Dear Society,
Please Have More House Parties
5 Reasons Parties Are A Better Nightlife Option Than Bars
One reason I love living in a major city is the abundance of nightlife options. There’s always a big entertainment event coming up; be it a concert, show, or sporting contest. There’s also a variety of neighborhoods, providing a diverse range of “scenes” to go out in.
In San Francisco, if you want bro it up for a fratastic evening, there’s The Marina. You want to hit “Da Club”? SoMa is your ‘hood. You want to rage a bit closer to my apartment (and why wouldn’t you)? That’s Polk St. You want to pretend like you’re above all that? That’s what The Mission is for. On the spectrum from DudeBro to Hipster, we’ve got it all.
But there’s no better “scene” than one that has been customized and catered towards you. I’m writing, of course, about the house party. Always beloved, and yet underappreciated. A vastly underused social medium. Here are five reasons why parties are better than simply “going to the bars”:
Exclusivity
Everyone at a party falls into one of these four distinct categories: a) the host; b) a friend of the host; c) a friend of a friend of the host; d) etc. Point being, that everyone there has some connection to a common person(s). And with that comes a sense of importance. In fact, the amount of importance/authority you hold is inversely related to the amount of connections it takes for you to get back to the host. Here, I made a graph:
As you can see from the figure above, just being there at all gives you some social capital. Because not anyone can just waltz in after showing ID, as one does at Ye Old Watering Hole down the road. No — for a party, you’ve got to know someone. You’ve been invited, in some way or another. And this makes you feel cool.
Common Interests
Just as mankind shares a common ancestor with the chimpanzee, guests at a party share a common reason for being there. Somehow, they are socially connected to the same person. This often results in common interests between guests.
Whomever you meet, there’s always an at-least-semi-interesting conversation waiting to happen when you ask “how do you know so-and-so?” It will likely lead back to the mostly-not-interesting conversation involving where you live and what you do for a living, but there’s also potential for a good story. Moreover, as opposed to people you’d meet at a bar, you’re more likely to see these people again in the near future.
This means more incentive to remember what these people tell you, and to have actual fun with them. Hell, you might even make a new friend. Do you really need more friends at this point in your life? Probably not. But it doesn’t hurt to know people. Maybe you’ll get connected into your next job. Maybe someone you meet has a friend who’ll become your spouse. House parties: social networking sites, without the internet.
Or, even better, maybe the next time you see someone from the party, you won’t remember their name. And then when they call you out by name, you’ve got instant cool points. Because there’s no better feeling than when someone remembers your name and you don’t remember theirs.
Hitting on the opposite sex (or same sex. You get the idea)
This is really just an extension of the previous two items, but it’s vitally important. To people you meet at a party, you have some level of credibility just by being there.
The girl you’re talking to? Well she at least knows someone who knows someone who lives here. So she’s probably not crazy. And she can assume that you are not some skeezy vagrant because if you were, you would have been shown the door by now.
And again, you’ve got an easy and pretty solid opener: “How do you know so-and-so?” Everyone knows the friend-of-a-friend is the easiest way to meet someone of sexual/romantic interest. I think it’s one of the three laws of thermodynamics or something.
It’s Cheaper*
Once that opening line gets you a conversation, there’s also a superior way to move the narrative along: “Can I get you a drink?” Notice that it’s not “Can I buy you a drink?” It’s way too easy to drop $75 on yourself and others without making more than a few trips to the counter at your local pub (or just one trip if you’re at da clurb). But at a party, alcohol is either provided for free(!), or it’s BYO, which means — just like Uncle Jamima’s Pure Mash Liquor — that you’ll get fucked up for less money. Smalla smalla bills, y’all. Not only that, but you’ll be making your own drinks, so you can go at whatever pace delights you.
*Except for the host.
General Fun Times
It doesn’t all have to be about drinking and conversing and hooking up. When in the privacy of someone’s home, there’s more room (literally and figuratively) to get nostalgic and/or act a little silly. You may think you’re getting too old for this shit, but when a party bands together and comes through on a theme, there’s no denying it’s a good time. (Shout out to the Disney party I went to last weekend).
And what could be wrong with a little friendly competition involving plastic red cups? When among friends and friends of friends, people are more inclined to let loose and get weird. And that’s a good thing.
QED.
Don’t forget to invite me.
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