This may not be shared by other people, but my two cents.
I personally don't like inviting people to my house (or going to other people's houses) because I already spend a good chunk of my day indoors (I work from home). Whenever possible, I prefer to meet outside.
I think the point of the article is more about meeting with others at all, as opposed to it specifically being at home. So hang out with friends outside!
What a bummer. We have friends, family, and our friends’ families over all the time. 1-2 days a week. Now part of that is obviously we are fortunate to have the space and (barely) the time for it. Still, I want to encourage those who can to make the effort to use their home as a social hub. It’s incredibly gratifying. We get a lot of joy out of sharing our home with others.
Plus when you have kids it’s a lot more convenient than trying to wrangle them at the end of a fun time lol
I’ve been there myself - but your actual friends don’t care.
Try easing into it - go on a late afternoon sunset picnic (ironically also on the list) - a blanket, cheese, crackers, cured meat and wine and a portable speaker. Everyone is happy and it’s super cheap, the outdoors is your living room and a couple hours before sunset never disappoints (though depending on where you are the weather might be a challenge).
Feel like part of the issue is everyone’s self imposed neurosis about not intruding on others. My wife insists on not ever asking to come over to someone’s house - she only wants to be explicitly invited. We invite people over to our place when we can but this leads to us basically never visiting any of our friends because they aren’t the planning type.
You'll want to try and expand your circle of friends to include those that are the planning type and will bring variety to the location. Either that, or start changing the location.
If you don't, people will get bored and eventually the group will disband.
Ask vs Guess culture. Look it up, it explains a lot.
Coming from a very WASPy family, I am very much in the Guess culture -- for a long time I wouldn't dream of inviting myself over somewhere -- but I genuinely think taking some cues from Ask culture people makes a lot of things easier and more sociable.
I'm from the south (US Southeast) and I would never invite myself over, but I've been to hang outs at the vast majority of my friends' places. On this topic it's barely even guess culture here - more like assume! We're still a very sociable culture, we're just a somewhat high-context one. For example, we had a friend who never invited us over despite dozens of hangouts at our place and others. We always wondered why he didn't view us as real friends. It's an expectation for close friendships here, even if you've just got a studio or place you share with roommates. Just part of knowing each other.
I've had plenty of people throughout my life express wanting to come over to my place and hang. There's definitely a social grace of how you'd phrase it, but it's not like it's some alien concept.
Maybe that neurosis explains another phenomena I’ve noticed.
My household hosts a lot and we’ve come to expect a full on 50% flake rate, down to multiple instances of people getting to our street and deciding to stop at the restaurant at the end for food and go home instead of arriving.
It means if we invite less than 5 people there are occasions where literally no one shows up. It’s also difficult to plan for when the odds go in the other direction like one news year party where we invited 30 people, expected ~15 and had 29 show up.
> down to multiple instances of people getting to our street and deciding to stop at the restaurant at the end for food and go home instead of arriving.
That's insane. Who does that and how does it make you feel and have you told them?
First couple of times I was annoyed. At this point it’s become a common joke that X isn’t coming to the party until they walk through the door.
It’s a mix of people with social anxiety and people who have FOMO and agree to three different events on the same day.
The more polite ones in that second group have done things like shown up in tuxes for a casual party and dipped 10 minutes later for some other event.
No talking to the various people in this category has done anything so they just get treated as nice to haves of they show up and we wait 0 seconds for them for anything scheduled.
If I was going to be more verbose I’d say in the 10-15 years prior to AI there was such a demand for software engineers that people with poor social skills or with unique idiosyncrasies were tolerated so the odds of meeting odd people in software were higher than in the general public.
It may go further back than that but I don’t have experience before the 2010s
Yea, we see somewhere between 50-75% flake. You have to invite a LOT of people to end up with a few showing up. Without a way to post the Sankey diagram:
Out of 30 people invited to a typical house party, I'd say maybe 10 respond that they'll come. Out of those 10, 3-5 will actually come. Out of the 20 people that didn't reply, maybe 2-3 of those will show up unannounced. So you need to invite at about a 3:1 ratio.
Article says "The share of adults who say they regularly have friends over has declined 70 percent since 1975", but this may not be an accurate comparison:
> Until 1985, the survey included only married households.
> Putnam acknowledged that women have historically been the keepers of the family social calendar, planning the birthday parties and neighborhood potlucks. For any number of reasons, women seem to do better than men at making and keeping adult friendships and making plans with other families. But in the 1950s and 1960s, tens of millions of women traded their unpaid household management jobs for salaried jobs, and the family social calendar frayed, as men failed to pick up the slack.
Being stay at home parent is super lonely experience, basically the most lonely occupation you can have. In most jobs, you meet people and you do talk to people without trying to. Fairly often, they are unavoidable whether you want it or not. If you are at home with a kid, you are truly absolutely alone, unless you organize something. Every other guy here on HN complains about Covid being lonely, but it was less lonely and socially easier situation than being stay at home parent.
So, alternative framing is that women stopped organizing these as their need do organize them went down. And men did not had that need in the first place, so it did not changed from their point of view.
And simultaneously, it ceased to be acceptable to be the kind of dad who spends multiple evenings a week with buddies, not really spending time with his kids.
My mother was a stay at home mom and at least from my perspective she never seemed isolated but that seemed to be because there were many other stay at home moms on our block. We basically knew everyone on our block that had kids, which was most of them back then. I distinctly remember all the time we spent at our neighbours' houses for combination play dates and card games. Us kids would play inside or outside and the moms would play cards and socialize. There were always people coming and going and it felt like the entire block was a sort of extended family. I don't remember many organized dinner parties but that could just be from being a small child at the time so we weren't up late and didn't spend time sitting at the "adult table" when there were gatherings (we'd be fed something and then go play with the other kids in the basement or another room).
When I met my wife, I discovered very quickly that she had savant-level hosting skills. She is an amazing cook, she prioritizes space to dine in our home (we made sure to have a dining table in our NYC apartment) and she thinks carefully about the experience of her guests. It's a quality that I benefit greatly from, and I'm grateful to her for it.
I do agree that this is a very good quality of a wife. I have a friend whose wife is like this and I can't tell you how much effort he saved for himself.
Blame the screens. Screens are blackholes that suck up your time, attention, awareness and senses.
Screens are evil. They wake up the dead past as if it's alive and happening now. It became so much the norm, that people are afraid to face the real world, real people, real talking. "Dinner party? OMG, real people with real faces that force us to talk to them? Noway sir".
Screens disconnected people from real world, from each other. I was trying a VR headset the other days and immediately threw it away, as it shut off my visual and audio senses completely.
People are downvoting because the tone is a bit harsh but he has a point.
While TV has been a thing for a long time, content was limited, and more importantly curated. You couldn't manage your own playlists/subscriptions and almost infinite content on subjects that interest you.
Video games were mostly for kids.
There were no social media feeds optimize to monopolize your attention and make you doomscroll.
Hey even having a TV/widescreen at home has a direct impact on couples sex life...which magically reactivate when the light goes out.
The internet is wonderful for many things but nobody can denies it has an impact on our in person social life.
I agree with you general sentiment but how did you end up in a situation where you feel this way but also wanted to try a VR headset but then also decided to throw it away immediately after trying it seemingly surprised by what the experience was.
Spoken like someone with no friends or relatives that live far away. Screens can also be extremely connecting. They are a tool and as such value neutral. Is it evil that I can have a weekly video-call with family members on another continent when the alternative would be...simply no contact at all, super expensive phone calls or letters. I don't think so.
I think even with family and friends that live far away, screens are often an excuse as well. Well sorry we aren't going to be able to visit gas is just too much, we can FaceTime instead! And I think it's ignoring the bigger problem, is perhaps you talk to your family members once a week, but do you have your community around you that you talk and do things with 'off screen'? Its easy on the internet to say you do, but the reality is most people would rather doomscroll than be bothered with trying to know their neighbor.
Before screens you visited even less. Well if you compare the 1960s to today - but the 1960s had the phone as well. Compare 1700 to today and you realize quickly that "visiting your sister who married just one village over is a big deal and it couldn't happen often".
Tools are not value neutral, and it’s time we internalise that. Tools are designed with a purpose. An AK-47 is a tool. Its purpose is killing. Its creator was acutely aware of it and by the end even expressed remorse.
Yes, screens can be enabling, but your parent comment is obviously talking of the norm we’re facing. Facebook isn’t value neutral, neither is Instagram, nor TikTok, nor a myriad other insanely popular services which command too many lives. Those are tools designed explicitly to suck up your time, to feed the bellies of their owners at your expense.
Digital tools are made even more not value neutral by the fact that other humans are actively influencing them even while you're using them, via "the algorithm", "dark design patterns", etc.
At least with an AK-47 or a hammer, once you own it physically, it's yours and the original creator isn't sending you subtle psychological nudges to utilize it one way or the other.
I would argue the purpose the tools are designed for is only loosely correlated with their overall value. Secind-order effects and unintended consequences are common with any disruptive technology.
I think OP is referring to all the content that isn't facetiming with people (which for most people is the majority of their screentime). Facetiming with family would be indeed connecting.
I mean... you are substituting your family on a little screen for going out into the real world and making some new friends. I'd argue that, yes, just because you wrap it in "I love my family don't question me" it doesn't change anything.
It is what you make of it. It gives and takes, heat and light, waves for waves, words for words. It lets time stay alive as bits, as long as they don’t rot. In exchange, it suck up your real world time. To use it is to used by it.
We need a new way to use it safely for us and the world writ large.
It's not only the screen. It's everything about late Capitalism. The families are more atomized. There are less families and kids. Big dinners are usually for big families. It takes a lot of skills and practices to prepare a big dinner for 10-12 people quickly.
I have a friend who is married and have 3 kids. His wife is a SAHM. She didn't know anything about cooking before they got married back in 2011, and nowadays she could easily throw a party for 10-12 people with only half of day of preparation (excluding shopping) -- and that's 10 Chinese dishes she had to cook, not BBQ stuffs. That's crazy for us. I can't imagine how much time it would take us to prepare even 5 dishes. I used to watch she cooking and it was so elegant. She uses the stove to its full, including baking, and still has the leisure to talk to me and cut raw food quickly.
It takes practices. She having 3 kids definitely "helps" with the practice. Nowadays people don't get to practice these things. It's like a myth to us.
I think it's kinda impossible for a two-worker family unless you are really into this kind of stuffs. Otherwise taking care of work and kids is already way too much for us.
that's true. and I noticed that was true when I met my internet friends in real life and I noticed the real life interaction made the bond much more valuable and more complex than it was.
even when it's GOOD it's not as good as real life, however, it does take less effort.
I actually doubt it. For one, "blame" implies damage and I'm not sure this is even a real problem. But I actually think it corresponds with rising prosperity (which councides with the rise of technology). People associate with tribes and clans for mutual support and protection and it's just much less necessary now.
TV screens. TVs went from playing a few over the air channels in the 50s and 60s, and then the 70s, 80s brought cable TV and VCRs, and Video Games. 90s brought on DVR, DVDs
The first comment I see saying this. What about the percentage of people who actually own their home? Who can afford a "party"? It does mention dual income but how correlated is this change with the decoupling of economic productivity gains with worker wealth and income?
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. This sounds like a truism, but what I mean is: there are people who regularly throw a party and people who never do it.
I am solidly in the first category. I throw dinner parties, birthday parties, dance parties, midsummer parties, midwinter parties, game parties, etc. It costs time and money and is a lot of work. 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 laugh, talk, dance, etc. Afterwards you are tired but also grateful and energized in a fundamental way.
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.
You're right. Since I'm an introvert myself, I enjoy organizing events and inviting people over, because as the host, I always have a reason to change locations and get some “space” when the socializing becomes too much for me.
That certainly makes sense at an individual level, but it seems implausible as an explanation of the dramatic shift over the past decades from TFA, unless basic character traits have shifted dramatically over the past decades as well.
Character traits, technology, leisure time, have all changed.
It's not either or, it's all of the above: individuals do what feels good and if you're a great party thrower because it energizes you, you'll probably spread that influence some. And then possibly, the group reinforces itself by continuing to throw and attend parties.
At the same time, leisure time has changed: women work more, dads spend more time with kids, and the home offers a lot more easy entertainment that fits in with modern schedules. There seems to be less opportunities for parties with newer generations.
But of course, society seems to shun the party thrower because we're all busy. And so if nobody shows and the party thrower burns out, there's no influence spread. People dislike parties more and the idea reinforces again.
A mix of any of the above goes into our decisions about how to spend time.
I wonder if the cultural existence of the 'introvert vs extrovert' idea has reinforced this to a degree. I'm too young to know, but I doubt this was a discussion in the 80s. I'm also not too sure it's a good thing. I've seen introversion used as an excuse to hermit; extroversion as the sole reason to use drugs.
We put limits on ourselves psychologically in all sorts of ways, and we follow the ones we believe. There's a study that showed people who believe willpower is finite have finite willpower. I thought "well obviously, if you had finite willpower you'd know because you'd run out". Maybe we do just think too much?
If I don't feel like running and I go running, about two thirds of the time I feel like running after a few K. It's the same socially. The goal of introspection shouldn't be to freeze in a minute now.
As an introvert who grew up in a radically extroverted household, forcing oneself to be an extrovert all the time can be psychologically damaging over time.
Introversion is a learned behavior of comfort. Extroversion is a learned behavior of comfort. "Damage" is going outside your comfort zone. Everyone can damage their comfort zone. The brain and body is a chemical soup refined from a combination of your DNA and your environment (what you feed it and are exposed to). The question is, in a society of freedom and free will, if your environment forces you into a behavior you're unhappy with, is that truly damaging?
This is such an arrogant thing to say and completely untrue.
> The question is, in a society of freedom and free will, if your environment forces you into a behavior you're unhappy with, is that truly damaging?
Being forced to conform to a set pattern of social behaviour/enjoyment is thoroughly damaging to your psychological health. It baffles me that anyone would think not.
Not who you asked and and not anonymous. But I know introversion is not learned because I lived it. Decades of making an effort to be social enough never made me any less introverted. I assume the same is true for extroversion but I can't speak from experience there.
I don't think "being extroverted all the time" is the desired outcome that is being demanded.
You don't need to do that to throw a dinner party a couple of times a year.
Imagine if you didn’t feel like running, and you made yourself do it, and after a few K you were like “this sucks, I wish I’d stayed home” and you finish your run and you didn’t enjoy it at all. But people keep telling you how great it is so you keep doing it and you keep hating it and after a while you eventually decide that running is not for you.
Would that be a reasonable conclusion? Or should we conclude that this is a psychological limit and we just need to stop thinking so much?
That's right - its "impossible" to teach others about DOSE; how the chemical soup of the body works differently for everyone, including how environmental factors and behaviors of social interactions can affect it, and how someone may want to see an endocrinologist if they want a different outcome to their life. ;P
You might want to elaborate a bit, because I have no idea what DOSE is besides an all-caps spelling of a word which means how much medicine you're given.
While you're at it, rolling in an understanding that people are different and not everybody enjoys any particular thing would not go amiss.
DOSE - the happy chemicals of the brain - Dopamine, Oxytocin, Seratonin, and Endorphins.
Endorphins, in "most" people, are released during or after physical exercise. Upon release, they help reduce pain, which then sometimes triggers dopamine. This combination is called "runner's high", which can be why people choose to continue running. Those that don't ever "feel" this way, may give up on running and find other ways to get physical activity in their life regimen. Those that never physically exercise typically end up with weight problems, but not always.
The way the brain chemistry varies between people can be different based on many factors such as DNA, food, gut bacteria, environmental chemical exposure, and more... Humans, today, share the same set of chemicals empowering their bodies, however there is mostly small, but sometimes larger, variation in the quantities of those chemicals. So, we're all different, and yet we're all the same.
Chemistry plays a big role in perception of an activity - was it a good activity, or a bad one? Good activities tend to reinforce repeat behavior of that activity, bad ones help reinforce memories of what not to do. So, if you've never experienced runner's high, I could understand why you wouldn't be interested in running. Just don't be sedentary - the human body was not [built|evolved] for sedentary life.
... and not to bring AI into this conversation, but its why the tech is so different - its not tied to the materiality of our brain chemistry. Its merely the [approximate?] representation of our own brain electrical activity without the consequence of all that we are - pain, sadness, happiness, bliss, love, etc...
Full disclosure: I received a dopamine release from the writing of this reply ;P
That's all well and good, but I don't understand why that means that we must have a physical ailment if we don't enjoy running after a few K. Even if every single healthy person experiences runner's high, what says that the individual finds that high to be worth the negative aspects?
I'm glad you found writing your reply to be enjoyable, because it's a lot of words to just miss the point.
For a forum that very often likes to pride itself on how “enlightened” discussions are, people are so arrogantly oblivious of one of the simplest and most well-understood facts that people are different. It’s just utterly depressing to see people arguing that “introversion is a choice, you just have to try harder”.
This is such a clear headed comment, so many people use this introvert trait as an excuse for not making any effort to reach out even to dear friends, to not step out of their own comfort, and to not take any risk.
I believe that all we have in the world are our relationships, maybe hermits are content in their way of life because they never could truly socialize but I don't know about them being fully happy.
What we call shyness to me could be understood as a lack of social intelligence mixed with little self-confidence, both of which you can gain by being out-reaching and taking risks. Not to put the blame on anyone of course because it does take real hard work for "introverts". But again, it is to big a deal to be an oversight and not try to be better in your own way.
It might be clear headed in tone but the argument is fundamentally absurd.
People are different. People have different preferences. Everyone’s mind works in different ways. Any argument that can be summed up as “you’re just no trying hard enough” is fundamentally unsound, unhealthy, unhelpful and entirely disrespectful.
I'm not sure, I think there is value in pushing through friction regardless of if you are introverted or not. One thing that is common to all humans is that loneliness correlates strongly with lack of satisfaction in life and being less healthy.
Before we talked as much about introversion and extroversion, people felt more obligated to do certain social events that they can more easily reject nowadays. That does mean it was uncomfortable and they had to push through friction because it's draining for introverts to do social events but being there also helped with making group of friends and staving loneliness. I do think this change in mores is one of the factors that contributes to the so called loneliness epidemics nowadays.
I'm alone most of the time, but I'm not lonely. Its by choice as I need very little socializing. I used to make an effort to be regularly social, but with the covid lockdowns I realized that I was overall happier with very little socialization. I couldn't come up with any benefit for what it costs me to socialize beyond the little that I actually need.
Thinking back, yes I think that is definitely true. Back before maybe 23 I was constantly looking to be out with people. How much care I have for what people think of me has also been decreasing with age. I socialized more than I wanted to meet other people's expectations and fit in.
> I hate exercise. Like I really really really hate it.
> Should I just accept this and live a life without it?
That is entirely up to you. It's your personal life and your time. No one has the right to say what you should or must do with your time.
Just like socialization, it's up to you on how much you do or don't do. Pretending everyone needs to because you like to is stupid.
Socialization is exhausting, I have to do enough of that working. I am not going to on my personal time. I really don't care what other people think of it, or what justification they use to try and make it some sort of requirement, or how much finger waving they're going to do.
> lack of social intelligence mixed with little self-confidence, both of which you can gain by being out-reaching and taking risks.
I live this. Even today, I have to make myself be social, I have to practice (my first job as a waiter was the best thing to happen to me).
The human engagement muscle atrophies when you indulge "introversion" (for all definitions and causes), and our age of infinite individual delights has tipped the tradeoff towards "alone and easy". I wish the sensitivity toward and acceptance of "neurodivergent" had more recognition that the way humans have been doing things for the last 15000 years might have had some value.
We previously were more accepting, eg, if you read the accounts of various socialites trying to include shy, reclusive, or eccentric friends in high society, you see real effort and concern to include them despite the difference in behavior.
We dropped all that social connection/obligation and associated support it provided for various people when we stopped doing things that historic way.
Talking about a thing to virtue signal is not the same as doing a thing.
At least since the agricultural revolution up until a couple of hundred years ago people lived in small communities of a few hundred people, where their great-great-grandparents also lived, huge extended family networks, regular festivities and behaviors tied to farming work seasons and religious customs, semi-arranged marriages, job/land inherited from father to son.
There is nothing "natural" about living in some cramped city, meeting strangers all the time, trying to build connections and everybody leaving within 3-5 years to hundreds of miles away, navigating relationships online, working for big corporations with no stable coworkers, having to mingle with strangers all the time whose reputation, past etc you know nothing of etc.
The point the person above you is trying to make is that they lived in communities, in constant communication and contact with others. The idea of going home and hanging out by yourself is at least as unnatural as cities where you can still build a relatively stable community if you prioritize that sort of thing.
My point is that it was pretty much automatic and built in. It didn't require active effort, planning, etc. As we became less dependent on those around us and more dependent on large-scale systems of commerce and government, we are simply not forced as much. This is the same with having children and marrying. People "back then" did these things on autopilot, not as active choice. Today it requires active choice and deliberation and planning.
I'm not too sure about that. Personally I feel like for myself it's tied up with self esteem. I have confidence in my skills, just never when there's strangers watching. Also to maintain the world state in your head and avoid stepping on toes etc.
I can feel my heart rate go up. Sometimes when asking or answering questions in the lecture hall I start quivering. Just the thought of standing up, preparing my question and follow ups can cause this.
You may be right in that it's an excuse. But at the same time there's this disgusting physical reaction and yes it's easier to give in than to stand up.
It's easier to interact with loved ones and close friends because you know they know you and won't judge if you say something wrong etc. But not so for any other interaction.
I don't know if it is clear headed. It disregards scientific consensus on introversion / extraversion being a real thing, and it also speaks against the actual experience of many people. Furthermore, you conflate introverts with hermits.
A lot of introverts actually like contact with other people. They often prefer smaller groups and a certain connection, they are more picky. And need some time alone afterwards.
But that doesn't mean they are hermits.
I used to think I like parties. That I have to like it. That something was wrong with me for not liking it. Now I know it is ok to not have fun at a party, and prefer a walk with a good friend or my wife. I am much happier this way.
As someone who had many years of depression, I know social isolation too. And it is just not the same.
That said, I admit it can at the same thing also be true that people cop out of a healthy way to stretch their boundaries or even expend just a little effort by mistakenly labeling themselves as introvert. Such misuse of the label doesn't mean it doesn't refer to a real thing and a real experience.
I think ADHD is a good parallel. I absolutely have it, I’m diagnosed and have had symptoms since childhood.
But even so, I often realise I self-justify not doing something and attribute it to my ADHD, excessively. It becomes a clutch, and I gravitate away from the willpower I do have.
That reminds me, it’s time to reach out to some friends and make weekend plans, even if I’d prefer having a quiet one. I’ve had too many recently :)
Also have ADHD, and yeah, I've realized that it's even easier to fall into a fixed-mindset trap if you actually have a good justification for it.
My current mantra is "I get to decide who I am." Identity is incredibly mutable, but we tend to get stuck with baked in early assumptions. It's so easy to think "I'm not good at this" and sort of silently translate that to "I could never be good at this," when not being good at a thing is everybody's natural state.
Of course, most skills are going to be easier for some people to pick up and harder for others, but that's rarely the determining factor; more often it's who's put in the time and effort.
It's so easy to forget that so many of these things are skills, and to assume that people that are good at them just got lucky, which is not only counterproductive to oneself, it's kind of disrespectful towards the others who worked so hard to get good at them.
This reply seems extremely conflating and shallow. How can you reach out if you generalise a whole range of personalities like that? Maybe you did not intend that do that but, i feel semi offended by this comment
i think some people et confronted with their shyness or awkwardness and they see that a social interaction didn't go smoothly and they conclude "oh, that must be because i'm an introvert". and then they stop practicing those social skills and it becomes self-reinforcing.
those people need to know that extraverts are also awkward and shy, but they've practiced their social skills so over time that gets better.
I think it's less the "introvert vs extrovert" but social media back/white simplification of it, so called Instagram psychology.
People inherently want an "oracle" that knows them (better than themselves) that can come and tell them how to act and how to be. So when fads such ad MBTI come and tell you "you're introvert" many just accept it rather than critically examine it.
I know one many that became just that. Shitty online test told them who they are, accepted it and stopped socializing all together. Just to realize later on, that it's not that simple (after all, they're socializing with me). Years go and they just realize that they have a preferred form of socializing and they're not introverts, they're in-between...
Maybe before, there wasn't any authorative voice telling you that you're introvert / extrovert and you had to go and figure it out yourself, and in the process many realizes that they prefer certain form of socializing. (party, big group, small group, without booze, deep talk/small talk, sport or activity together, talk is the focus etc etc)
If you're primed(falsely diagnosed) from the start that "you just don't like socializing" then you're going in with the wrong mindset, and it will affect the outcome (in a self-serving way)
I am reminded of the quote from the movie big short [1]
"People want an authority to tell them how to value things, but they choose this authority not based on facts or results. They choose it because it seems authoritative and familiar."
I think the concept has some value, but like most behavioral labels they’ve become so loosely defined and abused that they barely mean anything any more.
I can’t count how many people have chatted my ear off and bounced around the office, engaging other people in spontaneous enthusiastic conversation every day, only later to have them claim they’re introverted. The colloquial usage has expanded to encompass anyone who some times feels like staying home and watching Netflix instead of going out on Friday night. In other words, everyone.
I agree that it also becomes an excuse. I’ve had friends who really enjoy socializing and going to social events and also lament social isolation and loneliness, but being an “introvert” becomes the driving factor in their decision making about what to do on weekends or after work. You can see how much they enjoy social events when they’re basically obligated to attend (weddings, special event parties, immense peer pressure from friends trying to get them out of the house) but when left to their own decisions they’ll decide to stay home and be lazy 10 out of 10 times with “I’m an introvert” as the excuse. I’m excluding people with conditions like social anxiety disorder from this description, before anyone comments with whatabouts.
It gets really bad when they reach their 30s and 40s and they wonder why their friends have stopped sending invites to things (because they never accept) and they complain that dating is impossibly difficult (because they only leave the house for work)
I'm confused because it sounds like you're describing social anxiety, but then saying it's not social anxiety. I have social anxiety so I can't really imagine why somebody would act like that if they didn't.
Once I realized my introversion was psychological and mutable, not some fixed aspect of my personality, it changed my life.
We tend to anchor ourselves to labels. Lots of introverts I meet limit themselves in life needlessly because "I'm an introvert!" I see my old self in them.
Good on you. But this doesn’t apply to everyone. Hell, I’d even be willing to bet that your case is extremely niche.
Introversion can be a byproduct of so many different things that saying “it’s just a label” is not only absurd by itself, but utterly disrespectful too. It can be a choice too, sure, but that’s not the case for quite a lot of people.
Not OP but I have. And I agree with them. Trying to acclimate and “do as the others do” has brought me nothing but misery, and greatly increased anxiety.
Has everyone tried ? I know people are different, but it's pathetic to see how much people.Like you are attached to the idea that they can't change. Grow up.
I personally avoid to think about my self with labels about what "immutable" things "I am". Like "he is tall", "he has Z skin color", "he has 9 fingers", "he has brain type X", "he is thin", etc.
I do care about what values, passions and friends I have, and I have tried to find a set that is consistent.
I do not mind if someone tells me "I am an introvert", even if I do not find it extremely interesting. But if he says "I am introvert and will be unhappy all my life because I can't change that", I can't avoid thinking that he is focusing on something that does not help.
Labels exist for a reason. Sometimes labelling a problem puts it in perspective. Sometimes they can be hurtful. It really depends on the context.
Knowing you are an introvert (aka labelling it) can help you realise what works for you and what are your boundaries.
The point is that introversion does not mean complete isolation—this is the bit every extrovert neurotypical person in this thread seems unable grasp in the slightest.
“Prefers to be alone” does not mean “cannot function socially”.
> Knowing you are an introvert (aka labelling it) can help you realise what works for you and what are your boundaries
The problem is lots of people put this label on themselves without knowing for sure that it's the case, thus setting boundaries that don't need to exist.
> personally avoid to think about my self with labels about what "immutable" things "I am". Like "he is tall", "he has Z skin color", "he has 9 fingers", "he has brain type X", "he is thin", etc.
So do I, but when one attempts to push a square peg through a round hole (and sufficient force applied), the structural integrity of the square peg is compromised.
This is to say, if working against your inertia becomes traumatically painful, you may in reality be working against your nature rather than your inertia.
It requires a certain wisdom and a great deal of experience to distinguish between those aspects of oneself are immutable vs mutable. But I believe firmly that a loosely-held understanding of one's immutable nature is highly useful in living a happy life. I consider it equally important to what you are getting at: that some aspects which appear to be immutable are actually not, and the only way to know for sure is to stretch outside of one's comfort zone.
It takes skill and experience to tell the difference, but the effort is worth it.
Choice is a spectrum, some things are more choosey than others. My height is not very choosey, what I eat for lunch is somewhat choosey given the choices around me, and what I say is very choosey.
Certainly, what you find comfortable is somewhat choosey. Over time it changes and evolves, from your own experiences. The more you do things, the easier and more comfortable they become.
While I believe you're ultimately correct and it's important to recognize that at the macro level, that type of thinking is incredibly caustic and defeatist at the individual level.
We should take every opportunity to make life as fulfilling as possible, even if we don't always succeed due to things outside of our control. (Note: this is an abstract claim for what you want, I'm not saying being extroverted is more fulfilling than being an introvert.)
I am both autistic and introverted. I'm not really capable of socializing in a group larger than 3-4 people. I just stop talking when the group reaches a certain size. If I don't, I may lose hours of my life (and sleep) to an anxious analysis of what things I shouldn't have said.
I am in a small minority. My autistic colleagues do not struggle with this in the same way I do. While I may be a bit of an extreme outlier, I do exist. If I could be otherwise, I would. Throughout my life I have wanted nothing more than an accepting group of friends, and I have worked hard at trying to achieve that. I have never succeeded. At age 41 I have lost hope that I can be as you describe.
I do have wonderful experiences socializing with others 1:1. My group socialization is limited to that with my wife and two children (aged 4 and 2). I love people. I admire them. But there are some aspects of my nature which are so intractable that they cannot be changed no matter the effort expended or identity adopted (or jettisoned).
For context, the first 40 years of my life, I did not identify as autistic, nor did it occur to me as a possibility. I knew I had difficulty making friends, but I did not intentionally form an identity around that fact; to the contrary, I actively worked to change it (to deleterious effect).
I offer this in the hopes that it will loosen the "rules" around which your viewpoint is formed. It is not always as simple as your comment makes it out to be.
Honestly if this doesn’t sound a “the fuck am I saying?” alarm in your head I don’t know what to tell ya.
This isn’t a recent phenomenon. People have different social tendencies. People have always had different social tendencies. And this is way before you even factor in things like neurodivergence possibly tilting one towards preferring isolation or more intimate/lone activities.
It boggles the mind that anyone would think the introversion/extraversion dichotomy a product of modern times.
> I wonder if the cultural existence of the 'introvert vs extrovert' idea has reinforced this to a degree. I'm too young to know, but I doubt this was a discussion in the 80s.
That doesn't mean it didn't exist then, it means it wasn't socially acceptable then. See also the graphs of left-handedness over time, which were basically flat at the actual level of left-handedness except for a big dip during the century or so when left-handed people were commonly forced to hide it and use their right hands.
This is never a popular take but I think you completely nailed it. Anytime I see someone who has frames their world through the extrovert/introvert lens it's always done as justification for antisocial behavior. Lots of buzz phrases like "needing to recharge your batteries" while never admitting that socializing itself is a skill that needs practice to improve at so it doesn't feel like as much work.
A skill, how funny. Thats something only a "mainstream" person can say. You can practice your social skills as much as you want, if you are for some reason not a mainstream person. Because, now, if you go out, and try to "socialize", everyone and their dog will hit on you being special, and ruin your social experience basically forever. Did you ever try to socialize as a disabled person, for instance. You know, the hardest part of that game is to have a "normal" conversion, without random strangers going for the "Oh, now that I meet you, I have this pressing question I always wanted to ask", followed by a very unreflected, many times insulting, question about your disability, and how you cope with it. You will try that for a few months. Maybe even for years. Until you finally grow up, and realize that interacting with mainstream society is useless and will ALWAYS only hurt you in the long run. Sure, you can learn to cope by ignoring certain people, and trying to pick the good parts. But the more you do this, the more you will realize it is a lost game.
So please, don't unnecessarily simplify your analysis. It leaves a lot to be desires.
Oh, you are friends with a disabled person, that of course, is something totally different. I didn't realize I am talking to an enlightened human.
"I am friends with a disabled person" is almost as revealing as "I have experience, I am a social worker." Both types of people usually are so obnoxious, that I try to put distance between them and me as a knee jerk reaction.
From my memory of the 80’s, the introverts dealt with the stress of dealing with so many people for so long by quietly getting drunk enough to talk to people.
Humans have a great capacity to convince ourselves of anything, it's the beauty of language! For every decision you want to make, you can always find one quote or idiom supporting it, and another against it. Yes we have to learn from the lessons of history yet every time "it's different this time"!
Big 5 traits like extraversion are pretty conclusively genetic and meaningful. Twin studies show strong heritability, and personality studies show meaningful lifetime outcome differences (extraverts earn more, etc).
I agree that everyone should make an effort to exercise and socialize (as well as other difficult but rewarding tasks). But it's undeniable that different people respond to these things differently. Some people feel energized after difficult exercise, others feel drained. Some people find socialization exhilarating, others find it exhausting.
Encouraging someone to push past their comfort zone is helpful. But it seems less helpful to imply that you know more about the bounds of their comfort zones than they do, or that their comfort zone must simply be a cultural construct because it doesn't match yours.
I think the introvert vs. extrovert thing has become almost a meme. I would definitely describe myself as “generally introverted” but I still very much enjoy many “extroverted” activities. I get the same sense of satisfaction and enjoyment out of throwing a party for people as the OP described. I will not be the center of attention at my own party, but I still enjoy the act of making other people happy. In fact, most likely what will happen is once everything is running smoothly and people are having fun, you’ll find me out on the back deck where it’s quiet talking to only one or two other people.
“Throwing a party” is not an introvert vs. extrovert thing. What you do at the party is.
I used to be a classic "tech guy." Identified as introverted, said I don't like parties, etc etc. The whole bit. Id' be exhausted after social events, need time alone to cool off, and so on.
At some point my partner told me I should stop saying I'm introverted because she saw me always interacting with people and enjoying it. So I reflected, realized she had a point, and stopped identifying as introverted.
Over time I realized that actually, I love interacting with people, especially closer friends. A "party" can be 4-6 people, it doesn't have to be huge. And sure, after larger events I still need some time to cool down, but stopping identifying as introverted has been a huge improvement overall to my life.
I'm a shy introvert. I find it really difficult to make friends and to connect with people more than on a superficial basis. I have a few friends with whom I can talk for hours about anything and nothing, but when I meet a stranger I dont know what to do.
That being said, I still found a way to serve my community (my mosque). I am chartering a Toastmasters club to help grow people in their public speaking and leadership skills. It's incredibly fulfilling and also humbling because I'm probably the least accomplished person in the room (I'm a college dropout turned SWE, and there are doctors, medical and otherwise, professors, business owners, and more).
I feel way out of my league but there's so much excitement that I feel like I'd be letting the community down if I decided I don't want to talk to anyone for a while.
So yes, I agree with you. Putting yourself into situations where you may start uncomfortable but then eventually it becomes more uncomfortable to start. You just need the activation energy, i suppose.
Depends what you do. I enjoyn hosting big parties because I spend a lot of time cooking for them, which I love doing and everyone appreciates. Then I have the opportunity to interact as much as I want.
Introversion means "finding company tiring". It doesn't mean you don't enjoy company. Most (but not all) introverts find company to be pleasurable for a limited period of time.
> 3 or 4 people who I know well is optimal for me.
Then invite 3 or 4 people over. That's much more than what most people do. Sounds like the optimal party size to me.
I think of my wife and myself as extroverts and we do have a very large social circle. Still we don’t host as often as we wanted, maybe once every two months. One of the reasons is it can get very expensive. The last party we threw was a Sunday brunch for about 15 adults and a handful of kids, and we spent over $500 just in pastries. People still bring stuff but we don’t expect them to. Dinner can get even more expensive particularly if you cook meat dishes these days. Then all the time it takes which also translates into money. To host a dinner party it takes me part of the week shopping and the entire weekend cooking and organizing. So most times is better just to call a couple of friends and go out to a restaurant.
Eh, in this economy I think it's fine to request contribution, either material or monetary. Also once every two months or so is pretty decent, cheers to you
$25 a person just in pastries is pretty astounding. I think I could make it happen with the most expensive bakery (which is imo not the best in town but close to it) and eating little else. So hats off, that’s impressive. Hope they were enjoyed, great pastries are really a delight.
I could see it easily if it's a "catered" order e.g. specific numbers of each type of pastry, packaged carefully, etc. vs. just going down to a retail bakery and buying whatever they made that day and throwing it in a box.
Even introverts need social connection (perhaps more so) - research here [1]. Introverts are people who feel they have used energy when interacting socially, rather than gaining energy from social interaction. It's not shyness or anti-social traits.
It will feel like more of a chore for introverts, but it's like a chore you need to do even if it feels bad in the moment, like doing laundry or exercising.
And worse for introverts - people who never invite other people eventually stop getting invited themselves, so to maintain social connection requires introverts to sometimes be the driver of the event.
Its unlike a chore in that there are obvious benefits to doing laundry and exercising. The same isn't true for socializing more than you require. As an introvert I definitely do need some social connection, but I don't need very much of it and I'm happiest being alone most of the time.
> The same isn't true for socializing more than you require.
That seems very much like exercising, no? You need a certain level of exercise to maintain basic physical capability but past that point there are diminishing returns. So if you truly detest exercising (or socializing) then you can stop there and still lead a healthy, functional life.
Sort of. Specifically the amount of exercise needed to maintain basic physical capability is roughly the same for everyone (barring injuries or chronic issues) where as the amount of socialization people need to not feel lonely varies quite significantly. I don't find my minimum amount of socialization to be a chore, but my minimum is quite low. Anything beyond that does feel like a chore.
> the amount of exercise needed to maintain basic physical capability is roughly the same for everyone (barring injuries or chronic issues)
Is this true?
This is only anecdotal but my experience has been that the amount of exercise people need to maintain basic physical capability seems to vary with age, gender, diet, genetics, and other factors.
Personally, I find that as I get older I have to be more diligent about exercise to maintain basic physical capability, and I have older relatives who spend time exercising just to maintain sufficient VO2 max to be able to do things like walking up stairs.
And it's not just age. I have friends who can take a break from rock climbing for half a year or more and when they come back they're climbing routes at roughly the same difficulty as before they left, whereas others take a couple weeks off and have to work their way back up from easier routes when they return.
Introversion is a skill issue. People who aren’t extroverts are just not as good at socialising, so they find it difficult and tiring, but they could get better and then it would be easy.
I think you're spot on about it being type 1/type 2: people have stopped doing a lot of type 2 fun activities, because they have many more type 1 fun activities and because it's no longer socially obligatory to have type 2 fun.
If you do type 2 fun often enough, the level of anxiety drops. Imagine hosting a game night once: you have to ensure all your friends can attend, you agonize over the snacks, over picking the right games to play.
But if you power through and establish a tradition or join an existing one, it becomes simple, e.g.: every Thursday at 7pm you meet for a game of whatever you've been playing last week and a new game the host picked, the host brews tea, the guests bring whatever snacks they want. At the end of the session, you choose which game to play next week: the old one or the new one.
I used to believe in this dichotomy but not anymore. I've seen ppl go from shutin to extroverts after they have kids. So called introverts never learn how to enjoy socialization so it drains them.
I dont know where it started but we've turned this whole introvert/extrovert stuff into some sort of immutable characteristic.
Reproduction also causes some pretty intense biophysical changes which may well alter personality. It is silly to act like it is just due to reasoning...
I wonder if intro/extra-version is less explanatory than the people-who-enjoy-doing-things-on-vacation vs people-who-enjoy-doing-nothing-on-vacation divide. I'm an introvert who loves throwing parties because I can perform hosting chores if I feel awkward (prep food, do dishes, refill drinks, introduce people).
That said, hiking up a mountain sounds like a great vacation to me, in a type 1 and 2 way. Active recreation is my gratifying form of recreation (balanced of course with some down time after), but I know this sounds like hell to a lot of people. I'm not sure we have a word for this divide as a culture.
I, too, like going to (some) parties, but more often I don't.
I like hosting, but only small groups of people (3-6ish), and I cannot handle more than dozen at my place, though I don't mind going to parties where there are more. It's just that I end up talking with the handful of people I know.
Planning parties is, well, exhausting. Hosting them is exhausting. I'd much rather talk, chat with, go to concerts with, workout with, hike with people, than go to parties or host them.
When it comes to parties, I want to be invited, but don't want to go.
If there's one club I belong to, it's probably the Groucho Marx club. "I woudn't want to belong to any club that would have me as a member."
You can't just say "Oh boy am I an introvert." and just leave it at that.
Some people are extroverted picking their nose. Let me explain what I mean. That means they do it in front of others and don't give a fuck, or they might apologise when they get called out, and just do it all over again next minute. That's me. Other people are introverted picking their nose. They go away in private and they go ahead and pick their nose now that nobody is around. They're not necessarily in denial about it, and sometimes you can get them on the topic and compare notes. That's my wife.
I am not speaking to you personally, but I think that in general there is a very large trend right now of people who believe they are introverts when really they are suffering an accumulation of social anxiety that life has freed them from the need to work through.
I suspect that for many, if they had less social anxiety, they would actually prefer to socialize more. But the most successful way to reduce an anxiety is through exposure therapy: forcing yourself to do the thing. And in today's world it is much too easy to simply avoid exposing yourself to any socialization.
I see a lot of people who claim to be very introverted. But, also, a lot of those people are unhappy. They may be comfortable, but that's not the same as happy.
I am pretty introverted but over the years I have accumulated a large set of friends. I don’t call all of them at once. But I do sets of 6-10 at a time.
I won’t go to a bar or a club alone. I don’t like it. But a good set of friends in a familiar location like my house (or theirs) makes for a really good time. We definitely try to get together at least once every couple of months.
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.
> 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.
Well it's happening to the vast majority of people all at once, I don't think it's age, at least not only that. I haven't read the whole article yet perhaps he offers ideas on why this is happening but I'm guessing - better alternatives (Netflix), increased individualism etc. Society has changed a lot.
1. People work more. In particular, the shift to dual-income households means that women, who traditionally planned most parties before, no longer have time.
2. the shift to "lots of kids, sparse parenting" to "few kids, lots of investment" becomes another time sink focusing families inwards on themselves instead of outwards on the wider community
3. People just have less friends. especially so for a) single b) non college-degree and c) lower-income people. Probably due to #1 and the whole dating app epidemic no one has had a serious conversation about yet.
4. And yes, as you alluded to, it is "more fun to be alone" in the modern day. Less incentive to go out if you don't "feel" lonely nor bored.
I guess I could have just quoted the provided summary, but where's the fun in that?
>In sum: The death of the host is the story of lonely unmarried people and harried married dual-earner households; anxious parents spending more time with their children and less time with friends; and the typical home becoming such a riot of diverting comfort that people no longer have to invite human beings to interrupt their boredom.
Is that it though, parents with no time? Do single people with no kids socialize more than parents once they are past high school and college? Im not so sure.
I think I had the opposite as I got older. I didn’t really like the bigger parties after something like high school, but now that I’m middle aged I like the idea of uncomplicated social interactions with strangers.
> 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.
It depends who you invite. I organized a lot of parties in my youth with some that escalated and that burned me a bit. Now I am very reluctant to organize something and have not done so in a while, but when I do and it works, it is amazing. Helping bringing people together. Connecting, having a good time and people feel grateful for it.
Now with the great late summer, it would be a great time for something like this again, but I just did not felt the energy, but also am a bit sad now to not just make something happen.
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.
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.
> but it's exhausting to me. Whenever I come home from a social occasion I need time to recover.
Going to the gym is exhausting, running a marathon is exhausting, spending a day weeding your garden or laying a new carpet could be exhausting.
Usually people feel great afterwards because of the experience and despite it being hard work and taking time to recover from. Parties etc. can be the same.
They can for some, but to be very clear, I don't. I feel mentally drained in a way I absolutely do not enjoy. The experience can be fun during, but the net benefit to me is low enough, and for many types of socialising it's firmly in the negative, that I restrict myself very much in terms of what socialising I consider worthwhile.
As I said, it's very much down to your personality - most of the time I'd rather spend time in peace and quiet alone or with my wife or son (and I need some of that time to be entirely alone)
That's fine, but it's weird to comment as if this is a default position. Usually people like that are no longer invited to a parties, and that's that. It's not a big deal.
You’re projecting a disability onto the general population. Most people are capable of socialising and propagating the idea they’re not is a service to no one.
You’re projecting a disability onto the general population. Most people are capable of socialising and propagating the idea they’re not is a service to no one.
This is true on some level, and what you describe has been called type 2 fun. But for plenty of people, partying and socializing is really type 1 fun, they find it enjoyable the way some of us find working on programming or other nerd things intrinsically rewarding in the moment, which they may see as unfun but potentially good for you long term.
My point is, yes, sometimes it's good to just ignore the discomfort and push through, but we should also know that it's not how everyone feels about it. Some people actually willingly go down into a crowded basement club with loud music and not just as some kind of tough challenge to survive and shape your character to have tbuilt tolerance for that harsh environment,but they find it enjoyable, no matter how baffling it seems to the rest of us. I don't know proportions, but these people exist. Of course plenty of people are somewhere in the middle range, where they enjoy some aspects while hating the rest, and the thing they enjoy about loud clubs is likely about prospects getting laid and similar stuff.
> Some people actually willingly go down into a crowded basement club with loud music and not just as some kind of tough challenge to survive and shape your character to have tbuilt tolerance for that harsh environment,but they find it enjoyable, no matter how baffling it seems to the rest of us.
The funny thing is that I used to go clubbing regularly because to me that was not about socialising per se. I'd be happy to go alone into an anonymous mass of people and just dance and switch off. I'd still need time to recover, but not nearly as much as with a group of people I'm expected to talk to.
That's universally held for me in other contexts as well. E.g. I can speak in front of thousands - and have - and not stress out at all. They're a non-descript mass at that point. I'm just talking, not conversing. But if any of them try to corner me to talk to me afterward? That is exhausting.
Only a specific subset of people enjoy running a marathon. Hell, as it is a fixed length (and not a fixed duration), it is even worse if you are not at the top of fitness and VO2max: how many people would enjoy running for 6+ hours?
Call me introvert or not, before doing the exercise I feel a little resistance to do it, but after - feel very energized. For parties: it's diametrically different - feel big boost of dopamine before party, but after - I feel some regrets, so I'm just trying to not think about later.
I don't feel regrets per se, but I do certainly need to recover, while after exercise I feel good. Regular exercise usually makes me more likely to exercise more, while with social functions that's not viable for me.
The result is the only thing about exercise that I enjoy. It's the data, not the feelings. I don't like going to the gym. I don't like doing my exercises. I don't feel better afterwards (usually the opposite: I'm tired and sore). I don't compete or compare myself to anyone else. But I do like seeing that e.g. my bench press is 5 lbs better this week. That's the entire reward for me.
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.)
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.
Same situation for me - my wife is an extrovert's extrovert, and I am on the introvert side. However, I'm the one who organizes and hosts a quarterly cocktail party. It's a lot work - after every one of these parties I tell myself "I'm not doing those anymore". But I've received so much positive feedback from the attendees that I end up doing it again. It ultimately is very satisfying and worth the effort for me.
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.
A simple solution to that is to distribute the chores. For larger parties I always ensure I have help. Many people actually like contributing to a party in non-material ways by doing prep work or some cooking, doing the dishes, selecting the music, etc.
Totally agree with this. People are usually pretty eager to help out (particularly the introverts - this can give them a momentary break from socializing, while alos making them feel included).
>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."
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 also 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. :)
I cannot stress this enough, thanks again @kieckerjan, people like you keep the world together. This is no exaggeration.
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?
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.
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.
What I would do is to invite people to a restaurant for a reciprocation to their invitation of us to their home. We would honestly acknowledge that we don’t know how to cook well and don’t plan to improve that before the universe dies.
I know different social circles are different, but have you considered inviting people to your house for takeout? Maybe dining out is what you'd prefer anyway, but if you wanted some sort of games/movie/casual hangout at your place but didn't want to cook, getting takeout could be an appropriate compromise.
I think it would be so nice if people just took what I said at face value sometimes… if I invite you over it’s because I want you in my house, not because I secretly want to visit yours.
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.
I wonder if increasing rates of two income families has changed the tradeoffs.
My partner and I basically stopped having people over to dinner after our first kid was born. We want to, but it’s difficult to make the time to prepare the house for hosting, assemble a meal worthy of guests, and clean up afterward. When I was a kid my mother, who stayed at home, would do the lion’s share of that work, and the people who invited us over were also single income families.
But also, it’s not like we aren’t socializing at all. We’re just much more likely to arrange lower-effort gatherings such as picnics in the park.
That said, we’d probably do it a lot more if it were possible to get affordable health care while working a 30 hour work week.
And if you're in the third group, but don't actually accept the invites, you will find yourself in the fourth group. People eventually stop inviting those who never show up.
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.
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.
> 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.
> Marriage and what was previously a 2 body problem became a 4 body problem
I didn't relate to most of what you said, but I definitely see this sentiment. I hosted parties all the time till I got married, albeit not for logistical reasons. She's very unkeen on having people in her space, and carving out space for me was already a sacrifice for her.
Now I wish my friends hosted parties because I'd 100% go.
> 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.
That’s so interesting because I feel like I always hear the opposite from my friends with kids (in the US) - that it’s so hard to throw / attend ‘real’ parties and events, especially as a couple, when you’re a parent of a young child who’s not yet old enough to be on their own for a night.
The way they talk about it, they’re limited to only hanging out with people who similarly have kids, and whose kids get along with their kids. They’re cut off from most of their other friends’ normal social activities, even if they have a really good babysitter, which is a rare luxury. Sometimes they hang out with other parents they don’t even particularly like, just because both of them having kids makes it possible.
I can think of several times in the last year alone where I’ve been looking forward to meeting my friends, only to have our plans ruined upon arriving and realizing that the venue we’d chosen didn’t allow minors. Brunch at a cafe, wine tasting and lunch at a winery.
idk. I understand how there’s a sort of solidarity and flexibility to the friends you make with fellow parents, but just from the outside, it looks like that’s barely making do with what you’ve got, not free to be socializing the way you actually want to.
> that it’s so hard to throw / attend ‘real’ parties and events, especially as a couple, when you’re a parent of a young child who’s not yet old enough to be on their own for a night.
This is only true if you limit your definition of "real" event to one without kids.
The social gatherings I was talking about have people bring their kids.
If you're not a parent and your only experience with parenting is through friends' lamentations about parenting, this probably won't land. What I'm trying to communicate is that the events are different, but they're not bad or unenjoyable. It's actually a lot of fun, and you meet a lot of new people too.
I know a few parents whose kids will only get along with a small number of close friends, but that's a minority. We takes our kids to different parks and they've learned to play with random kids that they've never met and may never see again. This is common for well socialized kids.
> that the venue we’d chosen didn’t allow minors. Brunch at a cafe, wine tasting and lunch at a winery.
I'm sorry to say, but this seems a lot like a you problem. I don't know why you'd think that wine tasting at a winery would be a kid-friendly event without checking.
Your location might play a part in it. I literally cannot think of a brunch venue, including $100/person places with reservation lists here, that don't allow minors. When making a reservation you tell them how many adults and how many kids, so that should have come up unless this was they were really unfamiliar with going out with kids? Either way, these problems are not frequent. As a parent you do a cursory check of a venue to make a judgment call if it's kid friendly or not.
Question for you or anyone else: as a forty-something single person without kids, is it reasonable to try to make friends with this crowd?
Most people my age do have kids, especially given that I'm living somewhere fairly quiet. I like kids and get along with them well -- indeed, to the extent that I'd happily occasionally babysit for free. But parents seem to be living in a different world.
One difficulty is that most parents seem to be deeply invested in their home lives and daily routines, in a way that I find difficult to relate to, which can make small talk difficult. But one way or another, I should probably make some attempts to expand my social life.
Yes this definitely happens. School events, or having a groups of kids who are together on a soccer team, brings a group of parents together. But in my experience they are relationships of convenience. I've never formed any friendships from this that have persisted after the kids got older, dispersed to other schools/teams or went off to college. Without that common focus (the kids) the adults realize they actually don't enjoy each other's company all that much.
> Without that common focus (the kids) the adults realize they actually don't enjoy each other's company all that much.
That's too bad. I would say most of the other parents I meet aren't people I'd hang out with outside of kid events, but when you go to a lot of events you meet so many other adults that your odds of finding new friends goes up substantially
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.
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.
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.
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.
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".
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.
There is no joy for me in bringing people together. I’m plenty happy in my little bubble with my wife and kids. All get together seem like bringing acquaintances briefly together for some thing that no one enjoys. I think it would take fundamentally different kind of people to enjoy these get together and I think over the past few decades culture has bifurcated people into these two buckets and the “extroverts” are significantly fewer than the “no party throwers”. For us the only get together we throw is a “splurgy” birthday party for my kids each year and thanksgiving where all the family visits. They’re both nice but nothing that I look forward to. Maybe me and a bunch of other folks are fundamentally broken on enjoying get togethers.
> 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.
I haven't forgotten anything. As I read your sentence I felt revulsion filling my soul. The idea that someone might find such thing gratifying adds another layer to already a terrible feeling.
Middle aged American here, I enjoy them. To be fair, my wife does all the cooking when we host but I at least take care of the clean up. We haven't done many dinner parties lately, but I like the dinner party "circuit" if you will. With and without extended family.
I grew up in a multi-family apartment as a child (3 floors) with my grandparents, and aunt/uncle/cousin, along with my family. I'm half Sicilian as well, big family dinners on Sundays were a tradition and some of my fondest childhood memories.
Yes, they require planning and energy but they're well worth it if you enjoy the company of other human beings. :)
You don’t need a big house to throw a party. After divorce I decided to relive my teenage years and thrown many parties in a 40m2 apartment. You can easily fit 30 or more people in.
Were houses that much bigger in the 1970s, though? Families definitely were bigger, so there were more people per square meter. I think overall, it's a sociological change, not a financial one. People are just less into hosting parties; too much hassle of cleaning up & preparing food, too many online distractions, etc.
It really doesn’t take massive skill to invite your friends over. It doesn’t have to be this huge production.
And as for time, the average person finds time for hours of short form video and other useless tasks. Which is actually the real problem, social media has sucked up everyone’s time and attention to the point people don’t socialise anymore.
People don't get bored anymore. In the past, staying at home alone usually meant being so bored you'd do anything. Sometimes that would mean "doing anything" results in you going through all the effort to start some sort of club because at least failing at that wouldn't be boring
Um, I take after my mother, Gigachad, so yes it does have to be a huge production. Just yesterday I finished the leftovers from a party a week ago.
I know what you mean, but the real issue for most people is time, money, and social connections. Dinner parties were way down before TikTok. Most people I know cannot host at all, either they live with their parents or their apartment is in such rough shape that it would take days of cleaning to be able to invite people over.
I really didn't like reading your comment, but I can't argue much against it...
All I can say is the consequences of a degrading mental/social health are harder to grasp than a hangover or, for the lack of a better smoking example, lung cancer.
Still I'm also puzzled by the amount of people, even in my own social circle, that "just want to wind down after work" (read: completely fry their brain)
Seriously. I think the "women in the workforce" thesis is important:
"In Bowling Alone, Putnam acknowledged that women have historically been the keepers of the family social calendar, planning the birthday parties and neighborhood potlucks. For any number of reasons, women seem to do better than men at making and keeping adult friendships and making plans with other families"
The author states that they dismiss this thesis because "groups have more leisure time now than before" but that's not a valid rebuttal. The problem isn't the amount of leisure time, but the way that leisure time is used. It's easier for a planning and hosting novice to invite friends out than it is to host. If you don't have the skills to host, it doesn't matter how much time you have, you won't host.
I have a 1930s vintage Hood (the milk company) "basic" cookbook. In it's 800 pages, it includes hundreds of pages about how to run the larder of a household including how to understand how a carcass is broken up (and how to do it yourself) so you can chat with some fundamentals with the butcher, rules of thumb for how to stock a brand new kitchen with tools and supplies and also how to plan for an entire month's worth of groceries and using the whole animal to stretch your budget, how to plan and prepare and set a large dinner party, how to preserve your food with several different canning methods, an entire section about coffee and how to be a gentle coffee snob (in the 30s!) and about a hundred pages of printed photos to illustrate those points. The chapter on cookies starts with two pages discussing cookies as an abstract concept!
This tome is just a tiny part of what used to be the "Woman's job". You could construct equivalently large tomes for most other tasks and duties and "Roles", especially the one about managing social networks!
But western society offloaded all that work to women so long ago that it largely forgot to even recognize it! When women were allowed to seek careers, quite frankly men did not pick up the slack at all. They basically just assumed all this stuff happened magically it seems. There was no institution that really worked to push this knowledge to people, as it previously was largely passed down mother to daughter outside of institutions, and no 90s era "home economics" classes didn't even come close, so the chain was broken and a lot of that knowledge just kind of didn't make it to younger generations!
> But western society offloaded all that work to women so long ago that it largely forgot to even recognize it! When women were allowed to seek careers, quite frankly men did not pick up the slack at all. They basically just assumed all this stuff happened magically it seems.
Very true in a lot of domains! When I first became a parent I had to learn a lot about “mental load” or risk my marriage. A lot of women won’t put up with that anymore (rightfully so)
> Personally feels insane that people find this surprising or puzzling. (…) This is obviously because of social media or other algorithmic applications.
Facebook was founded over twenty years ago. There are adults in the world who have no recollection of a life before social media. In that sense it shouldn’t be surprising or puzzling, should it?
> It couldn't be more obvious how unhealthy it is, yet there is no demand for it to get outlawed and there won't be any time soon.
Remember when young adults were literally shouting online “let China suck up all my data” in response to the proposed TikTok ban? I (and probably you) lived in and can remember a world before the internet was in every part of our lives, but there are adults living now who can’t. It is not obvious to them.
Smoking actually has gone up in the recent few years with younger people, especially women. Not sure if buy the same amount in every country, but an uptick is noticeable.
And yes, this is all down to a few celebrities and influencers who are popular with that crowd showing off the habit in public. A fashion.
> yet there is no demand for it to get outlawed and there won't be any time soon. It is pretty sad.
Fortunately this is very slowly starting to crack. Maybe not from social pressure as it deserves, but litigation is finally starting to catch up with the tech and some recent court rules have started putting some simple yet major compromises on Meta. We're talking "need to remove likes" levels of major.
I think these are still in appeal (or have already settled), but I'm keeping a close eye on this.
I doubt Social Media would have become as nearly as popular as it did, if the middle-class had the same social life as it had in the 50s.
The people in my life who are always throwing parties, have insteresting hobbies like surfing, playing music or rock climbing are basically minimal users of social networking.
You might be on to something. I am one of those school nights people. Having people over will kill all "me-time" for that evening - once you get them out of the house, you do the dishes and it's straight to bed, usually. Meaning I had zero time for myself, I was hosting. The idea of having no "me-time" between two work days is hell for me. It was OK in my 20s and 30s, but not now in middle age.
The period in my life when I hosted parties was when I was a mostly broke college student and flatsharing (you can get a surprising mileage out of cheap Sangria and snacks).
For most people posting on HN, I would guess, money would not be even in the top-3 of reasons.
I see this as a manifestation of the loss of teaching effective communication skills. This takes a moment to explain, so please slow down and consider this: before the cultural revolutions of the 1960's, general education included more emphasis on communications conflicts and resolutions of them. For example, every school had a debate team, and the various forms and rules of debate were common knowledge. Yes, this is true. Debate and watching people skilled at argumentative discussion used to be a popular form of entertainment. Then, during the cultural revolution of the 1960s, the best or the "stars of debate" all sided with the youth culture and not the establishment. That then triggered the removal of debate from educations, from entertainment, and from public life. Now, decades later we have the situation that groups of adults cannot form without conflicts and arguments that drive the community creation aspects away. We have created a culture that cannot communicate, because we have stopped teaching basic oral conflict negotiation of any form.
I really do not think debate team modeled healthy communication. It is mostly about debating as a sport, basically coming up with a sleazy twist argument on the position you do not even believe in. If anything, it makes you greatly prepared to be keyboard warrior of the bad-faith argument kind and teaches you to enjoy it.
I did enjoyed debate team activities btw. The above is what I eventually realized later.
Unless you were in elementary school during or before the early 1960s, you have no experience in what debate used to be and how it was part of the fabric of everyday culture.
I went to a school with a debate team in the 2000s, and there were organized national tournaments all the time. And watching social media debaters is still a popular niche past time?
Maybe it's declined since the 50s in favor of football or so on but I'd like to see the numbers.
I did debate in the 00s though and my experience differed - it was already a highly technical affair that didn’t really require strong communication skills, but rather was more about playing logic tricks to be technically “correct” and saying so much that your opponent couldn’t counter all of it during rebuttals. That was enough to get me into the final playoffs at the national championships, and to this day I’ve been told that I focus too much on being “right” rather than being empathetic or persuasive, so debate was not the social panacea that it might have once been.
Yeah, you describe the ruined debate that was created during the late 70's early 80's and never recovered any of the positive aspects of the former debate skill set.
Swede here, I used to host a lot of dinners and parties.
But then i realized that it was mostly me who hosted them and the few times i got invited there was an agreement that guest chip in on the costs or that it was a potluck kind of thing.
Made me regret spending all that time and money on the parties i hosted.
Sounds unfortunate but I don't think there's anything to regret, you spent time and money no one else was spending but you still (hopefully) created positive experiences in return.
What do you regret exactly? I have found that friendships are rarely balanced in that sense. Sometimes you spend more (effort, worry, money) but it's also for your own benefit.
The neoliberal transactional lifestyle of compartmentalizing everything from work to emotions to social relationships combined with endless entertainment in your pocket makes the social event feel like a drag that you need to get though for the sakes of socializing.
Indeed. The way it worked for me if its at home, I am fine with cost of grocery and some drinks, it wasn't that much for me and cooking is fun. On the other hand if party is in restaurant / bar I bailed because cost is too much whether its each paid for their food and drinks or total cost divided by number of people.
It is not about money it about that you start to feel like they take you for granted when every time we did plan a party or dinner, me hosting it was always the best or only option according to the group. If it was a few times then it would not be an issue but systematically it always being me hosting takes the fun away.
I now have an other friend group and I have gotten tired with cooking for a x-amount of people.
Families (mine included) are just too busy. Working, commuting, homework, trying to get some exercise in. Any spare time I try to spend it with my children.
I always look at happiness in terms of pillars, social, family, work, spiritual.
Work somehow has taken over everything. It seems culturally engrained.
I know social media is a factor but while we all fall down the rabbit hole occasionally, it doesn't stop anyone organising a get together.
This is very cultural. In Spain essentially no one throws dinner parties in the US style. It's rare to invite social acquaintances to one's home. These things are done - but mainly with family. Part of this is cultural and part reflects that homes are too small to fit many people. Most socializing is done outside, at a bar, cafe, restaurant, park, etc.
Agreed. Dinner parties with family are the norm. Its almost impossible to host with friends due to the size of families and lack of space. We have found that having picnics in the park is a nice middle ground for everything.
But that's also great, meeting in a restaurant or bar. Or perhaps renting a cabinet space in one. Or just going on a picnic or free outdoor concert together. Doesn't need to be someone's home. I feel a lot of these things have shrunk massively.
Yes, I agree. What I'm finding, though, is everyone else in my circle doesn't value meeting in a restaurant. They insist these things should be in a home. Or if it's a restaurant, someone should pay for the whole crowd. And as you can imagine, it eventually becomes a "I do all this effort to invite family X to our home for parties, but they never invite us to their home" - conveniently forgetting that family X does want to spend time with them - just not at their own home.
I also found that they seem to value the tradition and style (quality of food, quality of dinnerware, quality of decoration, etc) much more than the company.
Before marriage, we (guys) would get together often. After marriage, it promptly stopped. And the accounting began.
As I said in another comment, the causes of the decline are plenty, and nothing really dominates. I've given a few reasons here and elsewhere, but I'm sure there are many more. It's a death by a thousand cuts. The reasons I give here are due to a certain sub-clique. It won't apply to others' experiences.
If each pays for their own share, not so expensive. If you host and invite the same number of people, it gets expensive if you get outside food, and a lot of work/time if you cook yourself. Both are more friction than a restaurant, and thus fewer people do it. In a circle of 50, there will be 10-30 who just don't have the energy/budget to host, and eventually the others despise them for never hosting. The steady state outcome is that those people neither host nor get invited.
In my family, not surprisingly it's the wife who wants to host dinners. And because of the (IMO) high standards, it means she's missing for days to over a week. Life pretty much goes on hold in the household during that time. She can't watch the kids, so I have to. We both work and have little time, which really means the kids get neglected - and it's measurable.
If they lowered their standards, this wouldn't be a problem. But they seem to value those standards more than the social mixing.
If hosting was "simple food, no decoration, not the tidiest home", it would happen a lot more.
(Of course, if you host at a restaurant, that's the most expensive).
I think there's a split between different crowds. For a lot of them, this type of socializing is a full family affair. No babysitters - kids come.
And that may be why restaurants are out - kids are bored at restaurants.
> Your wife hosts (let’s say on a Saturday) but prepares for it all week and doesn’t help with kids? Is that right?
I'm saying it takes both of us to properly parent the kids, because we're both working spouses. Kids only get 3 hours at home on weekdays. In that time you have to ensure they get food, do homework, have fun, and bond. 3 hours just isn't enough when they're young kids. If one parent is absent, the debt grows.
My point (scattered across various comments), is that socializing need not be hard, and inviting 2 other families for dinner shouldn't take days of preparation. But because of the all the ceremony and effort that people (needlessly) put into it, it does. If they want more socializing, lower the standards. Just have simple food, no special setups, etc.
I'm surprised at this being correlated w/ intensive parenting. Modern parents ARE tired and parenting a lot. That's why on the weekends we invite our friends with kids over and the kids run around and entertain each other so we can have some "Just talk to adults" time with the other parents, maybe watch the NFL games. Even when we take turns hosting, we easily get over the 12x a year mark through this.
I'm a parent and while I invite people over (indeed, this last Sunday we had another couple and their kid over) and do this thing, very few of our parent friends appear to do it. Or I guess maybe they do it with each other and just don't invite us, but I think it's rarer than you think.
> Modern parents ARE tired and parenting a lot. That's why on the weekends we invite our friends with kids over and the kids run around and entertain each other so we can have some "Just talk to adults" time with the other parents
In my social circle, if you're inviting people over, then you need to satisfy:
Another challenge to hosting dinner parites today is that everybody is on a special diet, count calories, on ozempic because they need to be healthier or have a athletic goal only few people 30 years ago had.
This makes it even more difficult to host because of everybody's needs and regimes they dont buckle on.
My wife developed lactose and gluten intolerance around 40. My 14 year old daughter has been a vegetarian for the last 9 months or so. My other two kids eat vegetables fine, but really prefer meat based dishes. As the primary meal maker in the family I’ve come to dislike making family meals anymore. It’s too much of a chore screening every ingredient and item for dairy wheat and animal products like just basic gelatin and finding alternatives or making dedicated side dishes for certain issues. I used to like making new dishing and trying new things but now it’s a small rotation to keep people fed.
I'm talking mostly about "family meals" where we're all designed to sit down together for the meal. In those cases, I won't exclude anyone. In some cases adding animal protein after the fact isn't too difficult. That doesn't mean I don't make things which include gluten, dairy and/or meat on occasion. Just that my desire to be creative in the kitchen for the family has been effectively killed due to friction.
To me, the most obvious explanation is that people used to be able to buy houses a lot more easily than before. My wife and I were lucky that we were able to afford one, and because of that I have my friends over a couple times a year to hang out and have dinner (I would do it more often, but we're in a remote part of the city that isn't great to drive in). When we were in an apartment, we didn't even have a dining room or enough seats for anyone other than on the couch.
Yes, and I think that's basically what happens; people go out to eat together instead. The article is talking about the "death of hosting", which refers to having people at your home. Several explanations in the comments here place the blame on things like smartphones, and I'm presenting an alternative explanation.
Crucially too, people do not know _how_ to host anymore either, treat guests. A host needs a certain self effacing attentivess.
host also needs to provide an abundance too, there always should be too much food, too muxh drink, more time to stay.
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[ 2.2 ms ] story [ 172 ms ] threadI personally don't like inviting people to my house (or going to other people's houses) because I already spend a good chunk of my day indoors (I work from home). Whenever possible, I prefer to meet outside.
Plus when you have kids it’s a lot more convenient than trying to wrangle them at the end of a fun time lol
I don’t want ask my rich well off friends around cause of my humble existence.
Try easing into it - go on a late afternoon sunset picnic (ironically also on the list) - a blanket, cheese, crackers, cured meat and wine and a portable speaker. Everyone is happy and it’s super cheap, the outdoors is your living room and a couple hours before sunset never disappoints (though depending on where you are the weather might be a challenge).
If you don't, people will get bored and eventually the group will disband.
Coming from a very WASPy family, I am very much in the Guess culture -- for a long time I wouldn't dream of inviting myself over somewhere -- but I genuinely think taking some cues from Ask culture people makes a lot of things easier and more sociable.
I've had plenty of people throughout my life express wanting to come over to my place and hang. There's definitely a social grace of how you'd phrase it, but it's not like it's some alien concept.
My household hosts a lot and we’ve come to expect a full on 50% flake rate, down to multiple instances of people getting to our street and deciding to stop at the restaurant at the end for food and go home instead of arriving.
It means if we invite less than 5 people there are occasions where literally no one shows up. It’s also difficult to plan for when the odds go in the other direction like one news year party where we invited 30 people, expected ~15 and had 29 show up.
That's insane. Who does that and how does it make you feel and have you told them?
It’s a mix of people with social anxiety and people who have FOMO and agree to three different events on the same day.
The more polite ones in that second group have done things like shown up in tuxes for a casual party and dipped 10 minutes later for some other event.
No talking to the various people in this category has done anything so they just get treated as nice to haves of they show up and we wait 0 seconds for them for anything scheduled.
> That's insane.
You meet a lot of weird people in software
That's not a software-engineer attribute. I live in another major software hub on the east coast and people are not like this over here.
We're not prepared to say exactly why they are weird.
It may go further back than that but I don’t have experience before the 2010s
Out of 30 people invited to a typical house party, I'd say maybe 10 respond that they'll come. Out of those 10, 3-5 will actually come. Out of the 20 people that didn't reply, maybe 2-3 of those will show up unannounced. So you need to invite at about a 3:1 ratio.
> Until 1985, the survey included only married households.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDB_Needham_Life_Style_Surveys
Being stay at home parent is super lonely experience, basically the most lonely occupation you can have. In most jobs, you meet people and you do talk to people without trying to. Fairly often, they are unavoidable whether you want it or not. If you are at home with a kid, you are truly absolutely alone, unless you organize something. Every other guy here on HN complains about Covid being lonely, but it was less lonely and socially easier situation than being stay at home parent.
So, alternative framing is that women stopped organizing these as their need do organize them went down. And men did not had that need in the first place, so it did not changed from their point of view.
And simultaneously, it ceased to be acceptable to be the kind of dad who spends multiple evenings a week with buddies, not really spending time with his kids.
There are parks, splash pads, playgrounds—plenty of places where parents naturally gather without needing to be organized.
Screens are evil. They wake up the dead past as if it's alive and happening now. It became so much the norm, that people are afraid to face the real world, real people, real talking. "Dinner party? OMG, real people with real faces that force us to talk to them? Noway sir".
Screens disconnected people from real world, from each other. I was trying a VR headset the other days and immediately threw it away, as it shut off my visual and audio senses completely.
While TV has been a thing for a long time, content was limited, and more importantly curated. You couldn't manage your own playlists/subscriptions and almost infinite content on subjects that interest you.
Video games were mostly for kids.
There were no social media feeds optimize to monopolize your attention and make you doomscroll.
Hey even having a TV/widescreen at home has a direct impact on couples sex life...which magically reactivate when the light goes out.
The internet is wonderful for many things but nobody can denies it has an impact on our in person social life.
If they are not a clanker.
What do you think it is? Be clear.
> If they are not a clanker.
Probably not: "I was trying a VR headset the other days".
Tools are not value neutral, and it’s time we internalise that. Tools are designed with a purpose. An AK-47 is a tool. Its purpose is killing. Its creator was acutely aware of it and by the end even expressed remorse.
Yes, screens can be enabling, but your parent comment is obviously talking of the norm we’re facing. Facebook isn’t value neutral, neither is Instagram, nor TikTok, nor a myriad other insanely popular services which command too many lives. Those are tools designed explicitly to suck up your time, to feed the bellies of their owners at your expense.
At least with an AK-47 or a hammer, once you own it physically, it's yours and the original creator isn't sending you subtle psychological nudges to utilize it one way or the other.
https://fortune.com/2026/06/22/1-in-3-young-adults-living-wi...
We need a new way to use it safely for us and the world writ large.
I have a friend who is married and have 3 kids. His wife is a SAHM. She didn't know anything about cooking before they got married back in 2011, and nowadays she could easily throw a party for 10-12 people with only half of day of preparation (excluding shopping) -- and that's 10 Chinese dishes she had to cook, not BBQ stuffs. That's crazy for us. I can't imagine how much time it would take us to prepare even 5 dishes. I used to watch she cooking and it was so elegant. She uses the stove to its full, including baking, and still has the leisure to talk to me and cut raw food quickly.
It takes practices. She having 3 kids definitely "helps" with the practice. Nowadays people don't get to practice these things. It's like a myth to us.
I think it's kinda impossible for a two-worker family unless you are really into this kind of stuffs. Otherwise taking care of work and kids is already way too much for us.
even when it's GOOD it's not as good as real life, however, it does take less effort.
I don't find it surprising at all that social activities have been declining. It sounds like normal mammal behavior in fact.
Along with inflation adjusted (real) disposable income: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/A229RX0
I am solidly in the first category. I throw dinner parties, birthday parties, dance parties, midsummer parties, midwinter parties, game parties, etc. It costs time and money and is a lot of work. 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 laugh, talk, dance, etc. Afterwards you are tired but also grateful and energized in a fundamental way.
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.
It's not either or, it's all of the above: individuals do what feels good and if you're a great party thrower because it energizes you, you'll probably spread that influence some. And then possibly, the group reinforces itself by continuing to throw and attend parties.
At the same time, leisure time has changed: women work more, dads spend more time with kids, and the home offers a lot more easy entertainment that fits in with modern schedules. There seems to be less opportunities for parties with newer generations.
But of course, society seems to shun the party thrower because we're all busy. And so if nobody shows and the party thrower burns out, there's no influence spread. People dislike parties more and the idea reinforces again.
A mix of any of the above goes into our decisions about how to spend time.
We put limits on ourselves psychologically in all sorts of ways, and we follow the ones we believe. There's a study that showed people who believe willpower is finite have finite willpower. I thought "well obviously, if you had finite willpower you'd know because you'd run out". Maybe we do just think too much?
If I don't feel like running and I go running, about two thirds of the time I feel like running after a few K. It's the same socially. The goal of introspection shouldn't be to freeze in a minute now.
It's also a source of chronic fatigue.
> The question is, in a society of freedom and free will, if your environment forces you into a behavior you're unhappy with, is that truly damaging?
Being forced to conform to a set pattern of social behaviour/enjoyment is thoroughly damaging to your psychological health. It baffles me that anyone would think not.
See how that works? Pipe down little buddy.
Would that be a reasonable conclusion? Or should we conclude that this is a psychological limit and we just need to stop thinking so much?
While you're at it, rolling in an understanding that people are different and not everybody enjoys any particular thing would not go amiss.
DOSE - the happy chemicals of the brain - Dopamine, Oxytocin, Seratonin, and Endorphins.
Endorphins, in "most" people, are released during or after physical exercise. Upon release, they help reduce pain, which then sometimes triggers dopamine. This combination is called "runner's high", which can be why people choose to continue running. Those that don't ever "feel" this way, may give up on running and find other ways to get physical activity in their life regimen. Those that never physically exercise typically end up with weight problems, but not always.
The way the brain chemistry varies between people can be different based on many factors such as DNA, food, gut bacteria, environmental chemical exposure, and more... Humans, today, share the same set of chemicals empowering their bodies, however there is mostly small, but sometimes larger, variation in the quantities of those chemicals. So, we're all different, and yet we're all the same.
Chemistry plays a big role in perception of an activity - was it a good activity, or a bad one? Good activities tend to reinforce repeat behavior of that activity, bad ones help reinforce memories of what not to do. So, if you've never experienced runner's high, I could understand why you wouldn't be interested in running. Just don't be sedentary - the human body was not [built|evolved] for sedentary life.
... and not to bring AI into this conversation, but its why the tech is so different - its not tied to the materiality of our brain chemistry. Its merely the [approximate?] representation of our own brain electrical activity without the consequence of all that we are - pain, sadness, happiness, bliss, love, etc...
Full disclosure: I received a dopamine release from the writing of this reply ;P
I'm glad you found writing your reply to be enjoyable, because it's a lot of words to just miss the point.
I believe that all we have in the world are our relationships, maybe hermits are content in their way of life because they never could truly socialize but I don't know about them being fully happy.
What we call shyness to me could be understood as a lack of social intelligence mixed with little self-confidence, both of which you can gain by being out-reaching and taking risks. Not to put the blame on anyone of course because it does take real hard work for "introverts". But again, it is to big a deal to be an oversight and not try to be better in your own way.
People are different. People have different preferences. Everyone’s mind works in different ways. Any argument that can be summed up as “you’re just no trying hard enough” is fundamentally unsound, unhealthy, unhelpful and entirely disrespectful.
Before we talked as much about introversion and extroversion, people felt more obligated to do certain social events that they can more easily reject nowadays. That does mean it was uncomfortable and they had to push through friction because it's draining for introverts to do social events but being there also helped with making group of friends and staving loneliness. I do think this change in mores is one of the factors that contributes to the so called loneliness epidemics nowadays.
I hate exercise. Like I really really really hate it.
Should I just accept this and live a life without it?
I don’t think it’s such a stretch to say that socialisation is similar.
That is entirely up to you. It's your personal life and your time. No one has the right to say what you should or must do with your time.
Just like socialization, it's up to you on how much you do or don't do. Pretending everyone needs to because you like to is stupid.
Socialization is exhausting, I have to do enough of that working. I am not going to on my personal time. I really don't care what other people think of it, or what justification they use to try and make it some sort of requirement, or how much finger waving they're going to do.
I live this. Even today, I have to make myself be social, I have to practice (my first job as a waiter was the best thing to happen to me).
The human engagement muscle atrophies when you indulge "introversion" (for all definitions and causes), and our age of infinite individual delights has tipped the tradeoff towards "alone and easy". I wish the sensitivity toward and acceptance of "neurodivergent" had more recognition that the way humans have been doing things for the last 15000 years might have had some value.
We dropped all that social connection/obligation and associated support it provided for various people when we stopped doing things that historic way.
Talking about a thing to virtue signal is not the same as doing a thing.
There is nothing "natural" about living in some cramped city, meeting strangers all the time, trying to build connections and everybody leaving within 3-5 years to hundreds of miles away, navigating relationships online, working for big corporations with no stable coworkers, having to mingle with strangers all the time whose reputation, past etc you know nothing of etc.
I can feel my heart rate go up. Sometimes when asking or answering questions in the lecture hall I start quivering. Just the thought of standing up, preparing my question and follow ups can cause this.
You may be right in that it's an excuse. But at the same time there's this disgusting physical reaction and yes it's easier to give in than to stand up.
It's easier to interact with loved ones and close friends because you know they know you and won't judge if you say something wrong etc. But not so for any other interaction.
A lot of introverts actually like contact with other people. They often prefer smaller groups and a certain connection, they are more picky. And need some time alone afterwards.
But that doesn't mean they are hermits.
I used to think I like parties. That I have to like it. That something was wrong with me for not liking it. Now I know it is ok to not have fun at a party, and prefer a walk with a good friend or my wife. I am much happier this way.
As someone who had many years of depression, I know social isolation too. And it is just not the same.
That said, I admit it can at the same thing also be true that people cop out of a healthy way to stretch their boundaries or even expend just a little effort by mistakenly labeling themselves as introvert. Such misuse of the label doesn't mean it doesn't refer to a real thing and a real experience.
But even so, I often realise I self-justify not doing something and attribute it to my ADHD, excessively. It becomes a clutch, and I gravitate away from the willpower I do have.
That reminds me, it’s time to reach out to some friends and make weekend plans, even if I’d prefer having a quiet one. I’ve had too many recently :)
My current mantra is "I get to decide who I am." Identity is incredibly mutable, but we tend to get stuck with baked in early assumptions. It's so easy to think "I'm not good at this" and sort of silently translate that to "I could never be good at this," when not being good at a thing is everybody's natural state.
Of course, most skills are going to be easier for some people to pick up and harder for others, but that's rarely the determining factor; more often it's who's put in the time and effort.
It's so easy to forget that so many of these things are skills, and to assume that people that are good at them just got lucky, which is not only counterproductive to oneself, it's kind of disrespectful towards the others who worked so hard to get good at them.
those people need to know that extraverts are also awkward and shy, but they've practiced their social skills so over time that gets better.
People inherently want an "oracle" that knows them (better than themselves) that can come and tell them how to act and how to be. So when fads such ad MBTI come and tell you "you're introvert" many just accept it rather than critically examine it.
I know one many that became just that. Shitty online test told them who they are, accepted it and stopped socializing all together. Just to realize later on, that it's not that simple (after all, they're socializing with me). Years go and they just realize that they have a preferred form of socializing and they're not introverts, they're in-between...
Maybe before, there wasn't any authorative voice telling you that you're introvert / extrovert and you had to go and figure it out yourself, and in the process many realizes that they prefer certain form of socializing. (party, big group, small group, without booze, deep talk/small talk, sport or activity together, talk is the focus etc etc) If you're primed(falsely diagnosed) from the start that "you just don't like socializing" then you're going in with the wrong mindset, and it will affect the outcome (in a self-serving way)
I am reminded of the quote from the movie big short [1]
"People want an authority to tell them how to value things, but they choose this authority not based on facts or results. They choose it because it seems authoritative and familiar."
[1] https://youtu.be/YaD8CTBBZd4
I can’t count how many people have chatted my ear off and bounced around the office, engaging other people in spontaneous enthusiastic conversation every day, only later to have them claim they’re introverted. The colloquial usage has expanded to encompass anyone who some times feels like staying home and watching Netflix instead of going out on Friday night. In other words, everyone.
I agree that it also becomes an excuse. I’ve had friends who really enjoy socializing and going to social events and also lament social isolation and loneliness, but being an “introvert” becomes the driving factor in their decision making about what to do on weekends or after work. You can see how much they enjoy social events when they’re basically obligated to attend (weddings, special event parties, immense peer pressure from friends trying to get them out of the house) but when left to their own decisions they’ll decide to stay home and be lazy 10 out of 10 times with “I’m an introvert” as the excuse. I’m excluding people with conditions like social anxiety disorder from this description, before anyone comments with whatabouts.
It gets really bad when they reach their 30s and 40s and they wonder why their friends have stopped sending invites to things (because they never accept) and they complain that dating is impossibly difficult (because they only leave the house for work)
We tend to anchor ourselves to labels. Lots of introverts I meet limit themselves in life needlessly because "I'm an introvert!" I see my old self in them.
Introversion can be a byproduct of so many different things that saying “it’s just a label” is not only absurd by itself, but utterly disrespectful too. It can be a choice too, sure, but that’s not the case for quite a lot of people.
People are different. Just accept it.
I do care about what values, passions and friends I have, and I have tried to find a set that is consistent.
I do not mind if someone tells me "I am an introvert", even if I do not find it extremely interesting. But if he says "I am introvert and will be unhappy all my life because I can't change that", I can't avoid thinking that he is focusing on something that does not help.
Knowing you are an introvert (aka labelling it) can help you realise what works for you and what are your boundaries.
The point is that introversion does not mean complete isolation—this is the bit every extrovert neurotypical person in this thread seems unable grasp in the slightest.
“Prefers to be alone” does not mean “cannot function socially”.
The problem is lots of people put this label on themselves without knowing for sure that it's the case, thus setting boundaries that don't need to exist.
So do I, but when one attempts to push a square peg through a round hole (and sufficient force applied), the structural integrity of the square peg is compromised.
This is to say, if working against your inertia becomes traumatically painful, you may in reality be working against your nature rather than your inertia.
It requires a certain wisdom and a great deal of experience to distinguish between those aspects of oneself are immutable vs mutable. But I believe firmly that a loosely-held understanding of one's immutable nature is highly useful in living a happy life. I consider it equally important to what you are getting at: that some aspects which appear to be immutable are actually not, and the only way to know for sure is to stretch outside of one's comfort zone.
It takes skill and experience to tell the difference, but the effort is worth it.
Certainly, what you find comfortable is somewhat choosey. Over time it changes and evolves, from your own experiences. The more you do things, the easier and more comfortable they become.
We should take every opportunity to make life as fulfilling as possible, even if we don't always succeed due to things outside of our control. (Note: this is an abstract claim for what you want, I'm not saying being extroverted is more fulfilling than being an introvert.)
I am in a small minority. My autistic colleagues do not struggle with this in the same way I do. While I may be a bit of an extreme outlier, I do exist. If I could be otherwise, I would. Throughout my life I have wanted nothing more than an accepting group of friends, and I have worked hard at trying to achieve that. I have never succeeded. At age 41 I have lost hope that I can be as you describe.
I do have wonderful experiences socializing with others 1:1. My group socialization is limited to that with my wife and two children (aged 4 and 2). I love people. I admire them. But there are some aspects of my nature which are so intractable that they cannot be changed no matter the effort expended or identity adopted (or jettisoned).
For context, the first 40 years of my life, I did not identify as autistic, nor did it occur to me as a possibility. I knew I had difficulty making friends, but I did not intentionally form an identity around that fact; to the contrary, I actively worked to change it (to deleterious effect).
I offer this in the hopes that it will loosen the "rules" around which your viewpoint is formed. It is not always as simple as your comment makes it out to be.
Honestly if this doesn’t sound a “the fuck am I saying?” alarm in your head I don’t know what to tell ya.
This isn’t a recent phenomenon. People have different social tendencies. People have always had different social tendencies. And this is way before you even factor in things like neurodivergence possibly tilting one towards preferring isolation or more intimate/lone activities.
It boggles the mind that anyone would think the introversion/extraversion dichotomy a product of modern times.
That doesn't mean it didn't exist then, it means it wasn't socially acceptable then. See also the graphs of left-handedness over time, which were basically flat at the actual level of left-handedness except for a big dip during the century or so when left-handed people were commonly forced to hide it and use their right hands.
So please, don't unnecessarily simplify your analysis. It leaves a lot to be desires.
"I am friends with a disabled person" is almost as revealing as "I have experience, I am a social worker." Both types of people usually are so obnoxious, that I try to put distance between them and me as a knee jerk reaction.
So is playing basketball.
With less people, this happens less nowadays.
Encouraging someone to push past their comfort zone is helpful. But it seems less helpful to imply that you know more about the bounds of their comfort zones than they do, or that their comfort zone must simply be a cultural construct because it doesn't match yours.
“Throwing a party” is not an introvert vs. extrovert thing. What you do at the party is.
At some point my partner told me I should stop saying I'm introverted because she saw me always interacting with people and enjoying it. So I reflected, realized she had a point, and stopped identifying as introverted.
Over time I realized that actually, I love interacting with people, especially closer friends. A "party" can be 4-6 people, it doesn't have to be huge. And sure, after larger events I still need some time to cool down, but stopping identifying as introverted has been a huge improvement overall to my life.
e.g. It is not supposed to be about how much you like socializing or how good you are at it.
That being said, I still found a way to serve my community (my mosque). I am chartering a Toastmasters club to help grow people in their public speaking and leadership skills. It's incredibly fulfilling and also humbling because I'm probably the least accomplished person in the room (I'm a college dropout turned SWE, and there are doctors, medical and otherwise, professors, business owners, and more).
I feel way out of my league but there's so much excitement that I feel like I'd be letting the community down if I decided I don't want to talk to anyone for a while.
So yes, I agree with you. Putting yourself into situations where you may start uncomfortable but then eventually it becomes more uncomfortable to start. You just need the activation energy, i suppose.
> 3 or 4 people who I know well is optimal for me.
Then invite 3 or 4 people over. That's much more than what most people do. Sounds like the optimal party size to me.
It will feel like more of a chore for introverts, but it's like a chore you need to do even if it feels bad in the moment, like doing laundry or exercising.
And worse for introverts - people who never invite other people eventually stop getting invited themselves, so to maintain social connection requires introverts to sometimes be the driver of the event.
[1]: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10328046/
That seems very much like exercising, no? You need a certain level of exercise to maintain basic physical capability but past that point there are diminishing returns. So if you truly detest exercising (or socializing) then you can stop there and still lead a healthy, functional life.
Is this true?
This is only anecdotal but my experience has been that the amount of exercise people need to maintain basic physical capability seems to vary with age, gender, diet, genetics, and other factors.
Personally, I find that as I get older I have to be more diligent about exercise to maintain basic physical capability, and I have older relatives who spend time exercising just to maintain sufficient VO2 max to be able to do things like walking up stairs.
And it's not just age. I have friends who can take a break from rock climbing for half a year or more and when they come back they're climbing routes at roughly the same difficulty as before they left, whereas others take a couple weeks off and have to work their way back up from easier routes when they return.
If you do type 2 fun often enough, the level of anxiety drops. Imagine hosting a game night once: you have to ensure all your friends can attend, you agonize over the snacks, over picking the right games to play.
But if you power through and establish a tradition or join an existing one, it becomes simple, e.g.: every Thursday at 7pm you meet for a game of whatever you've been playing last week and a new game the host picked, the host brews tea, the guests bring whatever snacks they want. At the end of the session, you choose which game to play next week: the old one or the new one.
I dont know where it started but we've turned this whole introvert/extrovert stuff into some sort of immutable characteristic.
That said, hiking up a mountain sounds like a great vacation to me, in a type 1 and 2 way. Active recreation is my gratifying form of recreation (balanced of course with some down time after), but I know this sounds like hell to a lot of people. I'm not sure we have a word for this divide as a culture.
I, too, like going to (some) parties, but more often I don't. I like hosting, but only small groups of people (3-6ish), and I cannot handle more than dozen at my place, though I don't mind going to parties where there are more. It's just that I end up talking with the handful of people I know.
Planning parties is, well, exhausting. Hosting them is exhausting. I'd much rather talk, chat with, go to concerts with, workout with, hike with people, than go to parties or host them.
When it comes to parties, I want to be invited, but don't want to go.
If there's one club I belong to, it's probably the Groucho Marx club. "I woudn't want to belong to any club that would have me as a member."
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Honestly. Put up or shut up.
You can't just say "Oh boy am I an introvert." and just leave it at that.
Some people are extroverted picking their nose. Let me explain what I mean. That means they do it in front of others and don't give a fuck, or they might apologise when they get called out, and just do it all over again next minute. That's me. Other people are introverted picking their nose. They go away in private and they go ahead and pick their nose now that nobody is around. They're not necessarily in denial about it, and sometimes you can get them on the topic and compare notes. That's my wife.
I suspect that for many, if they had less social anxiety, they would actually prefer to socialize more. But the most successful way to reduce an anxiety is through exposure therapy: forcing yourself to do the thing. And in today's world it is much too easy to simply avoid exposing yourself to any socialization.
I see a lot of people who claim to be very introverted. But, also, a lot of those people are unhappy. They may be comfortable, but that's not the same as happy.
I won’t go to a bar or a club alone. I don’t like it. But a good set of friends in a familiar location like my house (or theirs) makes for a really good time. We definitely try to get together at least once every couple of months.
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.
Well it's happening to the vast majority of people all at once, I don't think it's age, at least not only that. I haven't read the whole article yet perhaps he offers ideas on why this is happening but I'm guessing - better alternatives (Netflix), increased individualism etc. Society has changed a lot.
1. People work more. In particular, the shift to dual-income households means that women, who traditionally planned most parties before, no longer have time.
2. the shift to "lots of kids, sparse parenting" to "few kids, lots of investment" becomes another time sink focusing families inwards on themselves instead of outwards on the wider community
3. People just have less friends. especially so for a) single b) non college-degree and c) lower-income people. Probably due to #1 and the whole dating app epidemic no one has had a serious conversation about yet.
4. And yes, as you alluded to, it is "more fun to be alone" in the modern day. Less incentive to go out if you don't "feel" lonely nor bored.
I guess I could have just quoted the provided summary, but where's the fun in that?
>In sum: The death of the host is the story of lonely unmarried people and harried married dual-earner households; anxious parents spending more time with their children and less time with friends; and the typical home becoming such a riot of diverting comfort that people no longer have to invite human beings to interrupt their boredom.
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.
Now with the great late summer, it would be a great time for something like this again, but I just did not felt the energy, but also am a bit sad now to not just make something happen.
True. If I invite nobody it about matches the night in.
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.
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.
Going to the gym is exhausting, running a marathon is exhausting, spending a day weeding your garden or laying a new carpet could be exhausting.
Usually people feel great afterwards because of the experience and despite it being hard work and taking time to recover from. Parties etc. can be the same.
They can for some, but to be very clear, I don't. I feel mentally drained in a way I absolutely do not enjoy. The experience can be fun during, but the net benefit to me is low enough, and for many types of socialising it's firmly in the negative, that I restrict myself very much in terms of what socialising I consider worthwhile.
As I said, it's very much down to your personality - most of the time I'd rather spend time in peace and quiet alone or with my wife or son (and I need some of that time to be entirely alone)
In fact, I made the comment because the comment I replied to presented the opposite option and I wanted to point out that it depends on personality.
My point is, yes, sometimes it's good to just ignore the discomfort and push through, but we should also know that it's not how everyone feels about it. Some people actually willingly go down into a crowded basement club with loud music and not just as some kind of tough challenge to survive and shape your character to have tbuilt tolerance for that harsh environment,but they find it enjoyable, no matter how baffling it seems to the rest of us. I don't know proportions, but these people exist. Of course plenty of people are somewhere in the middle range, where they enjoy some aspects while hating the rest, and the thing they enjoy about loud clubs is likely about prospects getting laid and similar stuff.
The funny thing is that I used to go clubbing regularly because to me that was not about socialising per se. I'd be happy to go alone into an anonymous mass of people and just dance and switch off. I'd still need time to recover, but not nearly as much as with a group of people I'm expected to talk to.
That's universally held for me in other contexts as well. E.g. I can speak in front of thousands - and have - and not stress out at all. They're a non-descript mass at that point. I'm just talking, not conversing. But if any of them try to corner me to talk to me afterward? That is exhausting.
Those don't make me feel great afterwards either. I'd just feel I spend half a day just to end up where I already was.
> spending a day weeding your garden or laying a new carpet could be exhausting.
These would give me a good feeling. The result is what gives me the dopamine hit.
(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.)
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."
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 also 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.
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. :)
I cannot stress this enough, thanks again @kieckerjan, people like you keep the world together. This is no exaggeration.
1. Not connection like in Facebook and crap.
AI is amazing. https://clubs.fyi/.
(I already had the backend but vibecoded a frontend in about an hour)
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.
Some say it isn't even a country /s
Then I became a single father and I haven't thrown a single party since then.
Damn I miss throwing parties.
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.
Grateful for people who host and provide social opportunities even though I'm sometimes not outwardly social.
My partner and I basically stopped having people over to dinner after our first kid was born. We want to, but it’s difficult to make the time to prepare the house for hosting, assemble a meal worthy of guests, and clean up afterward. When I was a kid my mother, who stayed at home, would do the lion’s share of that work, and the people who invited us over were also single income families.
But also, it’s not like we aren’t socializing at all. We’re just much more likely to arrange lower-effort gatherings such as picnics in the park.
That said, we’d probably do it a lot more if it were possible to get affordable health care while working a 30 hour work week.
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.
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.
I didn't relate to most of what you said, but I definitely see this sentiment. I hosted parties all the time till I got married, albeit not for logistical reasons. She's very unkeen on having people in her space, and carving out space for me was already a sacrifice for her.
Now I wish my friends hosted parties because I'd 100% go.
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.
The way they talk about it, they’re limited to only hanging out with people who similarly have kids, and whose kids get along with their kids. They’re cut off from most of their other friends’ normal social activities, even if they have a really good babysitter, which is a rare luxury. Sometimes they hang out with other parents they don’t even particularly like, just because both of them having kids makes it possible.
I can think of several times in the last year alone where I’ve been looking forward to meeting my friends, only to have our plans ruined upon arriving and realizing that the venue we’d chosen didn’t allow minors. Brunch at a cafe, wine tasting and lunch at a winery.
idk. I understand how there’s a sort of solidarity and flexibility to the friends you make with fellow parents, but just from the outside, it looks like that’s barely making do with what you’ve got, not free to be socializing the way you actually want to.
This is only true if you limit your definition of "real" event to one without kids.
The social gatherings I was talking about have people bring their kids.
If you're not a parent and your only experience with parenting is through friends' lamentations about parenting, this probably won't land. What I'm trying to communicate is that the events are different, but they're not bad or unenjoyable. It's actually a lot of fun, and you meet a lot of new people too.
I know a few parents whose kids will only get along with a small number of close friends, but that's a minority. We takes our kids to different parks and they've learned to play with random kids that they've never met and may never see again. This is common for well socialized kids.
> that the venue we’d chosen didn’t allow minors. Brunch at a cafe, wine tasting and lunch at a winery.
I'm sorry to say, but this seems a lot like a you problem. I don't know why you'd think that wine tasting at a winery would be a kid-friendly event without checking.
Your location might play a part in it. I literally cannot think of a brunch venue, including $100/person places with reservation lists here, that don't allow minors. When making a reservation you tell them how many adults and how many kids, so that should have come up unless this was they were really unfamiliar with going out with kids? Either way, these problems are not frequent. As a parent you do a cursory check of a venue to make a judgment call if it's kid friendly or not.
Most people my age do have kids, especially given that I'm living somewhere fairly quiet. I like kids and get along with them well -- indeed, to the extent that I'd happily occasionally babysit for free. But parents seem to be living in a different world.
One difficulty is that most parents seem to be deeply invested in their home lives and daily routines, in a way that I find difficult to relate to, which can make small talk difficult. But one way or another, I should probably make some attempts to expand my social life.
That's too bad. I would say most of the other parents I meet aren't people I'd hang out with outside of kid events, but when you go to a lot of events you meet so many other adults that your odds of finding new friends goes up substantially
People who don't throw parties might want to think about this. :)
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.
I doubt its that they forget - it probably just isn't gratifying to them. Different people find different things gratifying.
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.
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.
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)
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".
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 haven't forgotten anything. As I read your sentence I felt revulsion filling my soul. The idea that someone might find such thing gratifying adds another layer to already a terrible feeling.
I grew up in a multi-family apartment as a child (3 floors) with my grandparents, and aunt/uncle/cousin, along with my family. I'm half Sicilian as well, big family dinners on Sundays were a tradition and some of my fondest childhood memories.
Yes, they require planning and energy but they're well worth it if you enjoy the company of other human beings. :)
You wouldn't be surprised if everyone was smoking and smoking rate was going up massively and then we had a surge of people getting cancer.
This is obviously because of social media or other algorithmic applications. It literally herds people.
It couldn't be more obvious how unhealthy it is, yet there is no demand for it to get outlawed and there won't be any time soon. It is pretty sad.
If you think about the second/third order effects that it will have, it is massively worse than alcohol/drugs.
And as for time, the average person finds time for hours of short form video and other useless tasks. Which is actually the real problem, social media has sucked up everyone’s time and attention to the point people don’t socialise anymore.
I know what you mean, but the real issue for most people is time, money, and social connections. Dinner parties were way down before TikTok. Most people I know cannot host at all, either they live with their parents or their apartment is in such rough shape that it would take days of cleaning to be able to invite people over.
Who finds this surprising or puzzling? I do not see this sentiment in the article or in the comments here.
All I can say is the consequences of a degrading mental/social health are harder to grasp than a hangover or, for the lack of a better smoking example, lung cancer.
Still I'm also puzzled by the amount of people, even in my own social circle, that "just want to wind down after work" (read: completely fry their brain)
"In Bowling Alone, Putnam acknowledged that women have historically been the keepers of the family social calendar, planning the birthday parties and neighborhood potlucks. For any number of reasons, women seem to do better than men at making and keeping adult friendships and making plans with other families"
The author states that they dismiss this thesis because "groups have more leisure time now than before" but that's not a valid rebuttal. The problem isn't the amount of leisure time, but the way that leisure time is used. It's easier for a planning and hosting novice to invite friends out than it is to host. If you don't have the skills to host, it doesn't matter how much time you have, you won't host.
I have a 1930s vintage Hood (the milk company) "basic" cookbook. In it's 800 pages, it includes hundreds of pages about how to run the larder of a household including how to understand how a carcass is broken up (and how to do it yourself) so you can chat with some fundamentals with the butcher, rules of thumb for how to stock a brand new kitchen with tools and supplies and also how to plan for an entire month's worth of groceries and using the whole animal to stretch your budget, how to plan and prepare and set a large dinner party, how to preserve your food with several different canning methods, an entire section about coffee and how to be a gentle coffee snob (in the 30s!) and about a hundred pages of printed photos to illustrate those points. The chapter on cookies starts with two pages discussing cookies as an abstract concept!
This tome is just a tiny part of what used to be the "Woman's job". You could construct equivalently large tomes for most other tasks and duties and "Roles", especially the one about managing social networks!
But western society offloaded all that work to women so long ago that it largely forgot to even recognize it! When women were allowed to seek careers, quite frankly men did not pick up the slack at all. They basically just assumed all this stuff happened magically it seems. There was no institution that really worked to push this knowledge to people, as it previously was largely passed down mother to daughter outside of institutions, and no 90s era "home economics" classes didn't even come close, so the chain was broken and a lot of that knowledge just kind of didn't make it to younger generations!
Very true in a lot of domains! When I first became a parent I had to learn a lot about “mental load” or risk my marriage. A lot of women won’t put up with that anymore (rightfully so)
and why wouldn't it? we went from 40 hours of one person being able to support a household, now it's more assumed to be 80 hours from two people
our time has been stolen from us
productivity has increased, but so have working hours, people in the workforce, commuting time, etc
Facebook was founded over twenty years ago. There are adults in the world who have no recollection of a life before social media. In that sense it shouldn’t be surprising or puzzling, should it?
> It couldn't be more obvious how unhealthy it is, yet there is no demand for it to get outlawed and there won't be any time soon.
Remember when young adults were literally shouting online “let China suck up all my data” in response to the proposed TikTok ban? I (and probably you) lived in and can remember a world before the internet was in every part of our lives, but there are adults living now who can’t. It is not obvious to them.
And yes, this is all down to a few celebrities and influencers who are popular with that crowd showing off the habit in public. A fashion.
Fortunately this is very slowly starting to crack. Maybe not from social pressure as it deserves, but litigation is finally starting to catch up with the tech and some recent court rules have started putting some simple yet major compromises on Meta. We're talking "need to remove likes" levels of major.
I think these are still in appeal (or have already settled), but I'm keeping a close eye on this.
The people in my life who are always throwing parties, have insteresting hobbies like surfing, playing music or rock climbing are basically minimal users of social networking.
One big thing I feel contributing to this is a lack of time.
And the more strange unusual thing, many folks basically have "school nights", they don't do anything because they're going to work the next day.
Perhaps work becoming more mentally intensive makes this more difficult.
For families with kids, forming deep friendships as an adult can be a logistical challenge.
Many people have no current relationship with friends they made in college or high school
For most people posting on HN, I would guess, money would not be even in the top-3 of reasons.
I did enjoyed debate team activities btw. The above is what I eventually realized later.
Maybe it's declined since the 50s in favor of football or so on but I'd like to see the numbers.
But then i realized that it was mostly me who hosted them and the few times i got invited there was an agreement that guest chip in on the costs or that it was a potluck kind of thing.
Made me regret spending all that time and money on the parties i hosted.
If the only friends you have are those you have to pay, when the money's gone, are they likely to stick around? (Likely not)
But if they do, then maybe you've found a true friendship.
What a wonderfully American comment..... the very idea that somebody is financially benefiting who dosn't 'deserve' it is an athema to your society.
Maybe OP's friends simply had less money (the horror!)? Or perhaps they had more children, so less time to cook and less time to spend with friends?
Not everything in life is zero-sum monney game. After all, have you ever wondered why children climb trees?
I now have an other friend group and I have gotten tired with cooking for a x-amount of people.
I always look at happiness in terms of pillars, social, family, work, spiritual. Work somehow has taken over everything. It seems culturally engrained.
I know social media is a factor but while we all fall down the rabbit hole occasionally, it doesn't stop anyone organising a get together.
I also found that they seem to value the tradition and style (quality of food, quality of dinnerware, quality of decoration, etc) much more than the company.
Before marriage, we (guys) would get together often. After marriage, it promptly stopped. And the accounting began.
As I said in another comment, the causes of the decline are plenty, and nothing really dominates. I've given a few reasons here and elsewhere, but I'm sure there are many more. It's a death by a thousand cuts. The reasons I give here are due to a certain sub-clique. It won't apply to others' experiences.
In my family, not surprisingly it's the wife who wants to host dinners. And because of the (IMO) high standards, it means she's missing for days to over a week. Life pretty much goes on hold in the household during that time. She can't watch the kids, so I have to. We both work and have little time, which really means the kids get neglected - and it's measurable.
If they lowered their standards, this wouldn't be a problem. But they seem to value those standards more than the social mixing.
If hosting was "simple food, no decoration, not the tidiest home", it would happen a lot more.
(Of course, if you host at a restaurant, that's the most expensive).
Little confused by your example. Your wife hosts (let’s say on a Saturday) but prepares for it all week and doesn’t help with kids? Is that right?
And that may be why restaurants are out - kids are bored at restaurants.
> Your wife hosts (let’s say on a Saturday) but prepares for it all week and doesn’t help with kids? Is that right?
I'm saying it takes both of us to properly parent the kids, because we're both working spouses. Kids only get 3 hours at home on weekdays. In that time you have to ensure they get food, do homework, have fun, and bond. 3 hours just isn't enough when they're young kids. If one parent is absent, the debt grows.
My point (scattered across various comments), is that socializing need not be hard, and inviting 2 other families for dinner shouldn't take days of preparation. But because of the all the ceremony and effort that people (needlessly) put into it, it does. If they want more socializing, lower the standards. Just have simple food, no special setups, etc.
In my social circle, if you're inviting people over, then you need to satisfy:
1. Neat + Tidy house
2. Good food, and lots of it
Both take time, and not for tired parents.
(To be clear: These are not my expectations...)
This makes it even more difficult to host because of everybody's needs and regimes they dont buckle on.
I was just planning a dinner party a while ago and the Venn diagram of what foods I could make was truly vexing.
I will move heaven and earth and scrub pots and pans for someone with Celiac, but working around people’s mere preferences is irritating.
prior generations would just eat around it or suck it up.
2. More remote communication
3. Fewer friends through church
4. Fewer friends through kid’s school
5. Kids have more homework and more structure activity than they used to.
6. Less need for entertainment