When and what was the last social function you attended (defined as an organized gathering of more than 10 people who don’t ordinarily reside together or near each other)?
I attended a funeral(!) around March 17th. By then, locally the start of the shutdown had begun with schools, sports, and cinemas closed and restaurants reduced to takeaway The full lockdown would arrive on March 20th.
I went to a music club back in … March? … February? I can’t even remember at this point.
Well, I went to a company Christmas party in 2014 or so. Does that count?
My company had our annual “rah rah company!” all-hands (except for APAC region) conference the last week of February for about 1500 people. Basically a week of TED-talk style presentations and training during the day and team-building social activities, happy hours, general drinking and partying at night. Plus an evening at Disneyland.
Monday, March 9, we threw a Purim party. This is a huge holiday on the Jewish calendar, and actually, way bigger than Chanukah, but the goyim play up Chanukah because it’s close to Christmas. Purim is the biggest holiday that is not mentioned in the Torah. It celebrates the events of the book of Esther.
Our one big thing we do every year is a Purim bash and pinball tournament. We don’t do anything else the rest of the year, unless there’s a milestone birthday, or something-- we don’t host seders, break-the-fasts, and very rarely, Thanksgivings (and then, just the once). I’ve did a baby shower once, too. But the Purim bash is how we reciprocate for all the stuff we get invited to. We probably drop $2,000 on it, because we buy a lot of booze.
You are supposed to get drunk on Purim, and we provide the means for anyone who wants to fulfill that mitzvah. We used to procure a van so we could shuttle people home, but now, we live in a place where people can’t leave their cars overnight, so we set up an Uber thing, where people who want to can join in a Uber van ride, and we pay for that.
Anyway, after people are oiled up, we make a lot of noise to a reading of the book of Esther, every time the name of Haman in mentioned. So we warn the neighbors, and invite them. We read a condensed version, so it lasts only about 15 minutes.
We have a buffet supper, and TONS of hamantashen (traditional pastry). I make 9 different kinds, something for everyone. Mine look even better than the ones in the link, but I don’t have a picture of mine.
We do set an age minimum of 16 for our guests, and ask that people under 18 come with a parent or guardian. We supply some non-alcoholic beer and virgin mixed drinks, as well as soda and juice.
A couple of times, we’ve had a pinata, but because these are usually on a weekday, we try to bring them in pretty early, since most people have work the next day.
We end the evening with a pinball tournament. This year, the first prize was a year of Amazon prime, and second prize was TP with Trump’s face on it. We had no idea how appropriate those would be. Third prize was a bumper sticker that said “I’d rather be playing pinball,” but at least it wasn’t something like a movie pass with an expiration date.
It was a pretty good way to go out, for me. We don’t have a huge apartment, but we had about 25 guests, crowded into the place. We boarded the dog, and shut the cat in the boychick’s room (along with the boychik, voluntarily, who was allowed to have a pizza in his room-- woo-hoo! he was at a friend’s part of the evening, and delivered back with his pizza about 1/2-way through).
That was it.
I think I was probably at a restaurant with 10+ people sometime in February, but if not, it would have been a colleague’s going-away party at the end of January or beginning of February.
Went to a party two weeks ago on Saturday. Crossed the state line to do it, too.
I was in a Wednesday night curling league. We had a game on the 11th of March, and it’s traditional to hang around afterwards and socialize for a while. The winning team buys the first round.
I had tickets for a concert that Friday, and was going to ask someone at the club to join me, but it was pretty obvious that wasn’t going to happen.
March 7, right before everything went to hell in a bucket for our state we attended the Brahms Vs. Radiohead show put on by composer Steve Hackman and our local symphony . Things were starting to get weird then but we were naive to how weird they were yet to be.
I cannot recall. There was a Christmas event that I did not go to because I was sick that would have qualified. It has likely been more than a year since I attended something that fits the OP criteria.
I went to a party Super Bowl Sunday. Other than that, I think the last time I was in a place with a big crowd, was when I met some friends at a local brewery on a Saturday night in early to mid-February.
Super Bowl party at a family member’s house. Around 50 people (annual event).
A week later, went to a scuba gathering of 15 people at a local lake. Not really socializing, but we were often <6 feet apart. A few went out for dinner after the dive, but we retreated to our RV to eat alone, which is normal for us.
Nothing since then, but that’s not really abnormal for us.
I went on an overnight ski trip with my ski club from March 8-10. We traveled by chartered coach bus up to Sugarbush in Vermont. At that point the virus still seemed like it was far away. We went to bars and restaurants without much thought on this last trip of the season.
The day after we got back is when the sh*t started hitting the fan here in Connecticut. My adult son went to dinner that night with friends at a sushi house—that’s the last social event he went to. That same night my wife and I went grocery shopping and bought a month’s worth of groceries. My wife hasn’t left the house since then (March 11th).
I can hardly remember pre-lockdown. I think my last memory was being at Starbucks and chuckling that the pandemic wouldnt affect us. Yes, I’m an idiot. I cant wait to be able to go somewhere and sit down and enjoy coffee or a beer.
It’s been years. Another couple met us for drinks and dinner at the end of February, but that was well below the OP’s number limit. We don’t like socializing in large groups.
Swing costume party in late February. Fun times.
I’m looking forward to getting back to that at some point.
Actually, now that I think about it, we made a point of only buying two weeks of groceries, because that’s what was being recommended at the time and we didn’t want to be hoarders. I wish we had bought some more then, though, because we ran low on items like toilet paper and disinfectant a few weeks later and couldn’t easily get any.
I was last in my office on March 6th. I attended a worship service at my church on March 8th.
Mrs Magill threw me a 50[sup]th[/sup] birthday party at the beginning of March. My family and friends came in from Raleigh. It was nice seeing everyone. It would have been nicer if we could have done it without worrying that we would be a disease vector. Our parents aren’t spring chickens anymore.
I went to my favorite cheap restaurant, Subway, near my work (Vanderbilt University Library), the day before we were given laptops and told to work from home – Thursday, March 19,2020. My last “sit-down-in-a-restaurant” meal! Just a few people in there at the time…