I'm 42 and last year moved back to my home country. We wanted to throw a housewarming party but getting enough people in one place on a specific day at a specific time seemed like an impossible challenge. Everybody had busy schedules for their precious August weekends anyway.
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.
I've done weekend-long drop-in/drop-out parties many times before. Every single one, while exhausting, has been incredibly memorable and will be remembered for the rest of my life.
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!
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.
I've noticed exactly the same thing. Everybody is busy with their schedules.
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.
This sounds really exhausting. But now that I think about it my parent's house serves the same purpose. When I visit I let family and friends know I'm in town and to stop in when they can. House is the same place they remember from high school. I don't consider it a party, just old friends chatting, drinking, and eating. I'd be lucky if more than 2-3 showed up around the same time.
Well it's complete isolation with your preferred partner. Introverts can avoid draining their battery if they spend time with close people they trust, and can be themselves around.
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.
We introverts will make great residents of Mars. People always talk about how impossible it’ll be for humans to live there in relative isolation. Those people are obviously normals, and they always assume the others like us don’t count. I’d do just fine with myself or a small number of close partners for the rest of my life. Further, a lot of folks on the spectrum wouldn’t do _just_ fine, they would do better.. A planet for the neurodiverse seems like a great thing.
I think the opposite might be true. As an introvert how would you like living in a cramped 4-6 bedroom apartment with other engineers and constantly working together to troubleshoot, build up & repair the station facilities, doing time-delay media interviews, reporting results to multiple science orgs, etc?
I love this idea. I often find getting a big group together for a BBQ or something is great for mixing social groups, cross-pollinating friends, and seeing people I don't often see - the downside is I don't tend to get much 1 on 1 time to really talk with friends, and often people can't make a specific time (especially as we get older). I also have a fair amount of friends who are introverted or have social anxiety and don't feel comfortable in larger groups, and this feels like it would benefit that too.
Everyone saying this sounds exhausting which it do3s, but it also sounds like a ton of fun. Having youre house just be an open hang for a weekend sounds sweet
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.
This is why Christmas is becoming more and more important in my life. Apart from milestone birthdays, it's the only time when it's possible to get everyone together.
It wasn't a whole weekend, but I had a whole day event like this for my birthday that worked out pretty well. Similar situation with people with kids coming during the day, others coming in the evening. A couple truly committed people met us for breakfast first thing in the morning and stayed throughout the entire day.
You know, this actually sounds like a blast. I'm historically very much a loner, but even I have limits and lately I've been hitting them. I'm gonna pitch this idea to my partner. Thanks for sharing it.
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.