[Einenlum]

Maybe it's because I'm French and the author is American (I guess?), but this post made me anxious.

Putting so many rules and so much science on something that should be fun and spontaneous feels so wrong to me.

Maybe a cultural thing. But I would never go to a party hosted by someone who thinks in statistical terms and uses a dedicated app to invite guests.

I admit there are a few interesting tips though. Especially the one about splitting food and drinks across the room.

[davedx]

Maybe it's because I'm British, but this post made me scratch my head: no mention of drugs?

[zwnow]

For real, just invite peers and go from there. If its not a 30 people+ party you can spontaneously order pizza pretty easily... Too much planning ruins parties for me.

[thenoblesunfish]

Americans tend to have larger, more casual social circles, probably. Having hosted parties in both the U.S. and Europe, the "flake rate" in Europe is much smaller, but the parties are also smaller, less frequent, and planned further ahead of time.

[teiferer]

"Europe"? I can assure you, the party cultures in Spain, Scandinavia, France and Greece are all pairwise so dramatically different that the U.S. are not the counterpole, but just another flavor in the sea of possibilities. The same applies to different cultures within these countries. Across areas, ages, socioeconomic backgrounds, political leanings, hobby groups.

It's astonishing to me how many comments around here are lumping everything together under specific nationalities.

[IanCal]

I’m always amused by this. The US has a hugely diverse set of attitudes to things and yet a surprising number of people there then look at a more populated combination of more than 25 countries with varied languages and histories who have fought many wars over history against each other have some singular approach to parties or cycling or anything else.

[johnnyanmac]

we have different culutures but Americans also have decades of media exposure to inform them on what an "American party" is. Especially if you grew up in the late 80's/90's where "party" was a literal genere of movie to subscribe to.

Now of course, media doesn't reflect reality. But it can certainly homogenize sentiment.

[thenoblesunfish]

Fair point, I didn't mention where in Europe I live. (The German-speaking part which is maybe the part I'm generalizing about).

[morshu9001]

There's no way I would use an app for going to a party. Would also reconsider going at all if that was suggested. (USA)

[IanCal]

Statistical stuff is just what’s more natural to the author of something we’d all do, you wouldn’t assume everybody you invited would come would you? You’d think about how many people would probably come, and that is often based on other things you’d know. Inviting lots of parents to an adults only thing will result in fewer coming if they all need to sort childcare for example.

> and uses a dedicated app to invite guests.

At a larger scale you need to track somehow, unless it’s all in your head or it just doesn’t matter. Even for small friends gatherings we’ll often use WhatsApp polls or whatever for sorting dates out. If you’re inviting people you’re less close to or know more tangentially you’re probably not phoning each one, and the idea of seeing a guest list for deciding if you want to go can be nice. Not for everyone I guess but I don’t see it’s an issue.

It depends on the kind of party and scale really. Other here are talking about getting absolutely trashed and ending up with people in jail. That’s not the only kind of party and just doesn’t appeal to me at the moment. If I wake up shitfaced at 5am I’m going to be a terrible dad, and that’s not who I want to be.

At times I’d have been able to invite a few people and have them invite a few people with little notice or planning and maybe I can again some day but I have young kids and so do most of the people I’d want to invite, so it just takes more organising.

[Mashimo]

These are just some guidelines. Adjust to your local customs.

[utopiah]

> uses a dedicated app to invite guests

What the f... just no.

[Cthulhu_]

If you need to use an app to manage your parties, it's a networking event. Which isn't unheard of in higher layers of society I suppose.

[defrost]

You can network without an app or a permanent digital record.

We threw epic parties for ~80 to 100 people every month for five years back in the student days, in a massive cheap rental house scheduled (along with a 120 others) for demolition for road widening for a major North-South throughway.

It was high on a hill (now a cutting), colonial gilded age "beach house" with a view to the ocean ... and I suspect a great many of the people that passed through can happily live without a record of their debauchery now some decades have passed.

Networking-wise, it was a trove, numerous marriages and business partnerships launched, a few dashed on the rocks, still remembered fondly as a point of reference by a crowd now scattered across the globe.

[Mashimo]

Huh, are all social gatherings not networking events by definition?

Where I'm from it's quite normal to create a facebook event.