Ask HN: Where are all the parties?
In this comment: I&#x27;ll tell you why you should never host a dinner party, how to make new friends, why &quot;cocktail parties&quot; are better than dinner parties (even if you don&#x27;t drink alcohol), and discuss the macro trends in parties and relationships.<p>Hi! I wrote a book called &quot;The 2-Hour Cocktail Party&quot; that people seem to really like on Amazon and Audible.<p>I&#x27;ve hosted hundreds of parties myself and personally coached 175 people*  over the past year on how to host a simple, effective party or gathering to help them make new friends and build relationships.<p>*see these party photos for proof: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;party.pro&#x2F;hosts&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;party.pro&#x2F;hosts&#x2F;</a><p>Here&#x27;s what I&#x27;ve learned as it relates to your questions:<p>(1) YES the macro trends on partying are down, and reports of loneliness are way up. Do a search for &quot;loneliness epidemic&quot; or &quot;friendship recession,&quot; two phrases that I track with Google News Alerts, to see constant press pieces with supporting data showing people have way less friends and social interactions today than they did 10 years ago.<p>I&#x27;m less interested in the reasoning for this trend and more interested in how to fix it, which- spoiler alert- I think anyone can learn how to host a great little gathering or happy hour, even if you don&#x27;t drink alcohol (I don&#x27;t but my friends do).<p>(2) Your hypothesis about COVID knocking out a lot of house parties seems to be directionally correct, based on my own experience and that reported to me by my book readers. I hear again and again something like: &quot;We used to host an annual summer party,&quot; or &quot;We hosted dinner parties every Friday night before COVID.&quot;<p>Why I say &quot;directionally correct&quot; is that I don&#x27;t believe parties aren&#x27;t happening due to COVID concerns, largely, and instead because COVID washed out the momentum that many long-time hosts had. Whether it was the regularity of hosting that built muscle memory for them, or even the geographical displacement we saw of some people during COVID- something major happened and I&#x27;ve never seen anyone specifically write about this. When you have a long-time host who annually throws a Christmas or New Year&#x27;s bash, and they miss that for two years straight, it becomes REALLY hard for them to pick it back up.<p>^^ that&#x27;s anecdotal, and I don&#x27;t have the data to back it up, but I just feel it from conversations that I&#x27;ve had and heard about: that long-time party hosts have changed their habits post-COVID, not out of fear of infection today, but because they lost momentum or dropped the habit and haven&#x27;t since picked it back up.<p>(2a) The habit of hosting, by the way, is huge. I&#x27;ve seen people get the BIGGEST benefits in new friendships and new relationships when they can make hosting a habit. When you can learn to throw a monthly or quarterly event, you start to go through life &quot;collecting&quot; people to invite to your parties. It really is a &quot;life unlock&quot; or &quot;life hack&quot; or whatever you want to say. I did it, first when I moved to NYC, and then later when I moved to Texas. And the relationships I built from hosting those parties helped me launch a multi-million dollar business (Museum Hack), which I say not to brag but to just hint that there are benefits beyond your personal life that come from hosting parties.<p>(3) If you want to get better at hosting a party, you can! This is a skill that literally anyone can learn. As much as the vibe-shakra people are going to hate me saying this, I&#x27;ve found that success for a new party host largely comes down to pre-planning, logistics, and filling the room.<p>Here are the key things that will help you host a great gathering:<p>- DO NOT host a dinner party. They&#x27;re too complicated and too stressful for a new host. They take too much work, too much time, and WAY too much moderation.
 Instead, host a cocktail party or happy hour. After hosting dozens of dinner parties and hundreds of cocktail parties, I found that I could get 80% of the benefits of hosting a dinner party — with 20% of the work in a cocktail party.
 Cocktail parties helped me cast a wider net, too, and connect with more people.<p>A note about the phrase cocktail party: I personally don&#x27;t drink alcohol. And there isn&#x27;t a single drink recipe in my book The 2-Hour Cocktail Party. But we use that phrase &quot;cocktail party&quot; because it represents a simple social construct: an easy, casual, lightweight gathering where you&#x27;ll have a lot of little conversations. It is low-commitment and generally low-stress.<p>This is the longest comment I&#x27;ll ever write on HN and I&#x27;m worried I&#x27;m talking too much, so apologies if this sounds like spam! I&#x27;m honestly like MLM-passionate about convincing people why they should learn to host parties because it changed my life SO MUCH.<p>Here&#x27;s my personal website:
<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;nickgray.net&#x2F;about&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;nickgray.net&#x2F;about&#x2F;</a><p>and an executive summary of my book about exactly how to host your first party with a little bit of structure:
<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;party.pro&#x2F;how&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;party.pro&#x2F;how&#x2F;</a><p>I will wrap this up. Here are the pro-tips:<p>- 15 to 20 people. You need 15 people, minimum, to show up to your party. Any less than that and the room never reaches a critical mass or energy level and excitement. It feels… a little flat. So I&#x27;ve found that 15 people needs to be your minimum, which means you&#x27;ll need to invite more than 15 to actually get 15 to attend. Over 20 and things get hectic.<p>- Collect RSVPs. For the love of God, PLEASE collect RSVPs. Use a free tool online. GenZ loves Partiful, I suggest and use Mixily, you can even use Paperless Post. Please don&#x27;t use Evite because they have a thousand ads and JavaScript pop-up crap and they&#x27;ll spam your guests.<p>Why do we collect RSVPs? Well, the biggest success indicator of a party- for a new host, at least- is whether they can fill the room. People come to parties for the PEOPLE, not for the drinks, not for the food, not for the music… they come for the people.<p>You have to collect RSVPs to create a social contract to get your friends to actually show up. People who read my book The 2-Hour Cocktail Party report over a 93% attendance rate of those who say they&#x27;re going to come (people who RSVP) and those who actually show up.<p>Compare that to the days of Facebook Events, when I&#x27;d do the &quot;spray and pray&quot; method of mass-inviting people and be lucky to get a 50% attendance rate.<p>- Send 3 reminder messages. I like to do: 1 week before, 3-4 days before, and morning of. These are important: they will boost your attendance rate and increase excitement. They also help show that you&#x27;re a host who actually cares, which is rare in the age of &quot;Let&#x27;s just show up and hang out!&quot; parties.<p>- Add a small amount of structure. This helps shy people and introverts, and encourages a lot of new conversations (which in my mind is the whole point of a party: to meet new people). The structure that I like and preach is always using name tags (I will die on this hill), and one or two rounds of icebreakers (please withhold your burns about icebreakers: you&#x27;re probably doing them wrong, and I&#x27;ve done thousands of them, I will teach you how to do it right).<p>Anyhow. Sorry this is going so long.<p>If anyone is serious about wanting to learn how to host a party, you can call or text me at +1-917-635-9967 or email hello@nickgray.net and I will talk your ear off about this. If you want to make new friends and you are interested in party hosting, but you can&#x27;t afford my book, reach out and I can probably mail you a free copy of the paperback.<p>I do believe that the loneliness epidemic is real, but I also believe that a simple happy hour- with your friends or neighbors- can help you and your friends meet new people. Nobody really teaches adults how to make new friends, which is crazy, but I think I figured this part out.<p>Thank you for reading!! This is my longest comment ever on HN!! I love parties and helping people learn how to make new friends.<p>I hope I have earned the permission to link my book, which I will do here:<p>The 2-Hour Cocktail Party: How to Build Big Relationships with Small Gatherings
on Amazon, Kindle, Audible, Kobo, etc <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;amzn.to&#x2F;39rfb2V" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;amzn.to&#x2F;39rfb2V</a>