Ask HN: Where are all the parties?

I held a 30 person NYE party in the house I just purchased, that's 9 years in a row I've been holding this party. We dance, sing karaoke, drink champagne, and catch each other up on our otherwise busy and turbulent lives. Mostly friends from high school, some from university, and others still we've met afterwards. It's a wonderful atmosphere, partially because nearly everyone there has known each other for years now.

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.

We had a party this summer, my wife turned 50 and we wanted to host a party in our house for all our friends. We thought it would be a blast but there were problems.

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.

This was a really thoughtful response, thanks for sharing it.

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.

> ...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.

- The Covid hysteria was brutal in destroying what was left of the social fabric.

- 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.

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

What do you mean by this?

This is a catalogue of irrational scare-mongering.

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 is your standard for a "credible" reason?

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

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

On the last par: suppose that it is true that a) 10 years ago people were less self-centered, impatient or poor than they are now and b) 10 years ago there were more parties.

Does this form the basis of a well-evidenced claim that there are fewer parties because of increased poverty, narcissism or impatience? Of course not, because there are lots of other time periods we can easily look at.

For example, in the 1950s young people were probably on average poorer than they are now. Perhaps they were also more narcissistic, or equally narcissistic as they are now. Were there also fewer parties? If not, this suggests there is something wrong with the theory.

My question to the GP is: do they believe that there are no time periods like the 1950s in my example, which might raise doubt about their theories? If they think there aren't any, is it because we have never been so poor and narcissistic as we are now? Or is it because there have never been so many parties at any prior time period, as there were in the golden age they identified where we were at our least poor and narcissistic (whenever that might be)? If there are such periods, why isn't that part of their theory? If 'the 1950s' were different, what is it that makes them different, and is that reflected in the theory?

It should be clear here, that any variable which has moved monotonically in one direction for ever and so is currently at a global extreme, is correlated with every other, especially if it is a phenomenon which can't be measured in formal units (like narcissism or fear of strangers). Saying that (satirizing the GP here) 'we have never had so many smartphones, and we have also never had so many allergies, therefore allergies are caused by smartphones', is laughably easy to dismiss, for a number of reasons.

> - Men are afraid of false sexual accusations.

No mention of women being afraid of sexual assault, which occurs much more commonly?

The thing doesn’t even have to be particularly common to actually drive people away. They just have to think it’s common enough.

You’re absolutely right though that that’s a blind in the assessment. My wife went to exactly one college party then never again after a guy literally tried to jump out at her from the bushes.

More commonly than men being afraid of false accusations?

It's more common for women to be assaulted than it is for men to be accused of assault, both genuine assault and false accusation.

I think women have always been aware of that risk. It is more recently that false sexual accusations have become a concern and (mostly irrational) fear among young men. Go back enough in time and even real sexual accusations were of no concern to many men.

> It is more recently that false sexual accusations have become a concern and (mostly irrational) fear among young men.

Why are you of the view that this is an irrational fear?

Because there are multiple orders of magnitude between the odds of someone being falsely accused and someone claiming that something they actually did never happened. It’s like asking why the fire department gets so much more funding than meteorite damage repairs.

It doesn't happen that often to make it a reason to not enjoy life and go to parties.

Ah, I get your point that it's about what's changed through time

Though I'd add to that that the common awareness--an acceptance of speaking publicly about and solidarity in not standing for--sexual assault, is something that has grown dramatically in the past decade for women. In the past many of these things would be covered in shame and swept under the rug but now the issues are more visible and many younger women are taking more active roles in fighting back against abuse. Many young men are working hard to be good allies in this as well.

It's something we can't know but I also wonder how widespread a fear of false allegation truly is. In my experience I've only heard it raised by men who have otherwise displayed misogynistic tendencies and, in the face of other perceived dangers, confidence to the point of arrogance. It's always struck me, ironically, as a false flag fear that is used to stir up distrust in the stories of women and to create a societal backdrop where sexual assault is easier to carry out. Obviously I can't share statistics or research on this point, but it's been my personal experience and it's a feeling I'd like to share with this community.

I graduated right around the time Covid hit, and I feel like that wrecked my social life irreparably. I have 4-5 close friends I can hang out with every other week or so (nobody wants to hang out 1 to 1 every day), but all my friend groups dissipated. Some moved away, some moved on, some just stopped moving at all. I feel miserable and every couple of nights I have dreams of a Third Place where I can just go and make friends with strangers. It's been like 3 years since I went to a club, houseparty, or even a larger get-together (5+ people) outside of birthday drinks, and it's heartbreaking.

Things I've done to successfully restart my social life after Covid in the last year:

* 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.

> I have 4-5 close friends I can hang out with every other week or so

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.

Look up volunteer associations of all kinds. I have a bunch of friends volunteering at everything from museums to food banks and churches and it's a way to grow your group with people of all ages.

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 think like most things in life the success factor directly correlates with the amount of tries. If you try to organize one party in five years its clear that the success will not be guaranteed because your friends might either not be partying so much, not used to be participating in parties, other schedule, etc.

Think about it like this: unless you have been declining parties regularly in the past years it is safe to say you have a selective bias in your friends towards people who don't really do parties (either they don't want to or they don't prioritiize them in their schedules).

The upside is the more you party the more you will find people in your friends group who also like to party and it is a feedback loop with increasing opportunities.

I'm 36, no kids, yet, and still like to "party" most weekends. My partner and I are quite lucky in that we have a decent amount of friends and family we see regularly. Half of them with kids, half not. Most of the parents do not get to party much since they've had the kids but one couple, we'll call them Alice and Bob, haven't let their child affect their partying at all really. Regular house parties and gigs, late nights, loud music at home and the kid just sleeps through it. Having a couple of good baby sitters and frankly bringing the child up knowing all their friends and joining in has made it very easy for them. I hope if/when we do have kids of our own, we'll be like Alice and Bob.

It is age, I tried to setup a day outside with my friends in December before the end of 2022, everyone got their calendars out and to make sure almost everyone was available we needed to push it to late February 2023 ... 3 months to get 8 people calendars synced to have the same free day.

Something about this problem smells queuing theory.

We all know the solution! Over provisioning. Leave some slack in your calendars damnit.

The queuing theory interpretation is that they have events appearing faster than they can consume them, so there is a long queue (of events) to attend. If the queue is ~3 months long and they have about 1 day/time per day we can work out some things about the situation.

"Leaving slack" is impossible, they don't have enough free time to do everything they are committed to. It would make the situation worse.

This. Responsibilities, work, family and reduced metabolism over age.

Also, try to remember how many old geezers you had in your parties when they were held? Yep, close to none. Now we are that category.

For work parties, COVID changed everything. The company I used to work for used to love parties. There were parties every month at a minimum (last Friday of the month) and for successful projects etc.

With COVID, many people moved out of the city centre with the option of remote/hybrid work. That means less people can drink at the work parties. Instead of just catching a bus home or walking, they need to drive to the office.

The people I'm still in contact with said the work party group is basically dead now.

For personal parties, that solely depends on your friend group.

Slightly tangential, but the most effective way to be invited to a party is by hosting them.

I held one Christmas party and attended one Christmas party.

In both cases, the number of guests were very few, all guests had left before midnight, and the amount of drinking wa modest. People with kids left earlier, and every couple had one designated driver who didn't think they were missing out on drinking anyways.

As an adult, if I want more of an intense party experience, I have to go clubbing.

I just don't have drinking friends any more, and I don't drink anymore.

Personally, I am no longer in the mood to party.

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.

I'm in my early 40s. My way of having parties is through salsa/bachata events around London. There is always something on and most people are very friendly.

I also drop in on Improvisation sessions in and around London - full of friendly people. And before Covid I used to do workshops around Europe too. Again can get invited to lots of parties that way.

I think I could probably rock this out for another 10-15 years easy - so some people here may find this a good hack. You can of course find other people to enjoy hobbies with on 'meetup.com'

I'm happy in my own company - but I wouldn't know where to begin in organizing my own party. I've spent a lot of my life working on personal projects/working. I do know a lot of people, but I generally meet people one on one. It just seems like a lot of stress and effort to set up a social event - but I think that is because it not well suited to it. I respect men and women who have a natural talent for organising social events. IF I were immortal I might have the time, but honestly I find it more interesting to work on a problem.

At the same time, I do like people and did in my teenage years through to about 25 morn that I wasn't that popular. I really did want to be liked, as I liked other people. If I had my time back, I'd have done improvisation / salsa and bachata at this time too. I wonder sometimes if everyone should do them...

Combination of all three. I'm about 20 years younger than you. When COVID was a thing, there were a few months to a year almost without parties. But it has ramped up again, I am invited and going to more events than in 2019. However, I made a deliberate effort to improve my social and professional network. I also started a local meetup, which is basically a cheat code to meeting new people and becoming more influential.

If I had to guess, COVID and aging weakened the bonds in your social circle. Just start to reach out to old friends again and try to find new ones. There are a lot of interesting people out there, probably eager to have a good party.

It’s fairly simple…

As people get older,

1. they have more responsibilities/obligations and less free time

2. as well as, they also grow into having new interests besides partying, so they use their (limited) free time differently.

My problem with many of the comments is that even at 35 I'd find it quite strange, "taking someone to a party." So assuming that I'm remotely normal by almost 50 there is very little chance of successfully using the host more parties and meet more people that like parties strategy.

If you invite people to a party, I think they are most likely to bring their spouse/SO so you are thus unlikely to meet new people that might reciprocate.

The one exception to this is the dinner party. A main stay of the UK Upper Middle Class that have a dining room that can seat 12 and a cook/housekeeper.

If you have a cook or a housekeeper you're nowhere near upper middle class. Those are bygone times.

I faced the same issue and decided to solve it by making an app. The issue mainly boils down to not knowing who is free when and when they want to party. So I made an app where people can input when they are free during the week, and it auto suggests plans.

You can check it out at : https://www.bl1p.app

Interestingly, we started having parties around October 2020 with other libertarians that were fed up with Covid restrictions. Our house became known as a bit of a party spot, we’re in our mid-30s and spent some money to make everything nice in our basement for hosting guests. It also served as sort of a semi official “plot to take over the state libertarian party” event, as the official party stance was curiously mum about lockdowns (despite acting as if they were always against them now, revisionist history).

The parties stopped happening after two things. First, they got a bit too raucous. We’re 30 somethings with kids and didn’t want drunk people who have decided to play strip poker in the basement when our five year old is asleep upstairs. What the heck. The things we are looking for in a part are very different than the slightly younger single demographic, and telling them to behave gets their brains to short circuit. All that drama we’d left behind flooding back. So we had to ban a good number of bill headed people who thought they’d done nothing wrong. This caused grumbling and the network effects fell apart since “well so-and-so is banned so we can’t go there”. Second, once restrictions were lifted people stopped showing as much interest as we weren’t the only game in town. It’s easy to have parties when you have essentially a captive audience.

Then I tried running a regular D&D game by soliciting from a local Facebook group, and met some of the most entitled and rude people I’ve ever met (also some great people). It was such a chore managing everyone and people’s weird personalities and expectations that I eventually disbanded it.

I'm getting older and I still feel as bored around older, married people as I always have. I don't want to hear about other people's careers or children anymore.

I didn't experience it but I remember reading a lot more wild stories of the golden era of Wall Street than the tech scene today. Nowadays people just post about putting money in index funds. Too many high-IQ introverts in a room maybe not a good thing?

I'm much the same, in a DINK situation and going hard at life experiences but everyone our age has had children and their lives revolve around looking after them.

It's just not very interesting, and nobody has time for fun outside of that. One of my best friends (female) was in the Royal Marines, travelled to Antarctica etc when she was a late teenager/early 20s but now all she does is bring up her children, visit the grandparents and run a small dog training business as a side hustle.

I find it intriguing that this is what people want.

Perhaps dropping to a single income would make kids a more tolerable experience.

Probably a combination of all three reasons you listed. Covid did kill a lot of parties, and rightly so, and it's not over yet. That said, a lot of people seem to think Covid is over and are desperate to finally have a party again. Friends of ours celebrated their 12.5 years of marriage with a party on a big sailing ship. My wife and I celebrated our 15 years of marriage pretty big (food and drinks, board games and silent disco) and everybody loved it.

So if you want parties, organise some. But maybe first check what the Covid infection rates in your area are...

Organise parties, invite people. Eventually people will bring more people who like parties, while people who don't like parties will stop coming. Eventually, you will have got to know party people and will get invited to other parties they know of.

Not sure where you are at in life, but I like the concept of a salon as a form of party (if you need inspiration): https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salon_(gathering)

I would strongly recommend people who are looking for more music and dance in their life to check out the vr clubbing scene. I've been on it almost constantly for the last 3 months and love having partying back in my life again from the comfort of my own home. (I don't want to say it's a perfect replacement but for me it's good enough to scratch the itch)

See my prior posts for more info.

I'm intrigued by this but I can't quite get my head around it. I'm a millennial so grew up with online communities and gaming but my god this being a thing blows my mind!

Honestly I love it. It's beyond anything I thought I would live long enough to see.

Not cheap, unfortunately. Especially if you want to do it well.

Also for me only vrchat is good. Meta's offerings seem very sterile and corporate

I invite anyone who wants to go to VR parties to come to my mansion in the Metaverse. Enjoy the professionally designed modern architecture as you mingle amongst other guests and have VR drinks (while enjoying your own beverage at home), and watch our preprogrammed live entertainment. Sometimes we go out on the yacht too. Tell the bouncer up front you’re with Hackernews for VIP status.

I feel the 19th century societal norms (as documented by Austen and Tolstoy etc) are often derided and laughed at for their formalism and rigidness, but while recognizing the many problems there I do also see lot of upsides too. I wonder if we could apply something from that without having those downsides.

If we're asking where are all the parties, I'd also like to ask what are we missing out on by not having them? What is the draw? What are some of the reasons for making the effort to host or go to them?

Could it be related to COVID or to high inflation / bad economy?

I just organised one for next week.

I tend to have to do it because a lot of my friends are poor and live in cramped living conditions.

The equivalent is going to the pub. That's what it's for.

All of the above. There were always more parties 10 years ago.

How many parties do your parents go to? When you went to parties when you were younger, were there a lot of 50 year olds hanging around?

my parents have a way busier social calendar than I do. It's almost like when you're finished with work, the late hours, unusual shifts and occasional weekend call-outs, professional development and week-long 'team strategy' off-sites you actually have time to live life, have friends and enjoy their company in a relaxed environment - who knew!

Both of you can be correct here. It's possible (and I would say likely) that you end up having a bunch of social activities and yet still not go to parties.

I know as I've gotten older (still younger than OP but well on my way), my tastes have changed and mellowed. Gone are the days where me and my friends want to be in a noisy, booze-filled environment. Dining out, theatre trips, hiking, even an international holiday with friends to take part in a running event. Just no parties.

We celebrated our 15th anniversary with board games and silent disco. And people who don't like either of those can still have drinks, food and talk. It was a great combination I can strongly recommend.

You have a limited view of what can be called a "party".

Anecdotally the regular parties ended for me about 8 years ago (25 y/o). Since then my friends have been distributed around the country and all have houses / kids / professional work ect...

Recently we've tried organising two events. A get-well party for a friend and an in-person DnD session. Both are scheduled to happen soon but planning began back in October or November. When organising 6 people in to a room together takes three months notice i can see why people don't bother so much....