The Importance of Gathering
Tap into the artfulness of hosting, breaking bread together, and communion amongst friends.
An excerpt from the poem “For Friends Only”
Easy at first, the language of friendship Is, as we soon discover, Very difficult to speak well, a tongue With no cognates, no resemblance To the Galamatias of nursery and bedroom, Court rhyme or shepherd’s prose, And, unless often spoken, soon goes rusty. Distance and duties divide us, But absence will not seem an evil If it make our re-meeting A real occasion. Come when you can: Your room will be ready.
W. H. Auden
One of the most important things you can do for yourself and your well-being is connect with the people you love and value. I know I’m rejuvenated after a girls’ night, or an impromptu hang with a few friends. I love talking. I could talk for hours to anyone about anything, but that doesn’t hit the same as having good in-depth conversations with people you have a unique connection with. “From the dawn of modern psychology, psychological theorists have emphasized the importance of positive human social connection for health, well-being, and survival.”1
We need to be with others in order to really live our lives. We must continuously practice the language of friendship so we don’t forget how to speak it. When the occasion comes to re-meet with friends, it’s important to tap into the artfulness of organizing and hosting.
In 1960, Riessman, Potter, and Watson suggested... that hospitality requires a dialectic where hosts and guests attempt to balance moments of uniqueness and connectedness, which, ‘if well realized at the party, creates three values which these authors see in sociability—namely artfulness, solidarity, and intimacy—and links the intimate occasion of the party to other realms of social life’.2
I’m not going to give any tips and tricks for how to throw a party— but what I’d like to do is highlight the beautiful ways in which we can balance uniqueness and connectedness through the artful creation of space, solidarity amongst guests, and intimate social gatherings. Everything is something; hosting might feel like nothing but everything within the fabric of our lives holds significance and meaning, and when you see things as such you can develop an appreciation for the artfulness and beauty of life.
But if you would like some party guest and party-throwing tips, please see this text from my friend Casey:
I love hosting because you’re the vibe captain steering the boat. It gives me the same type of exhilarating rush that working as a server or working on a film set gives me. I love cooking for people and pretending to be shocked when they say “The food is so good,” even though I just threw it together. I hope one day to elevate my hosting status to a Gastby-type figure where my home can be the gathering place for many to have grand experiences… minus the murder, unrequited love, and suicide (is that even what happens idk?). One day, I want to own a storefront that doesn’t really sell anything specific but is a space for anyone to come through to chat and hang out while I play music I like over the loudspeaker.
Like anything we do, there must be an intention behind hosting. Intention is important because the type of event held is indicative of the type of relationship the host is trying to create with their guests. I’m not going to host a football game viewing party because I don’t understand football, (why are they always stopping??? Just play the effing game). However, I would host —and have hosted— a full moon party. I like to create spaces to welcome people into things that I enjoy, movies, astrology, food, etc.
When my sister and I lived together in L.A. we used to host movie nights in our backyard. (Our 2 other roommates were welcome to invite guests as well.) We laid out as many blankets and pillows as I would allow to get dirty, told people to make friends with the person next to them and get cozy. Out of the three values of a social party, intimacy can be achieved through comfort. This value might require you to do some furniture shopping before hosting, but when people feel comfortable enough to relax in your space there is a better chance for an intimate connection across friend groups.
Another way to capture a cozy comfortable vibe is to maintain a strict guest list. This is important because “friends have a social utility, helping others to achieve goals, assist in certain situations, and integrate people socially.”3 Within a mix of my friends, my sister’s friends, and our roommates’ friends, we had to figure out how to create solidarity amongst the group. The 30 minutes before the movie started at our movie nights was intended for mingling and possible networking (I mean it was L.A. so that’s a given).
Bringing friends and friends of friends together can be the vaccine we need to fight against the loneliness epidemic.
I’m proud to say a friend of mine had their first “date” with their S.O. at our movie night and they’re still together! Social events with multiple groups of people can be good breeding grounds for romance. My friend’s boyfriend tried to set me up and invited his coworker to the darty4 he was hosting. I would give my friend's boyfriend a C+ on the matchmaking scale; the low grade is mostly attributed to the fact that his coworker was moving to a different state a week later. All great intentions aside —I will give 1 tip actually: when setting a friend up make sure the other person will live in the same city the following week.
To create a guest list with cohesive counterparts you have to have some amount of social pitch and you can’t be afraid to be a bitch. Having social pitch and being able to sus out who’s going to get along, and who won’t means you have to get diplomatic; you must have an understanding that sometimes some people should not be invited to things and as the host, it’s your job to discern that fine line, and not be afraid to stick to it. “By controlling who is invited and what kinds of interactions can take place, formal sociability ensures that guests already have a context and other experiences in common, such that they do not need to work hard to sort out interactions.”5
Aka you don’t fit the vibe, therefore you’re not invited. (& sometimes I just want to say “NO YOUR BOYFRIEND CAN'T COME” but I’m not that big of a bitch.) There should be a flow among guests, no one should be sitting alone or silent, and as a host, it’s your responsibility to manage that flow.
When I hosted my full moon party I outlined on the Paperless Post evite the schedule of events for the night: a dinner prepared by me (including mulled wine, a whole roasted chicken, mac and cheese, salad, and carrot cake made from scratch), then a moon water crafting activity, writing down what we want to let go of and burning them in the fireplace, and a closing meditation. I let those invited know that we’re taking this shit seriously and don’t come if you can’t respect the vibe. I will admit I am not afraid to kick someone out.
When I was in middle school (or maybe it was elementary school) I kicked two girls out of my house because they were being disrespectful to my grandmother and killing my vibe. I gave them the house phone to call their parents to pick them up and that was that. Some groups just don't mix well, that's just a fact of life. Being able to democratically form the guest list is a prerequisite to being a host that can maintain a flow amongst guests. If I was able to maintain that flow when I was a preteen, I’m pretty sure any adult can do it.
But a type of mixing I am in support of is miscegenation and desegregation. When hanging out with your friends take note of the mixture of race and culture amongst the group. While interviewing for her book, Alice Julier found that the “African Americans [she] interviewed were more likely than whites to socialize in groups that were racially mixed”.6 A diverse collection of races, genders, and cultures is an important factor in not just having an intersectional worldview, combating racism & implicit bias, but integral in making sure good food is brought to the potluck.
I’m not going to eat your green bean casserole, white Americans, I’m sorry, but that just does not sound appealing at all.
The way we host others is birthed from the cultural templates our households/families leave for us. I tell everyone “Come to Chicago, you can stay with me” and I mean it. If a family member comes into town I feel obligated to host them, because those are the social values my mother instilled in me. In addition to saying “yes” to every cousin who asks to stay with me, I am conditioned to offer any guest in my home something to eat.
In many households of color asking someone “Did you eat?” is a multi-faceted question filled with care, compassion, and love. If you come to my house and I don't try to make you something to eat, I must not like you very much. Sharing food represents a kind of communion amongst friends and non-kin relationships; cooking and feeding someone represents a nurturing and loving act of care. When everything costs an arm and leg and trying to get drunk in the city has the possibility of bankrupting you, I think this might be a good time to emphasize hosting at home. Potlucks, dinner parties, movie nights, and watching sports games at home, are all valuable ways to connect.
Bringing people together creates a tangible sense of community that we’re missing in modern culture. Capitalism and overconsumption have created an individualistic culture obsessed with being on the “in” and “keeping up” with others. American society is full of performative displays of self to maintain “in”-status. Sociability and our non-kin relationships are linked to our sense of self, and those relationships are “at one level, about the construction of self in relation to others.”7 When you’re in a safe, comfortable space where intimacy can flourish, you’re able to tap into your real self. Everything nowadays is to entrap you into a “club” or an “exclusive membership” to make you feel included in the “brand experience” but also hyper-individualistic at the same time. German sociologist Ulrich Beck suggests that the “disappearance of class culture has led to a rise of the ‘lifestyle’ as personal projects, creating new individualization and more temporary group alliances that are not grounded in more durable social or material similarities.”8 All of this is a part of the bigger issue of trying to keep up with trends, lifestyle brands, membership clubs, and hierarchical divisions that promote exclusivity and keep people from forming a rooted connected community. But coming together to break bread, share common interests, or have a good bottle of wine, creates a true “likeness” that is not performative.
“We invite each other not to eat and drink, but to eat and drink together. . .” Margaret Visser
The Rituals of Dinner: The Origins, Evolution, Eccentricities and Meaning
of Table Manner
Seppala, Emma, Timothy Rossomando, and James R. Doty. “Social Connection and Compassion: Important Predictors of Health and Well-Being.” Social Research 80, no. 2 (2013): 411–30. http://www.jstor.org/stable/24385608. Page 411
Alice P. Julier. 2013. Eating Together : Food, Friendship and Inequality. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Page 186 https://search-ebscohost-com.proxy.uchicago.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=e000xna&AN=592686&site=eds-live&scope=site.
Alice P. Julier. 2013. Eating Together : Food, Friendship and Inequality. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Page 192
darty = day party!
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