We ended up doing a full-weekend party where people could drop by whenever they can. The first guests came on Friday around 6 pm and the last ones left on Sunday at 11 pm. In the end people were spread out evenly. Some came with kids in the day, others alone in the evening. This way there was really time to sit down and talk with old friends whom I hadn't seen in years or even decades.

For food, we ended up having ingredients in the fridge for a few quick foods like Vietnamese rice paper rolls, and we'd make it together with new guests if they were hungry. It worked out fine.

Of course dedicating the entire weekend to a party is a big commitment, but I think it actually reduced the level of stress compared to trying to do a traditional "dense" party on Saturday night.

You don't have to be around for the whole thing either, you can easily take some time to read or otherwise relax if you have enough friends coming over - nothing weird about friends hanging out in your house without you present.

I used to give out house keys to most of my friends and encourage them to come by whenever - if I'm not around, if I'm busy, or just plain exhausted, I won't hang out, but it's still a safe and fun place for people to gather. This often led to spontaneous 'parties'. I remember once a friend was in the area and came over with ingredients for a dish she had been wanting to create. Enough people ended up randomly showing up, it led to one of the most memorable and wonderful dinner parties of my life!

Now I just need money to get a house in HCOL area where most of my friends are...

I don’t know how to cultivate this kind of community. It’s not something I grew up with. I moved around a lot, and have recently realized that post-Covid I have nearly no friends.

While I don’t miss commuting, or open offices, I do deeply miss the sense of community that used to exist in the tier 1 tech cities.

In retrospect the COVID years were much better for my social life than the last six months. During COVID, people were really looking forward to interact with people, and would jump into activities as long as it was online, or if you did a quick test before meeting.

But now people went back to their busy schedules of solo activities outside the house and they're tired, and there's no time for concerts together, no time for going to a soccer game, no time for playing board games or going for a hike.

Unless you're willing to compromise and do something you're not really into (I'm not good with FPS games, Allan, sorry), people are gonna do their own things and "mandatory socialization" seems enough for them.

If I had a whole weekend of drop-ins I would isolate myself a week after.

I compare it to masks. We wear many different masks and they weigh different depending on the company. The masks come off with your close family and friends and it's wonderful. It's actually recharging in some way.

You are right that making more than one person agree on a time gets increasingly difficult as age increases. I tend to be the one that travels to friend's homes, because I have a less crowded agenda than most of them.

It recently occurred to me how important my fraternal org is in my life after taking some time away from it. Showing up to see 30 or so guys who aren't family, and who were happy enough to see me, say hello, have a pint, dinner and small talk is maybe a once a year experience for most guys over 40, but for me it's about 10x/year, just with that group. There's a natural filter, where you don't have to re-negotiate all these anxieties every time you try to get people together.

One reason parties disappeared is because we have encouraged widespread neuroticism and anxiety about maintaining purity in different and various forms, and that intolerance has effectively eroded the social fabric. Surely we can hav e new kinds parties, ones that are lame, and that nobody enjoys, but we can have the satisfaction that at least those other people aren't here...

I travel with someone who will die within an hour of exposure to peanuts, regularly spend time with people in their 80's and 90s who have been on deaths door for years, ride motorcycles with guys in their 70s and if they have a random spill, they're guaranteed dead. I see women in their 70's thrown from the backs of horses, often twice in the same ride. I drink with guys between chemo appointments, smoke cigars with guys who have colostomy bags, and saw a friend perform a spectacular monologue when he knew it was the last time in his life that he would give it.

These vulnerabilities are not lifestyle choices, and yet they manage. The difference between "I will actually die," and "I could die" is a matter of perception, and the world doesn't stop for any of us. Actual lifestyle choices which are a selective constraint as a substitute for achievement are uniquely prevalent today, and I think, socially suffocating.

I mean, come on. Just think about this. We've heard so much of this over the last few years like "some people died from the flu before, so you should accept you likely may die from COVID." Would you really say that to the face of an immunocompromised person?

My general point is that preferences aren't identities, and when they are accepted as such, they erode the social fabric and prevent the growth and social opportunity that benefits everyone. It adds a punitive downside to giving parties when suddenly we have to worry about a guest having a crisis because their idea of self gets offended.

To the immunocompromised people I know, if you can't make it out because you are sick, fine, happens to the best of us, catch up another time. If you can't make it because your condition has become an identity that is irreconcilable with other identities, that must be very hard, but it's your responsibility to be interesting and enjoyable to be around, even if there are unique barriers to that, and especially if you want accomodation.

If your diet were vegan because you are immunocompromised, or even religious, own it and take responsibility for your needs instead of making them a condition on your company, and then be worthwhile. Of course we manage things at our own expense, it's what ownership means. You can't blame your disease for your being lame or use your identity as social leverage and expect anyone to find that appealing and interesting for very long.

My point is, the world owes us nothing and thinking it does is part of what has made giving parties less appealing. The (mostly) men who ran massive party scenes during the AIDS epidemic did so in spite of a more terminal and persistent illness than anything we are dealing with today, and so there have been better parties in worse conditions than the medical one your comment refers to, and it was because their general attitude was better than the one I think has been promoted over the last decade.

Having said that, of course I can get upset when society changes! It would be very silly to think otherwise. I bet we would be very hard pressed to find a single human being who doesn't get upset when society changes (in ways they don't like). My being upset doesn't obligate anyone to do anything about it of course, but I'm free to observe changes I see happening and offer my opinion on them. The reason I'm not upset is that I have plenty of people in my life who are not difficult to get together and spend time with, and it sounds like the poster above you does too.

The question in the OP was about what happened to parties, and are there any trends causing them to be happening less. "Motohagiography" identified a trend that he believes is responsible. As best I can tell, you aren't even arguing that he's wrong. You're arguing that the trend he identified is a net good. That's a perfectly valid opinion to have, but I think his point is both clear and correct.

Zoomer here, could you elaborate on this?

Okay, gotcha.

Sounds like they're pretty disgusted by those type of people. Especially characterizing that type of behavior as "neuroticism and anxiety" instead of, ya know, trying not to die.

Honestly, I mostly agree with OP, though I think I have chosen to mostly accomoate to the extent possible, just because I still want to throw parties. I mix a shirly temples and buy non-alcoholic rum and beer, get some vegan food if I'm serving food, etc. But it is, indeed, a pain, if maybe not a major one. I think the real issue here is just that people are glued to their screens and their pills. A lot of people don't want to party because they're already on a cocktail of pills (you know the ones) and that isn't compatible with a couple drinks for them.Mainly, though, people are atticted to games, doomscrolling, and TV, kind of in that order, and would prefer to sit getting quietly depressed rather than go out and spend time talking with people.

1) I feel bad for you if you're genuinely sick and at risk, but I'm sure you know that there's a perception out there that many people are trying to milk Covid concerns merely to continue working from home or reaping other benefits that they value: and meantime they go out to restaurants and live life more or less normally. We all saw many of our political leaders who were fear-mongering Covid the worst do that.

2) You have to feel bad for anybody who is scared and feeling isolated, but what else do you want humanity to do? Short of just incinerating the planet, there's no method known to science to eliminate Covid in the wild. We shut down a lot of human activity for years (at massive expense, that we're going to be paying for many years) and even sacrificed part of our children's future to help the most vulnerable. Other than putting humanity in a total economic death spiral (that will be many times worse than Covid) I'm not sure what else can be done to give immunocompromised people a better situation.

3) I don't know how I'd live if I was genuinely immunocompromised, but the really sick people I know such as cancer patients going through chemo who are in/out of hospitals constantly are genuinely trying to go out and live their lives as normally as they can and trying not to be a slave to their illness.

4) Has anything qualitatively changed for immunocompromised people with Covid? Pre-Covid, there was influenza and other diseases that posed some measure of risk to people. Covid seems worse than them and can kill of course, but obviously isn't anywhere near something like Ebola in terms of risk. You're facing maybe a tiny bit more life risk than you would have in say 2018.

How is this "milking" anything? The last few years have proved that lots of white collar jobs don't need to be done from an office building.

>Other than putting humanity in a total economic death spiral (that will be many times worse than Covid) I'm not sure what else can be done to give immunocompromised people a better situation.

This is a false dichotomy. The science is clear on this one. Continue wearing masks in public places, physical distancing, practicing basic hygiene, and continue requiring vaccinations. Yes, all of those things are proven to reduce transmission of COVID as well as other airborne viruses like the flu. Society doesn't need to shut down or enter a "death spiral" to do any of them. Leaders just caved to political pressure and stopped enforcing them.

>are genuinely trying to go out and live their lives as normally as they can and trying not to be a slave to their illness.

Yes, and they probably still have to wear masks and avoid certain places that are likely to carry an increased risk of infection. "Not being a slave to the illness" doesn't mean you go out and take stupid risks.

>Has anything qualitatively changed for immunocompromised people with Covid?

Yes, COVID is significantly more contagious than influenza, and causes more severe illness than influenza.

I strongly agree with you that a lot of white collar jobs don't necessarily need to be done from an office building. I'm referring to people who playact at being terrified of Covid as a justification for working from home while in their personal lives they go out and live life normally. The fear that some people exhibit is an act for personal gain: based on their actions they don't believe it.

> This is a false dichotomy. The science is clear on this one. Continue wearing masks in public places, physical distancing, practicing basic hygiene, and continue requiring vaccinations. Yes, all of those things are proven to reduce transmission of COVID as well as other airborne viruses like the flu. Society doesn't need to shut down or enter a "death spiral" to do any of them. Leaders just caved to political pressure and stopped enforcing them.

I've written responses to this kind of argument on HN many times. In a nutshell my position is the following:

1) I honestly don't think too many people are having major science disagreements: they're having risk-management disagreements. Your risk-tolerance and values are different than others, and you're disagreeing about what's worth doing, you're not actually disagreeing all that much about data. Pretend it's 60 degrees F out: a Canadian might say that it's a scorcher and an Australian might say it's freezing. Same exact science (60 degrees to both), just a different way of looking at things. Neither is scientifically wrong.

2) For what it's worth, suggesting a human action is never the outcome of any science experiment. The science is NOT clear on wearing masks or doing any of those other things because that is not the domain of science. All science can do is provide objective data (to the limits of human ability to measure) and humans decide what to do in light of that data outside of the domain of science.

> Yes, and they probably still have to wear masks and avoid certain places that are likely to carry an increased risk of infection. "Not being a slave to the illness" doesn't mean you go out and take stupid risks.

I honestly don't know the statistics on how immunocompromised people actually live, but anecdotally I've seen that it depends on the person. I knew somebody that died of his illness that wanted to live his life completely normally for as long as he possibly could and was willing to risk being knocked out by Covid.

> Yes, COVID is significantly more contagious than influenza, and causes more severe illness than influenza.

The phrase I used was "qualitatively" changed.

As far as your use of the word "significantly", what does that word actually mean here? I'm curious what the actual stats are. How many immunocompromised people were around in say 2018? What percentage of them died due to a random respiratory illness then? Compare that to Covid time-period as best as possible. How much does that death rate actually change? Does it go from 5% risk of random death to 6%? or from 7% to 88%? I am not sure, but I suspect that the actual difference wouldn't be jaw-dropping to anybody here, but I'd like to learn those stats from you so I can appreciate your situation better.

For example, one of my very close friends is an ultra progressive guy. He’s vegan and talks a lot about personal responsibility to combat climate change. He was condemning people partying at my house for using disposable vapes since the packaging and plastic is wasteful…never mind the 6 pack of beer bottles he brought!

Another close friend is borderline carnivore, and likes to joke about controversial topics.

Having both of those guys around inevitably leads to arguments (mostly friendly) but that shit makes the other guests uncomfortable!

People need to stop caring so much about how others live and speak. Your personal philosophy isn’t special and shouldn’t prevent you from socializing with others!

I nearly had to throw someone out of a pool party being hosted for a bunch of 10 year old kids. The kids were all having a blast, but Mister Politics just couldn't stop talking about and inserting his political views. In this particular case I was in agreement with him, but it doesn't matter. This shit doesn't belong at an event that's supposed to be fun.

I’m not the type to raise a stink but I usually won’t have as much fun there either. I guess it’s more that my desire to avoid unpleasantries and making a ruckus than leaving my feelings at home.

This is the point. Leave that shit at home so the "other" folks don't have to see your shit. And if they agree to this social construct then you will not have to see their shit either.

Not trying to raise a big point but I just don’t think it’s easy for everyone else to leave things they care about at home as some others. The more passionate, the harder it is.

If you can discuss your opinions without giving or taking offense, then fine. I certainly haven't reached that level of maturity, so it is an ideal for me.

> ... but if you really believe in something...

Let's be clear whether this means you feel a need to persuade the person you're sharing your opinion with. If so, have you given serious thought about how to persuade? What is more important here to you: sharing your opinion or bringing others to adopt it?

Glass is infinitely recyclable, whereas "disposable vapes" could be referring to just the cartridge (hopefully) but also could mean the full-fledged single-use vapes with a lithium battery inside. If its the latter, they really should switch to the former. If its the former then I think your friend was being a bit excessive griping about that but a 6 pack of infinitely recyclable glass is hardly a comparison to the perma-trash generated by plastic vape carts.

edit: just want to add, those lithium batteries aren't "disposable" because of any innate attribute of the battery, they're only "disposable" because they are sold that way. The batteries could have been reused if the company manufacturing the vape just designed it as such: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsJMj7FtroY

There’s also the bottle caps, the packaging, and carbon cost of shipping a MUCH heavier product. There’s gotta be carbon output for growing barley and producing the actual beer too!

All so my environmentalist buddy can get drunk.

He shouldn’t feel guilty. The point is he’s doing the same thing as the vapers: emitting waste for a fleeting psychoactive effect.

The problem of climate change is so far above everyone’s pay grade. People shouldn’t be chastising others for their carbon footprint. It’s silly and impacts nothing.

I love my homie but Christ he’s gotta stop playing climate change moral arbiter

Source for this being applicable to glass? The news sources I've seen say that it's mostly an issue with plastics.

And we've been recycling glass before recycling was a big thing of course.

Generally, if parties are decreasing, I would argue it is more because there is so much new and very good entertainment that is just way lower effort. I don't know we need politics or ideology to explain it, these things aren't new.

Today its “what is gender”, yesteryear it was “should women vote”. Today its the LGBTQ agenda, yesteryear it was prostitution, porn, infidelity, marriage debates. Today it is political religions, yesteryear it was “Does God allow re-marriage?” “Do Catholics go to hell?”. Today we align along ideologies on twitter, yesteryear we aligned by joining the Elks or the Masons or the unions.

There is nothing new under the sun.

The only really new, big stakes discussion I see on the table today is climate change. Everything else has been more or less hashed out by generations now dead.

Forrest Gump

> Hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, and weak men create hard times.

I think we're entering that last cycle again, where people are inventing trivial hardships for themselves, because media teaches them that only a life with some type of adversity is worth living.

In other words, everyone is desperate to be a protagonist in what is an extremely comfortable world, so they invent villains. Then they post about their great protagonism on social media. In part, I think, this is due to the neurosis created by the fakeness of social media.

Also, since all achievements on social media are pixel-thin, it is also turning people into equally shallow reprobates.

The recent trend of unironically calling people "NPCs" and "bots" just reinforces these beliefs, IMO.

[1]: I also find it a bit funny we have to put these types of disclaimers everywhere, since everyone goes out of their way to be offended over trivialities

"Hard times create strong men" - maybe, but starvation doesn't make you strong. Being dead from disease doesn't make you strong. Rising to adversity might make some people stronger, but it will harm others who survive but are damaged. It could be that the already-strong people rise to adversity and the weak get crushed by it, Darwinianly? Or that the weak endure through hard times as much as anyone because hard times are generally about health food or money and even 'weak' beggers can get enough of those to survive. Today's homeless are generally enduring lack of food, poor health, low money, and nobody considers them being made 'strong' by it, they're harmed by it.

"strong men create good times" - warriors are strong, barbarian raiders were strong, unpleasant bosses who abuse their workforce and reign by terror are strong, those are horrible times. Is there a connection between strong people and good times? What about average people who are neither weak nor strong, working in concert? What about people who are generally considered weak, but are thinking long term planting the trees that will shade tomorrow, community building, etc?

"good times create weak men" - do they? Do they necessarily? Why is this framing "good" as "bad"? Wouldn't going to the gym regularly and getting stronger be "good times" for someone? Wouldn't working the family farm hard, being physically strong and providing for your family, be good times and not making you weak? Is it luxury which makes people weak - previous point, do strong people create luxury specifically?

"weak men create hard times" - do they? Plenty of strong people (dictators, for example) have created hard times for millions. Plenty of weak people have had no impact on the times at all. Isn't the history of progress littered with people who were "a weak and sickly child" who spent their lives hiding indoors, thinking about math, died young, and changed the world - were they making hard times?

It's connected to the 'one generation makes family wealth by working hard, next generation preserves it but can't build it, next generation spends it'. In that, the hard times are where you have no money and have to work. The good times are where you have money and no work. The next hard times are where you lose the money and have to work again. But then, getting back into work and earning money is a homeless unemployed person's good times, life on the up.

At the 'level of civilizations' it's far too vague to say the fall of Rome was caused by "weak men" or that the rise of Rome was caused by "hard times".

Or worse, because bad times create broken people. And while broken people can stand adversity, they are much less able to create something non-broken.

Also, whether hardships makes or breaks you depends largely on your outlook and coping skills (this comes from someone who's had CPTSD and had to stop suicidal idealisation and learn coping skills in my late 20s).

All skills diminish, if unused. Having too easy times means there's less need to "cope"

It's very likely most millennials have poor coping skills due to the predominantly emotionally neglectful parenting styles the previous generation

I think that in apocalyptically bad times good people (the "weak") get taken advantage of by ruthless assholes (the "strong") who do better when they act like selfish monsters, but those kinds of people just prolong the bad times. The "strong" just fight amongst themselves while oppressing everyone else. "Might makes right" doesn't result in favorable outcomes, just tyranny. Bad times can tempt or force people into becoming monsters, but you can't have good times with monsters running things.

Good times allow (and insist) that folks behave like a civilized people who look out for each other and that not only helps promote future good times and advancement but also creates an environment where genuinely vulnerable people who couldn't survive the bad times can thrive and contribute. When people are fighting for survival they don't have time to invent new cool things and learn about how the universe works.

I guess after a while the good times allow some of us to get annoyed by all the good people who keep telling everyone we have to be nice to others and there's time to look around at all the vulnerable people who couldn't survive without our support and wonder if we'd just be better off without them, but I can't imagine that working out better in the long term.

Perhaps things play out somewhat the same in less than apocalyptically bad times too.

When people say that phrase today, "bad" literally means WWII.

I would certainly include competence as contributing to a strong character

It might resonate the first time you hear it (most good propaganda does), but if you contemplate it for more than 10 seconds and you'll realize it's obviously untrue.

Also, you don't have to be macho or physically strong to be strong. That just seems like your own bias leaking into the discussion.

That it might promote contempt for weakness might be true, though, and it didn't cross my mind. I don't like that it does that. At the same time I don't think weakness should be glorified either. Ideally, weak people should be helped to develop their own strong self.

Bret Devereaux has a series of posts where he delves into the history of the idea behind the meme - https://acoup.blog/2020/01/17/collections-the-fremen-mirage-...

It's a thoroughly interesting debunking, and in part IIIb, he talks about how the trope was used to promote racial purity and superiority.

I don't know if it improves later, but they seem to only consider physical prowess as a form of strength. I generally interpreted this as strength of mind.

Also, I've taken the phrase less literally than they did. Man to me implied "human" (ie the same as man kind) because these quotes are usually designed to be succinct and memorable. They seem to think it's exclusive to human males.

But I've not read it in full yet, so we'll see when I finish it

I don't think that's even remotely what the quote means. You seem to be taking it as "weak men make up hardships" as opposed to "weakness leads to a broken down system and future suffering for society".

For example, one might say that weakness in facing climate change will lead to hardship in the future. Another example would be that weakness in facing fascism allows it to rise and wreak havoc on society. Coincidentally, that quote is super popular among fascist-leaning types.

And speaking of fascism and intolerance for others in general: it's unfortunately getting worse. I largely blame social media and the busybodies that waste away on them... Says I, as I moonlight as a keyboard warrior on a forum; the irony doesn't escape me

In any case, I don't know what to call it, but the resemblance to witch trials, heresy (and maybe fascism? I'm unsure now) is just uncanny.

I missed that one, though now that I read it I realize there's a lot of bot calling going-on on an FPS server I regularly visit.

By the way, is this site done with calling regular people "normies" ?

The only reason we don't meet weekly anymore is because I moved to another country, for career growth.

I'm betting my reality is also very common for people who grew on small towns and had to move, or for people who live in large countries where you often move around for jobs (like the USA).

I'm flying to Paris to meet one of those friends this weekend, though. But I doubt a lot of people have the money to do this on a whim like we (tech workers) do.

Yes, 100%. I met with my (high school) friends weekly when I lived at home. And I met with my brother's friends, who were entirely on the opposite end of the political spectrum from me. We partied together, swam together, went out together, no issues. We'd sometimes get drunk political discussions, but usually we just didn't go there because it really never came up or mattered. And, if it did, we'd usually do it jokingly and never really fight about it.

Now I'm half a world away and any time any of them are anywhere near where I'm at on traveling, I go visit. I've planned to fly to Scotland to visit some of them before Christmas but it fell through on their end. They're planning a Euro trip this autumn; I'll meet them wherever they're at.

Not a tech worker, but i'm lucky in that I can afford it thanks to cheap European flights.

> we have encouraged widespread neuroticism and anxiety...

Are they neurotic or are you projecting?

I have friends from many of those lifestyles, while myself, I am a "non-pork". But have never worried about what my friends with different lifestyles want at my party. We invite them all and most show up. Vegans may bring their own food. Halal eaters can stick with vegetarian options, if any.

And I never been offended by pork options at my friends' parties. Almost always there are side dishes.

Our parties are very diverse and our friends are very tolerant and curious about different people. We had friends who would get offended by alcohol or non-halal meat but they ended friendship.

You don't need to go crazy for other people's lifestyle. Good friends will stick around, intolerant will leave.

Great, bring some over and talk to the paleo-pesco-vegan about how well it pairs with phish and wild-caught twigs and berries.

> - I'm just getting old (closing in on 50) and people my age don't party anymore

I remember my parents' generation and their friends circle. My parents' friends circle was not only a friends circle, but it was a group of people who studied in the university altogether, in the same disciplines, and got appointed to the same city and actually same organizations after graduation. So not only they were just friends, but they were also work friends, colleagues, a lot of things.

I remember them regularly meeting in each other's houses and having fun, going to places together, taking vacations together and doing many other things up until ~40 years of age. Then such things suddenly became much more infrequent, then altogether stopping by their mid 40s.

I've considered going to DEFCON or that one quirky convention at CMU to network in my niche.

This is a weird way to project your insecurities.

Gonna print this on my business cards

So drunk and frustrated me took to my rollerblades and grabbed a hockey stick to start passing around a puck to myself in front of the local sports bar's little outdoor eating area just a few doors down. The patrons were less than amused I suppose since they mostly looked appalled and irritated at the noise I was causing, but at least I felt like I "doing it right" as opposed to going out to eat like any other night and staring at instagram or reddit while ordering a $30 cheeseburger sitting next to a dumpster in what used to be the gross back lot of the bar. I think I probably unclipped the red velvet stanchion a couple of times just because I found it too comical to remain closed off.

Ultimately, I think it was a pretty weird day. I'm trying to be more at peace with the state of things now, but I can't help but mourn how it used to be.

The scene: https://www.instagram.com/p/CePpDq1rElU/?utm_source=ig_web_b...

Go fuck a lonesome duck.

I'll have to share it with my friends...at a party...

Think back to those work parties: were they really spontaneous, or did "Janice in Accounting" always seem to step up? For me, there was one guy who always ran the happy hours; when he left, the happy hours' frequency dropped noticeably.

The aging, COVID, kids, busy-ness, general "Bowling Alone" etc factors all do make things harder too (reduce social density, increase difficulty of scheduling, etc.). But that's just friction; it can be overcome.

The best thing I did was become the shameless type of person who actively tries to create/join/combine social circles. It pretty quickly put me in touch with other people who do the same, and my social circle grew naturally after that.

I've observed the same thing in video games with group activities. People sit in party finder waiting for somebody else to organize a group. They could make the group themselves, but they don't. They just sit there and wait until somebody else does it.

In real life I can understand this apprehension a lot more, but in games it's the difference of a few clicks and picking and choosing who gets to join. And yet a lot of people don't want to do it. It's quite curious.

I wonder if it's related to who is willing to organize things in real life as well. Maybe some people are just more driven to organize things?

Previously you could go to "newbie" servers, learn the game or play without as much seriousness, or self-organize into clans/groups if you wanted something more serious. You needed to learn the customs and culture of every server and if you didn't like it, you could just go to another.

Now, everything is matchmade, there is no culture, and the "Ranked" vs "Quick Play" game modes means that you're just relying on the game to pair you with an enjoyable experience (that you can't just bail on without a penalty of some kind). Yes, this system is sometimes more preferable than going "LFG SM All" in LFG chat, but there is something that's been lost.

If you are part of those people, the "return on investment" in terms of socialisation diminishes - it's not about fear per-se, it's about the rational decision of not sinking time into an endeavour with a high failure rate if you have other, better options.

But still, I was surprised how much of “how to make people like me” was pretty explicitly learnable.

But your point does still stand. If you’re happy where you are - you have “other, better options” - def doesn’t make sense to invest in something where you’re not gonna get the return you want.

Love this phrasing

I think this is very true. Back in the day, I was 'the instigator'. I'd phone a couple of friends, and soon enough, Saturday night would be 'on'. If I didn't do it, it generally didn't happen. They wanted to go out, but never enough to actually organize it. 20 years on, I'm remembering my role and trying to make more things happen, particularly as I'm not on any Social Media, so have dropped off the passive radar of a number of my friends.

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

(0) Reach out to everyone. Everyone. That old college acquaintance you just noticed is in your city? Get coffee/happy hour. You never know who's looking for more friends.

(1) Encourage people to invite/bring their friends when you organize something. Hit up one friend for happy hour/food. "You've mentioned [coworker] a few times before - would he/she want to join us?"

(2) Host (implied) large group gatherings. Easy to say "come over, and bring whoever!" I like sports, so I host for the super bowl, World cup, March Madness, etc. - but could be anything. Throw parties for other peoples' birthday/going away/coming-to-the-city. Advance level: some bars are often open to "hosting" an event - they'll just rope off an area if you promise X people will show up.

(3) Host recurring events. Board Game nights, poker nights, dinner parties, wine club, etc. Great way to deepen relationships.

(4) Start group chats. Much easier to maintain a relationship with 4 group chats than 20 individuals. If one can't get critical mass, post the plan in another.

(5) Be actively welcoming. Make a point to intro yourself to new people/social stragglers on the edge, and greet people by name when they show up in a new-ish space (e.g., my friend brings his new gf to a board game night; she doesn't know many people here; stand up and say "Hello Janice! Great to finally meet you. How has your week been?"). Forge connection, don't just co-exist in the same space.

I'm sure there's more...

This has been a key one for me and my friend group. And this may also be instead of "host" recurring events its "go to" recurring events. We try and do trivia every week and as it becomes recurring it becomes part of everyone's schedule itself and not something to schedule and plan for which takes a lot of the pressure off. We kind of have a "core" group but everyone will occasionally bring coworkers, friends/family who are in town, etc. that help expand the social circle.

I had always been the organizer in my friend group organizing trips, meetups and would spend initiating conversations and discussion even in the group chats.

Due to certain life circumstances I had gradually stopped and the entire group actually fell apart except a few friends who lived in the same cities.

Your post actually gave me an impetus to reach out to a lot of the older groups and reconnect. Thank you.

I think as other comments allude to scheduling can be really hard so its a good idea to start sending out invitations 2-3 weeks in advance. Also don't be afraid to invite old friends - I reconnected with some friends I haven't talked to in 7+ years and it was great

Basically, things don't maintain themselves. This is true of work parties and get-togethers and dinners, and also true of government, civic organizations, and other related groups.

We need more people stepping up and doing the hard work of organizing.

Situation 1 - Years of working in an office with coworkers, attending events, meeting customers in the community. Eventually you end up with a handful of people who you just happened to chat with at some work thing then ran into each other again and now you are sort of friends.

Situation 2 - All of your interaction with coworkers and customers is remote. You get along with people but they aren't nearby so you can't grab coffee or dinner after work. You need to find interesting after-work activities, summon the energy, block out the time, spend the money, procrastinate taking action because you're overthinking it too much, etc.

--

I can't remember which podcast I heard about this on but I've listened to most of the audiobook for Nick Gray's "The 2-Hour Cocktail Party: How to Build Big Relationships with Small Gatherings"[0] and will be giving hosting a shot this spring. It still takes a lot of effort to find a crowd and host but hopefully having a framework for organizing and hosting will help.

[0] https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/61212264-the-2-hour-c...

I picked up Jiu Jitsu a few years ago and found that to be extremely effective when it comes to meeting people wherever I go. It's usually a stead group of people with other people rotating in, and doing collaborative activities together makes for quick friends.

I love remote work, and I take full advantage of it as a digital nomad, but we should have good faith discussions about the tradeoffs and how to mitigate it.

And that also guarantees that when you leave the company, you also leave your "friends".

I wholly reject intertwining work and professional relationships with friend relationships. I certainly won't be mean to my colleagues... but my closest colleague is 600mi away. And that's OK.

I do spend a bit of time with local groups for developing friendships with.. And they'll be there regardless where I work.

I am friends with many people who I am no longer coworkers with, some of which I consider to be pretty deep relationships. You don't have to stop talking once you or they have left the office, much in the same way that you don't have to stop being friends after taking a different class on a college campus.

Why the scare quotes, around "friends"? Coworkers can be true friends, couples can form too. And of course it can last for way after you leave the company.

What GP was saying is that in person meetings, as it is common in the office is how you get to know new people, who may or may not become true friends. Once connection is made, work becomes secondary, though it helps in the sense that it maintains physical proximity. There is nothing special about work in that regard, school, clubs, associations, church... have the same effect.

I also think the intermingling of friend vs work relationships is not as problematic as people make it, unless there is an obvious conflict of interest. I have people at work with which we don't talk about work when we meet outside. I also have friends I never worked with who happen to do the same job and we sometime talk about work. I know that some people want to set hard boundaries, and maybe they need that, but I have also seen plenty of healthy relationships between colleagues or ex-colleagues that extend well beyond work.

None of this was a criticism on choosing to not be friends with people you work with.

And it's one of the nicest, most positive communities I've found.

I vaguely recall socializing with co-workers - like back in the '90s. I don't recall it having been a great experience. You don't choose you co-workers.

My good friends now fall into three groups: 1) old high school or college friends, 2) parents of daughter's friends friends, 3) gym-rat/marathon friends. The groups don't overlap. Still LOTS of parties - especially the fitness clan. The vast majority I don't go to, because I'd be out partying a couple times a week.

I'm pretty introverted so I guess I'm just lucky to have strong friends circles. But you are correct that it takes intentional effort.

Anecdotally, most of the people with this view I found to already have a good group of friends whether from college or from earlier work/social situations. It feels a bit rich to say that you shouldn't make friends with coworkers when your social circle is already full.

First problem, we don't really have that many friends. Back in the day, it felt natural to invite anyone you remotely knew but today, not so much. So, only those that we had some kind of deeper relationship got on the list, in total maybe 30 people or so, almost all couples.

Second problem, we have moved around so a fair number of those we wanted to invite do not live in the same city as us. This meant travelling for them but many were fine to do it, however it gave rise to two other problems.

Third problem. Back in the day when there were parties, people could drop by and so it didn't feel it had to be so ambitious, but now since people were travelling, we have to have a proper dinner party. Lots of cost, lots of arrangements, not something that I want to do very often.

Fourth problem. Back in the day, there wasn't a day tomorrow. At the age of 50. there's always a day tomorrow. We had bought alcohol as if we were 20 but with the economy of two DINKs (they've moved out). Maybe 20% was consumed because "there's a day tomorrow as well", and frankly quite a few were travelling so they did indeed have to be able to drive reasonably early.

It's just very different having parties at the age of 50 compared to 20, it can't be the same thing, at least not in our circle and I'm quite sad for it.

I am currently trying to adapt that to my own situation. 31yo post 2 years of Corona isolation. I just signed up for volunteer work and a rowing club and life feels fun again :)

As a 35 year old who's just had his first kids this makes me sad to read, it really feels like I'm past the age of good parties now.

Pre-covid we were having raucous times every weekend and now there's too much responsibility to imagine that again. And I'm probably getting towards the age where it'd be a bit sad to still do that anyway.

FWIW one place I've lived that seems to care little about age in the party scene is Madrid. Plenty of nights you're just as likely to be partying with 60 year olds as 25 year olds.

Same in Ireland. Funnily enough the party scene there also includes many Spaniards of all ages, as well as an overrepresentation of Greeks and Italians.

Wherever I go in Europe, if I go to a party I know it's likely I'll meet someone from one of those four countries there.

I don't go out a lot but in fairness I remember back in the day seeing plenty of post-60 people up late and out and about.

Re: the students, that's true but there are also plenty of students from other parts of the world (Britain, China, India, and France especially) and it's been my experience that they tend to focus more on their studies than having the craic, and that they return home immediately after their studies, whereas I see more and more of the aforementioned either settling down in Ireland or taking a romantic partner away with them if they do return home.

This is all anecdotal of course and I know this is HN where data is king, but sure it's good to spin a yarn for the sake of it sometimes as well.

I live in the Netherlands myself these days and I always find it striking when I go to bars or cafes that all of the tables are filled with people who all look like each other, same ages and social backgrounds etc., even gender, and that the people from one table rarely mix with another -- this is just about the polar opposite of what I grew up expecting a drinking establishment to look like.

Didn't mean to suggest that the Netherlands didn't have friendly or inclusive places, hope it didn't come across that way.

It's just that in Ireland I know I can go out alone and end up back at someone's house at the end of the night. In most "normal bars" here (doe normaal hoor!) out even just at a bus stop, say, when I try to talk to strangers they look at me like I'm interrupting them. Which is fair enough, just a cultural difference.

Haven't been out in Galway for a while, but used to run into all ages and nationalities at various music events, licenced and unlicenced.

Perhaps this applies to much of Spain - my aunt in her 70s still hits the town with her girlfriends on many a night on Spain's Costa del Sol.

In the darkest days of the pandemic, this same group got together outside nearly weekly, weather-be-damned.

I think you've hit on something important here. Without getting into the merits of religious belief, the rapid increase in loneliness seems to be strongly correlated with the rapid decrease in religiosity. There just aren't any institutions prepared to replace church communities.

For my part, I get more than enough socialization through my church community: I actively turn down opportunities to socialize because I'm saturated already.

In a move to reject the mysticism we're throwing the baby out with the bathwather.

But it also depends on a person. I have never made a real friend at a gym or fitness class. I haven't done anything else like join sports team or book club. I also used to go to religious building (mosque) but never made new friends there. So don't think you really need religion for community building.

Edit: this sounds way more antagonistic than I wanted. I was aiming for cheeky. Happy Friday, fellow beneficiaries of historical violence!

I’m involved in a music festival held annually in our city in Canada. It’s organized by the Kiwanis club. But looking at the volunteers who are all septuagenarians and octogenarians, I wonder how long this can last. As far as I can tell, there is zero recruitment of younger adults.

I think we have a built-in need to observe, compare and compete with each other for status. Social events once supplied the forum for that to happen in a convivial setting. Now it’s happening 24/7 in social media and every other online channel. The need is being met elsewhere.

Conversely, I have found it very hard to just establish connection to my local community (i.e. my neighbors) without any sort of central interest. The few of us who are close friends have tried to reach out and create more of a community and have hosted block parties and BBQ's in our neighborhood. But everyone else is still just "my neighbor" to me and not "my friend".

Generally from what we see, most parties happen because of significant events in peoples lives. A 50th birthday party usually seems important enough for most people to want to attend.

Yes COVID did halt most of this but from what we've seen the numbers came back to 2019 levels early last year.

It could be your friend circles but I wouldn't stop trying to host parties or encouraging your friends from having parties themselves. We all have more responsibilities later in life that make it harder for everyone to show up so I wouldn't take this personally.

I might suggest having a reoccurring party. My neighbor has an Oktoberfest party every year. If people miss out one year they often feel pressured into coming next year, it becomes an event that people look forward to and even offer to help coordinate if it happens on a normal cadence.

When you're younger, parties are full of new experiences, lives are often changing rapidly (e.g. jobs/relationships/homes), so parties feel like a worthwhile way to spend time.

As people get older and get more settled, then parties often feel similar to rewatching the same movie over and over (sure it's a great movie, but you'll never recreate the experience of seeing it for the first time). Often less is happening in people's lives too ("How's the job?" "Good, same. How's the house?" "Good, got a new sofa. How are the kids?" "Good, difficult as usual.").

Free time also seems to be more of a premium for me and my friends (as work responsibilities grow, kids take time, need lifts, etc.), so events like parties need to be worthwhile enough to give up other things for.

One way that I approach it is to think of what it is I'm be trying to get out of a party. Meeting new people? There are other approaches for that. Keeping in touch with friends? Smaller gatherings or individual catchups work better.

I.e. rather than trying to recreate my idea of what a party should be, I try to break it into individual apsects that I'm looking for, then try to achieve those using simpler/smaller alternatives, instead of looking to a single party event to provide them all.

I imagine people without kids start having a really hard time. Parents with kids aren’t going to come to their “come and speak drunk at me” parties - it’s inappropriate for everyone, and baby sitters make more than tech CEOs these days. Those parents have tons of parties when their kids are playing together. And given the biological imperative to perpetuate the species, at a certain age an awful lot of folks are parents. The “come and speak drunk at me” folks sometimes end up in recovery and can’t be at the “speak drunk at me” parties any more. That an folks just get busy, form their own social network, are traveling for work too much, and all the other things, leads to a lonely existence if you need people to come and speak drunk at you.

Same goes for me too, if a friend invites me over for board games, great, I'm up for that. If a friend invites me over for a general hang out, that could mean the even goes in any number of directions, some of which I'd be less interested in (e.g. heavy drinking, watching sports), so I'd be less likely to attend.

Wish I had most of that time back now.

I just spent a good amount of time talking to a therapist (first time) about how painfully lonely I am. I moved to the countryside because the city was too unaffordable but friends I used to see a couple times a month are now a couple times a year. And I just had my 40th where my wife invited one of her friends (another couple with kids) and it was nice, but it wasn't "my" friends, if that makes sense.

My days are wake up - get kids ready for school - work - come home and basically work nonstop dealing with kids (I love them but fuck they're a lot of work), pass out, maybe text an old friend or two, most of whom also had kids recently.

I suppose after your 30's anymore life is just lonely. Maybe it'll pick up again in a decade or so when I'm not getting summoned to wipe a kid's butt or screamed at because I used the wrong cup or plate but it doesn't really feel like it.

I'm hoping to at least move to a walkable city again. Leaving was a huge mistake I bitterly regret.

when it's this time of life, this part really sucks.

I really just go for partycon though

But still, it suited the general ethos.

* Restarted Crossfit. Social events have included BBQ's, meals out, trips away (normally CF related, but still great fun). Every box I've been to have been full of fun and interesting people.

* Joined my local Wargaming/Boardgame club. Sit around drinking and playing games with a very varied bunch of people. Lots of nerds and the occasional odd person, but they're very much my people.

* Started playing Rugby again. Team sports are an almost instant way to make a big group of friends quickly. Frequently go out for a drink or to train. A boisterous crowd as you can imagine, but all happy to go above and beyond should you be struggling.

* Joined language evening classes at my local college. Dinners out, holidays had. I've met people from all over the world here.

* Made effort to go to lots of music festivals and talk to people nearby in the camp site and the crowd. I have a large group of friends from there, who I go to gigs/raves all over the country with.

How do I find time? CrossFit at 5:40 every morning before work. Language classes Monday evening. Rugby training Tuesday and Thursday evening. Board game club Wednesday eve. Weekends for time with family/partner/trips to visit friends in other cities/countries. Obviously that shifts around a lot depending on what's happening, but I try to keep the habit.

It's a slog, and I'm exhausted a lot of the time, but I wouldn't trade the life I have now for the world. I used to spend my evenings just consuming media before I went to bed. I quit almost all of that (TV, YouTube, video games, social media) at the beginning of 2021 and forced myself to fill my calendar to the brim. It's the best decision I've ever made.

Is that so abnormal? I have the same experience after graduating a few years ago but always thought that was what happens to most people.

Other than the friends you made in college, you can always find new people through hobbies or work.

Meetups or other platforms also have real world hangouts based on interests.

It takes some effort but it's totally doable.

Try to do it with two kids lol.

I tend to move a lot (this is my 4th country) so building new friendships is a fact of life for me. And I'm a very timid and introverted person. If I can do it, so can you!!

It's hard to get out of the post-COVID depression though, it takes a lot of effort. But I'm trying to make up for lost time now like I always said I would during the pandemic.

As I approach 60, living a single life, battling lung cancer, with friends and family around me ill and dying or already dead, it feels like there isn't much left to celebrate.

There probably won't even be any sort of party when I'm six feet under. No celebration of a life endured. The world moves on as we all suffer eternal oblivion.

When I throw parties, it's for people I love and care about. I wouldn't go through all the time and stress and effort for acquaintances or coworkers; the reason my friends and I get together so frequently is because there's nothing else we enjoy more, so we prioritize it.

COVID isn't the problem and neither is getting older. My parents are in their 60s and still throw classy, drunken, hilarious parties with their decade long friends. The problem, I'm afraid, probably lies with your third point.

- People have become more and more anti social since the introduction of the smart phone.

- Intense schooling has made people apathetic to life and reluctant towards taking any initiative.

- Wealthy individuals don't need to host parties to impress their communities anymore.

- Sex soliciting apps like Tinder makes parties a place where the action isn't anymore.

- Young adults are extremely poor today. They don't have houses to throw parties in, they're too old to throw them in their parents houses, their landlord will complain if they throw a party in their apartment.

- People are afraid of being filmed when drunk and embarrassing themselves.

- Men are afraid of false sexual accusations.

- It is difficult to cater to people today if you serve food at your party or even throw a dinner. Everybody has allergies, diets and other eating problems, and they're not ashamed to demand you adapt to them.

- Wide spread narcissism. Young women and men stopped having conversations with each other at parties.

- People don't have patience to talk to each other and don't understand how to find something interesting in their fellow man.

- And yes, you're getting older.

But the number one reason I think is that the people who have been keeping up the good fight and throwing parties, barbecues, dinners and other events are sick and tired of always having to host and always invite people. So many people just float along and expect others to plan everything, contributing nothing themselves.

During the many years of schooling in childhood and being raised by parents who were also schooled, most people have had it hammered into their head that the worst crime you can do is come up with an idea or suggest something out of the routine. Of course they will not throw a party.

Do you honestly believe that "housewarmings, birthdays, holidays, sports games, barbecuing, karaoke, ... parties ... for people joining the team, for people leaving, for projects kicking off or finishing" have decreased because of the prevalence of false sexual accusations, allergies, smartphones, or intense goal-driven schooling?

Do you have a credible reason to think that poverty of young adults, narcissism, or lack of patience, is materially different and has a material effect on the number of parties in the present day compared to 10 or 20 years ago?

Would you also claim that there haven't been other prior time periods where people were just as poor, self-centered or impatient as they are now, and there were more parties? Or is the claim only based on interpolation of specific, correlated changes in the recent past?

What should the parent comment's claim be based on?

The last paragraph of your comment is hard for me to understand.

I totally agree hosting parties at home is much more problematic as people live closer together and get annoyed. I can see it around me a lot. I live in a major partying neighborhood (50m from the most infamous square in town for noise) and I don't care about the noise because it makes me feel good hearing people having fun. But my neighbors hate it. And most of them have moved here in the last decade knowing full well what they were getting into.

When you have a free standing house it's really a different story.

There were plenty of people who couldn't afford a house with a garden, or who didn't have one for other reasons, or who were not married or had a different type of family structure, or men who didn't work, or women who did work. But they were made invisible by the lack of portrayal, both in that society's image of itself, and in our image of that society.

(Or by a different mechanism: when people outside of that structure were portrayed, it was as outsiders and aberrations, whereas married couples with children who lived in houses were portrayed as the norm. For example, the protagonist of 'On the Road', commonly associated with that era, does not have a fixed address or a job, nor a wife, nor children. The protagonist of 'Invisible Man', a book central to the discourse of who does and does not get represented in media, lives in a basement apartment alone without a wife or family. The protagonist of 'The Bell Jar' is a woman who lives alone in an apartment in New York while working at a job, then in her mother's house, then in a mental asylum.)

What do you mean by this?

I was unclear earlier, but I exclusively mean the schooling during childhood years. After puberty things change, but learned behaviors stick for life.

I would argue contrariwise, the education today is bad because the textbooks are devoid of content and nobody can recite any of the little they have. For my parents' generation it was not unexceptional for people to cite poems from memory. I have bunch of their middle school books, and it appears they read more and longer texts for middle school than some university students today. During my grandfather's time kids were expected to recite a chapters of textbooks aloud in front of class, and he also remembered good bunch chunks from the Bible.

Compared to that, fill-in textbooks we used when I was in school seem a bit underwhelming -- and I am in my 30s. Kids today use e-learning environment (makes direct comparisons difficult).

Today, very few people appear to read anything, let alone books, even fewer remembers anything. Thus conversations about anything factual seem often pointless. But it is not like one can blame anyone for that, it only makes sense: Why truly should I remember anything when I can flip out a smartphone and hit query to a search engine? But people reading the same Wikipedia article or repeating the same news cycle talking points at each other makes for a boring conversation.

Perhaps YMMV?