No, they throw parties for their own gratification and aren’t really concerned with anyone’s good time but their own.
I pat myself on the back for not being obtuse. And for not needing to be on the prowl for free food. And for not prodding my guests if they want to be quiet for awhile. Boy, I have so many things to be proud of today.
I don’t believe this happens quite as often as these folks claim. I tried to search for a thread in which extroverts lambasted introverts for ruining their parties, but I couldn’t find a single one. We have one friend we haven’t invited to parties in years as he is a notorious sulker if he isn’t the center of attention, but it isn’t out of courtesy to him, it’s because we grew tired of all the air being sucked out of the room by a single sullen guest. Two wives of close friends are voracious readers who park themselves by the bookshelves with a glass and are clearly content to wander about and have quiet conversations in smaller groups. They don’t dance or carry on, but they smile and laugh and circulate.
Then why does social convention require a guest to write a thank you to the host, but not the reverse? A party requires planning, expense, and considerable effort.
You realize you are admitting to same? But you couldn’t be more wrong. Some of us actually like people, and most of us don’t have such an inflated ego that they feel that deigning to take up space while quietly resenting your host is a favor.
No one is defending a sullen, attention-seeking jackass. We are defending the apparently difficult idea that one can be among other people without constantly running one’s mouth. That this is not in and of itself being a sullen, attention-seeking jackass.
I go to Herculean efforts for 4 people at a time. All close friends. Not incidentals, acquaintances, roommates of friends of friends, random work people, extended family members passing through town. Close friends. Everyone knows the deal. People come if they want to, and they are allowed to be quiet if they want to. Unsurprisingly I have some introverted friends, too. Sometimes we just like quiet companionship.
I am not doing the host a favor when I go to my wife’s friend’s party whom I don’t like. I am doing my wife a favor. The host barely knows me. I am there on a courtesy invite. I am not doing the host a favor when I go to a mostly mandatory office party. I am going to be seen when it comes time to count up the troops. I am not doing the host a favor when I go with a good friend to a party because his other friend bailed and he doesn’t want to go alone. I am doing my friend a favor. These aren’t intimate get-togethers, and they are all certainly not circumstances where the host has any business asking me to defend being quiet. Most people with a social IQ within a few standard deviations of the median know that some people are quiet in gatherings with large groups of people, and if you don’t know that person well enough to know what kind of person he is or you cannot expect that he will tell you what is really bothering him in a public setting, then back off.
Good grief, you are starting to make me look like some sort of social genius here.
Social convention requires a hostess to not be rude to her guests and to make their visit as comfortable and stress-free as possible. Demanding happiness from your guests is rude no matter what cultural background you come from or what kind of party you’re throwing. And no, social convention doesn’t require a thank you note. Some parties are ginormous impersonal affairs where most of the attendees don’t know the host. Some parties are semi-mandatory (work place parties) and it would be strange to give a thank you note in those circumstances. For myself, I always present the host with a gift upon arriving, but I have never sent a thank you note. I always let the host know that I have had a good time, though. I guess you can say I’m much more interested in actually being kind than following arcane rules so that I can think I am kind.
It’s a social convention to express gratitude whenever someone does something nice. Which throwing a party is. But that doesn’t mean the guests are there to do whatever the host/hostess wants, and if they don’t, well, they are bad ingrates. You have a bizarre idea of what constitutes friendship if you think so.
Is that supposed to be a description of yourself? Because you’re sure coming across here as someone who dislikes others, has a massively overinflated ego, is full of resentment towards people who have done nothing to harm you, and expects the targets of your rude behavior to consider your presence some big favor.
Ok you don’t believe them. But regardless, their experiences are still valid and except for a couple of people in this thread who come across as anti social instead of introverts, most have described themselves as similar to the two wives you’re talking about above. I also think your using very loaded language in your descriptions because this must be a hot button topic for you. Just in using your example of the person you don’t invite; he’s “notorious,” a “sulker,” he likes being the “center of attention,” but sucks all the air out of the room. If you see your friend that way, I can understand how you’re mischaracterizing people’s arguments in here to suit your purposes. If you’ll stop doing that, maybe more people will respond favorably and something helpful could happen between both parties.
Now on a side note, I will say that as a hostess a time or two, I’ve checked on a guest more than once to see if they’re ok. Not because I’m pestering them and trying to pressure them into doing something they don’t want, but because I always feared that if I only did so once, they would think they were forgotten and that no one was interested in them or their happiness. But my participation in their party experience is usually limited to no more than another “Are you still good? Sure there’s nothing else I can get you or do for you?” Is that ok?
Tequila Party, I’ve never seen anyone at a work function or social gathering refuse to participate in either the preparation or cleanup, or at least laugh and smile at the antics of the rowdier guests. And if my husband informed me that he intended to be miserable at a work function but was willing to do me a big favor, well, I’d rather he wouldn’t. No one would be served by the presence of a resentful, entitled guest.
I’m just appalled at the bad manners here, the resentment and the insistence that hosts are inviting friends into their home and taking care to accommodate and feed everyone, well, I’m just out of words. And amused that any willing adult guest feels himself bullied by concerned hosts. This thread was revived by a reticent guest asking for help with reassuring the host that he is in fact enjoying himself, and things went sideways quickly when the asocial brigade came in to insult extroverts. Just don’t go. Decline politely with a quick explanation about discomfort with crowds and gracefully decline.
Which I am not, I don’t identify with either extreme. But I do relate to the poster who said I need to be around people from time to time though he or she isn’t prone to fits of mirth and merry. Those people can use a few smiles and honest words for the host and things will swim.
Of course. “Would you like another glass of wine?” is perfectly lovely and attentive. But when you ask “is there anything wrong” because you think someone is too quiet, then you are inviting an answer like, “I don’t mean to be a downer, but my mother has stage iv cancer and six months to live.” Anyone in their right mind would be mortified to have to tell a host this at a party. And the kind of host who pesters someone for being too quiet probably doesn’t want to hear someone else’s sob story, either. So it’s usually best for everyone to leave well alone.
I do not know what planet CLees is on here. I get the feeling that everyone else has a pretty stable mutual understanding. There is a world of difference between having bad manners and, in her words, not contributing enough to the festive atmosphere to earn one’s meal. What is so offensive is that she keeps conflating the two, and that’s just wrong. Not everyone who goes to a party he would rather not go to acts like a miserable dick there either. You go, put a nice face on, and treat other people well. You’d never be able to tell if I were happy or unhappy to be there. I’d still be relatively quiet, listening politely, talking to people one-on-one whom I know or whom my wife spontaneously gets to know. This has offended no one except for the most belligerent, self-involved assholes.
Good Lord, are you serious? Don’t. Attend. a party under these conditions. Ever.
You are starting to understand.
No, of course you don’t go to a party the day you find out your mother is dying. You don’t go to a truly non-essential party when something happens that you feel you cannot control. Everyone knows that everyone else prefers to stay home when something terrible is happening.
A host with two brain cells to rub together is no exception. So if someone shows up to the party and is a bit quiet, there is probably nothing wrong because the person came to the party in the first place. So the host is a belligerent asshole for continuing to ask “what’s wrong? what’s wrong? why aren’t you having a good time?” when she knows that if something were truly wrong, the guest probably would not have come in the first place.
We can look at this the other way round.
There is nothing worse for the festivity-policing asshole than to have the mood brought down by someone else. So this asshole, knowing that his guest might give him a reason for being quiet that might bring down his own mood, does not persist in making the guest feel uncomfortable that said guest might not be living up to his festivity quota because, deep down, he would not really want to hear a reason that might make him feel less than festive. He should not ask questions whose answers he does not truly want to hear.
Do you see how this equilibrium works? The truly sad person is deterred from attending, and the host is deterred from making a guest feel uncomfortable because he knows that in all likelihood, nothing is really wrong.
Of course that host might think that his guest can be shamed into being festive. We have a word for that, let me see if I can remember…
The person who knows he will bring down the mood and draw negative attention has no business attending a festive occasion, and certainly no business demanding that revelers accommodate his dour mood. Rude.
dnf
Yup, one trip around the ferris wheel is usually enough.
Thanks Maeglin. I don’t believe I’ve ever bothered anyone, but I’ll doubly make sure in the future to leave guests be that say they’re fine. Everyone is usually an adult, after all, and is responsible for their own behavior. This goes for the “quiet” guests, any guests concerned with them and the host.
Do not feed the troll, right? So anyone who disagrees with you is a troll? Great way to live and learn.
I seriously doubt you have bothered anyone. It’s one of those things that is ordinarily not a big deal at all except when a very unpleasant person makes it so. I couldn’t possibly remember all of the times when people have shown perfectly kind levels of concern because they are so normal and unremarkable. Occasionally a kind word really does get people to open up, and when it does that’s great.
The assholes are, as a rule, more memorable, so they are more likely to attract communal venting.