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The death of partying in the USA

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Re: The death of partying in the USA

#651

Post by nradov »

Auracle wrote: post #513
mcgrath_sh wrote: post #465

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a happy medium between the "hotels every other weekend year round" travel/club sports and no sports, which is sports for your school or community teams. If I ever have kids I absolutely want to enroll them in sports. It will absolutely not be the travel/club teams that means us going to hotels every other weekend. I am probably naïve in thinking that it is possible to play for your high school without club s…

Apparently in our school you straight up won't be able to play in the regular school teams unless you do the travel teams starting in elementary school, because everyone else does it. Therefore, your child won't be as good as them unless they're an absolute savant at the sport. They'll still get to be on the team, but actually playing? Probably not.

The quality of coaching is also a factor. My daughter played indoor volleyball for several years on both travel club and public school varsity teams. The high school coach lacked experience and tried to teach her inferior techniques that contradicted what she had learned from the last club coach, so she got frustrated and quit the team.

The sad thing is that kids who can't afford to play in travel clubs will usually never have a chance to develop the skills they need to make the high school varsity team. And even the club teams are sort of an escalating arms race: if you want to make the "A" team then you'll have to pay for extra private lessons and position clinics.

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#652

Post by speleding »

Aurornis wrote: post #257
Apreche wrote: post #28

This article isn’t wrong, but it neglects to mention real estate, transportation, and lodging. A party needs a venue, and it needs guests. And the guests need a way to get to and from the venue. If they stay a long time, they need a place to sleep. People these days don’t own real estate. Wealthy people own it all. Normal people are renting apartments or portions of homes. It’s kind of hard to throw a big party witho…

> People these days don’t own real estate. Wealthy people own it all. Normal people are renting apartments or portions of homes. It’s kind of hard to throw a big party without a big home, a yard, a big kitchen, etc. Small apartments are for small get-togethers that probably don’t register as parties. This is baffling to me. Most of the parties I went to in high school, college, and my 20s were in people's tiny apartm…

I agree that owning real estate doesn't seem a big issue to me, but urban design does: I lived on both sides of the pond and in the USA getting to a party usually involved driving somewhere. That means organizing to go there with a group and a designated driver to stay sober, or getting a taxi (too expensive, when I was young). In Europe, I could just get on my bike and show up by myself. That lowers the barrier to entry considerably. As far as I can tell, urban sprawl in the US has made it even more car dependent today than when I was growing up.

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#653

Post by saturneria »

paulryanrogers wrote: post #613
lurk2 wrote: post #543

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People deep cleaned their houses for parties long before social media and smartphones came along.

Only if they were rich or OCD. Plenty of parties were thrown with little prep when there weren't insta/tok/snaps showing off perfection 24/7.

Yea only the rich people clean their house lol.

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#654

Post by paulryanrogers »

saturneria wrote: post #653
paulryanrogers wrote: post #613

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only if they were rich or OCD. Plenty of parties were thrown with little prep when there weren't insta/tok/snaps showing off perfection 24/7.

Yea only the rich people clean their house lol.

Not what I said. IME, the only people who "deep clean" before every party are either rich or are obsessed with cleanliness.

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#655

Post by nradov »

mtalantikite wrote: post #559
1shooner wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The demands on kids and families I'd like to understand this more. Families like this that I know talk about it as though it's as unavoidable as their mortgage, but functionally isn't this entirely self-imposed? Is it a lack of vision for an alternative? Are whole families succumbing to peer pressure? I don't relate to it.

I think a lot of families are also optimizing for university admissions. Strong athletes often have an easier time with admissions (assuming they're also good academically). I remember having an interview with an engineering professor from Tufts when I was applying to schools, and one of the first things he asked me was what team sports I played. Being a typical nerdy kid I avoided athletics -- even though I was good…

Exactly. My daughter was able to get admitted to a good college as a recruited athlete, which helped compensate for mediocre grades. Regardless of the financial issues, that made the entire college applications process much easier and less stressful.

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#656

Post by bluGill »

burnt-resistor wrote: post #625
bluGill wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Each garage is different. If you are working on your car in an open garage that is an invite for someone else interested in cars to say hi, offer advice - and possibly pitch in when you are working on something that needs more than 1 person. If you see someone playing guitar in their garage that is an invite to bring your fiddle and join in. If you see someone playing pool that is your invite to play the next ga…

Grandparents lived at the end of a T intersection facing a cul-de-sac on a secondary residential road, so perhaps that made their house seemingly more inviting. The sidewalk was perhaps 30 ft / 9m away from the garage and there were no obstructions. He had his garage door open a lot but kept an eye on it most of the time. Grandpa once lamented some teenager stole beer from his garage fridge. At one point, around 2005…

My comment was about when the owner is in the garage and thus watching things. Security when you are not there is a different consideration.

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#657

Post by bluGill »

homeless_engi wrote: post #539
bluGill wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very few places on earth are like that. Even in Europe's dense cities there are a lot of cars, get outside of that and there is no hope of an alternative. Though Europe is somewhat likely to have a bar within walking distance of your house, but a lot of people in Europe drive to whatever bar they drink in at least sometime. Most of the world's public transportation sees themselves as a way to get to work and so parti…

East Asia has lots of highly walkable cities with great public transit -- even a few you might not have heard of. Not just Tokyo, Seoul, Shanghai, Beijing but also Shenzhen, Chongqing, and Hangzhou to name a few.

Sure, there are small areas like that (which are dense areas meaning a lot of people live there), but they are still a minority. Even within those cities there are places that are more walkable than others.

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#658

Post by megaloblasto »

ZephyrBlu wrote: post #507
millipede wrote: post #455

I've been throwing moderately large parties the past 2 years (12-40 people) and the lack of partying is definitely noticeable. Most people don't reciprocate, making it disheartening to keep doing it. I wanted to build friendships out of it, and hopefully get invited to more parties myself, but so far it hasn't happened. It's a decent amount of set up (cleaning, buying food, coordinating), and a lot of clean up after…

Very few people want to host/organize other people. The end goal of throwing parties shouldn’t be friendship or getting invited to other people parties, it’s building a large loose network of people you’re acquaintances/shallow friends with and becoming a super connector. If you ONLY want to make friends or get invited to parties I think focusing on finding specific people and spending time with them 1:1 is a much be…

Damn, I always thought the end goal of throwing a party was to get buzzed and have a good time with friends.

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#659

Post by gilbetron »

burnt-resistor wrote: post #11

My grandma was the head of the local Air Force wives' club. Their house was always stocked like a full bar and at least several people stopped by for a visit just about every day. They knew at least 10 of their neighbors well, and some former neighbors too. Find me community like this anywhere in America these days. Immigrant communities perhaps? Most Americans these days won't interact with their neighbors unless it…

They definitely still exist, my sister, and both of my sister in laws are extremely social people and regularly hang out, "party", with their neighbors and other friends. I additionally have a couple of coworkers that have block parties, and just really social communities. But they are definitely the exception now, and are only really for people that are just inherently social and extroverted. The rest of us, where "partying" is a lot more of an effort, just kind of don't anymore.

I miss it a little bit, like I enjoy being social for a couple of hours two or three times a week, but not much more. But a bunch of people like me makes for a poor social situation since it is hard to get everyone's social levels aligned.

Re: The death of partying in the USA

#660

Post by kawfey »

lr4444lr wrote: post #6

The parental part bears special mention. My spouse and I find that we are overwhelmingly the ones calling to organize playdates rather than vice versa. I'd like to think it's not that my kids are poorly socialized or misbehave - they've always received glowing reports at school. I give my kids business cards with my phone number to pass out to their friends to give to their parents, and there is also a class list whe…

> My spouse and I find that we are overwhelmingly the ones calling to organize playdates rather than vice versa.

Why do you think this is? Because it's very true for me too -- not only play dates but also just regular socializing, like hangouts, game nights, happy hours and bar dates, cookouts, holiday, parties, etc. I feel like I'm always the first one to text or call somebody. It makes me question what other people are doing.

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