels and a dustpan. The people nearby go mute with sympathetic embarrassment. Much ado is made of finding every shard. Meanwhile you a…

This is ingenious. If I ever host a house party, I might consider stocking on some cheap glassware just in case (and figure out which friend I can trust to do the dirty work)...

Haha, my first thought too; I'm sure you can also just find some spots where someone is bound to bump one over. It might just get suspicious the fourth time around, though then again, that might make the party memorable.

Re: Facts about throwing good parties

#313

Post by Vinnl »

tgv wrote: post #305
sbuccini wrote: post #8

22) Turn the AC wayyyyyyy down when the party starts 23) Buy frozen finger food and put into oven in staggered batches. When a batch is ready, immediately transfer to serving tray and walk through party offering people food. Great task to delegate to that one attendee who doesn't know anyone! 24) Polaroids/Disposable cameras are cheap and seem to be universally adored. Get a few and scatter them throughout the party.…

Not being a USian: what does turning the AC down mean? Set the thermostat to a lower temperature or make it less active (i.e. set it to a higher temperature)?

As someone who's been in a room with many people: I'm confident it means that the temperature should be low, because the room will quickly heat up otherwise.

(This is also the reason I'm hesitant about the oven tip, given that the kitchen is where the true party is.)

Re: Facts about throwing good parties

#314

Post by bawolff »

ryukoposting wrote: post #132

Call me bad at parties, but a dedicated app for inviting people to the party is too much fanfare for my taste. If everyone waits around to see if their friends are going, nobody will RSVP because they're all waiting on each other to RSVP. We're all friends here. A good party fosters serendipity. Granted, I'm the same person who accepts any invitation to any concert, and intentionally doesn't listen to the band ahead…

I'm glad im not the only one who found that bizarre. I'm not exactly a social butterfly, so i was wondering if im just out of touch with the more sophisticated social scene, but the idea of having an app for a private party just seems nuts to me. Maybe if its a wedding or something.

Then again the entire thing seems predicated on having large (> 10 people) house parties, which, at least in my social circle, is something teenagers do, not adults

Re: Facts about throwing good parties

#315

Post by bluGill »

RealityVoid wrote: post #200
bluGill wrote: post #68

Earlier 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"

Still worth it. I say this a bit tongue in cheek, but a bit of rowdiness once in a while does good to the soul. Sure. You still need to be careful, but a world without these experices feels a bit bland.

There are a lot of ways to have fun that don't risk brain damage. If you can't imagine them that proves your lack.

Re: Facts about throwing good parties

#316

Post by bluGill »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #270
bluGill wrote: post #68

Earlier 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"

I do think some people will notice mental decline to a point - I'm nearing 40 and am nowhere near as sharp as I think I once was, for example. But would you be aware if you never had a period in your life where you did feel sharp?

What of that is normal aging?

Re: Facts about throwing good parties

#317

Post by chris_wot »

B-Con wrote: post #44
TheAceOfHearts wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Dave Barry is a humor writer. I've followed him for 20 years and this is absolutely his style of writing, perhaps even paraphrased from one of his pieces. Hats off to OP if this is their original writing, it nails his style.

Dave Barry caused me to write the original Exploding Whale article on Wikipedia. I got the first oddball barnstar, which was made just for me.

I’m now banned.

Re: Facts about throwing good parties

#318

Post by chris_wot »

kelseydh wrote: post #47
nicbou wrote: post #15

I prefer to invite people individually, and create a group chat with those who confirmed. Nothing is more demoralising than 24 hours of people saying they won’t come, in the group chat, right before the event. My flake rate is close to zero, mostly because people personally told me they’ll join. It doesn’t hurt to get the group chat hyped up on the day of the event. The activity is enough to get people excited. I als…

I miss the days when Facebook events worked well for getting people to attend a party. Now, nobody is on Facebook so those event invitations get missed and you need to hustle much harder with individual chat messages to get people to attend.

Is this truly a thing that now nobody is on Facebook? I thought it was only me!

Re: Facts about throwing good parties

#319

Post by vasco »

robocat wrote: post #220
vasco wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So I live in Amsterdam and my friends are from about 6 European countries and we do the same as the Brazilian guy. Imagine being in the playground as a kid. You just are there. And if its fun, its not fun because of you, its fun because of the group which is there. So are parties, they just "are". All these rules you guys have appear to me like watching a movie about a psychopath lining up pens in the living room.

You are just being judgy. Dong think of it as rules, think of it as someone explaining etiquette. That is hard to write down without sounding weird. I bet you are oversimplifying how good parties are created in your own culture. If you tried to write down the actual etiquette it would come out sounding weird to us all. Humans create odd rituals and expectations about everything social. You only really notice it when…

You're being downvoted probably because hn is too sensitive to you calling me judgy but you have a good point. It's hard to write about this without sounding weird, and I guess if I wanted to write about what makes a good party I'd also sound weird. I guess my point was more about the mindset of how you even think about the thing. For me it just "is", and that's a good part of why it works. I wouldn't want to think everyone at the party is focused on maximizing the fun instead of, you know, just naturally having fun.

Like imagine if during sex you think your partner is just meta-thinking about giving you a good experience - they should just be enjoying and so should you. To me this example makes it more visceral but upon reflection I'm just making a basic "live in the moment" cliche.

Re: Facts about throwing good parties

#320

Post by BowBun »

kashnote wrote: post #34

Love all of these tips. I've hosted dozens of events since moving to NYC and figured I'd add 5 more: 1. If this is a dinner party (or people are all seated), force people to get up and move in a way that they'll meet new people. Do this when you're about 2/3 of the way through the party. Some will complain - do it anyway. 2. Plan 1 (ideally 2) interludes. It can be a small speech, moving people around, changing locat…

#4 has been tough for me - I take it semi-personally, as a sign of disrespect. I get that everyone has things going on. That said committing to an event where the host spends time + money to prepare forand then not going just seems so rude to me.

I try not to give folks a hard time, but after a couple strikes I just won't invite them anymore. It's not worth accomodating people who regularly flake, they can hang out with other flakes.

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