On a completely different topic than what’s been up here lately: seating arrangements at dinner parties.
Growing up, my family regularly had large dinner parties, particularly around holidays like Thanksgiving, Christmas, and the Fourth of July. From the time I was a small child, I can remember my mother, aunt, and grandmother carefully discussing who should sit next to whom. At larger gatherings — which could involve up to 50 guests — charts were sketched on notepads. It was not uncommon to have long discussions about the best way to arrange everyone, and the seating charts would often go through several drafts.
There were some basic ground rules, the most sacred of which was this: couples were never to be seated together. Husbands and wives were usually put at separate tables, or at least at opposite ends of the same table. This was also true for long-time boyfriends and girlfriends; the one exception to the rule was when a member of the family brought a new date to a big gathering. So as not to overwhelm the newcomer, that person was allowed to sit next to his or her lover.
My mother and grandmother explained to me that one of the functions of dinner parties was to get to know people one didn’t always get a chance to chat with. "It’s not about you being comfortable, dear", my grandmother said when I complained; "It’s about interacting with new people and making them feel comfortable." Of course, as in every family, there were a few relatives who were considered especially taxing. So one of us might volunteer to sit next to Cousin Albert and listen cheerfully to his boring stories and endure his halitosis without comment or complaint. In return for this heroism, he or she who sat with the difficult one might be encouraged to relax while others handled the usually considerable cleaning-up. The task of sitting next to the dull and the challenging was always rotated, mind you, and I got my share plenty of times.
This emphasis on "being social" was enormously important. As a child, my grandmother told me something that left a profound impression on me. She said that when two couples are riding in an automobile, one could always tell their social class by how they arranged themselves. "Working class" people, I was told, have the men ride in front and the women in back. "Middle class" people (the term was one of opprobrium) ride as couples, with husbands and wives sitting together. The "right way" (the OKOP way) was to divide the couples. I was told that the reason was to ensure that "people got a chance to know each other", and that it was "ever so much more fun" that way!
In college, I read an old sociology book — I think it might have been the (hilarious but discomfiting) Status Seekers — and was horrified to discover that my grandmother’s bit of motoring wisdom had a slightly different interpretation. The author of the text suggested that working class couples put men in front to emphasize male dominance, middle class couples sit with their spouses to emphasize the importance of bourgeois marriage, and the aspiring upper class divide up the spouses in order to emphasize illicit sexuality. I was scandalized on behalf of my very proper grandmother!
So this past weekend, my wife and I arranged a party at a local restaurant to honor her best friend, who has just entered the fourth decade of life. We invited 28 people for a very nice Spanish tapas meal. My wife, who shares my family conviction about dividing couples at parties, carefully made out the seating chart. in the original draft, we weren’t sitting near each other. Indeed, I was to be seated next to strangers, an opportunity I relished. Meeting new people rather than conversing with familiar ones is one of the obligations of social gatherings, at least according to how I was raised. But my wife and I made the mistake of leaking word of our seating arrangement, and we were soon besieged with calls and emails from people frantic not to be separated from their near and dear, if only for a couple of hours. "I won’t come if I can’t sit with my boyfriend", one woman wailed; "Please don’t put me next to strangers", someone else begged.
In the end, we tried to accommodate an avalanche of requests. But as often happens in these ill-mannered days, our guests arrived at the restaurant, took one look at my wife’s beautifully lettered place cards, and promptly rearranged them to suit themselves. And of course, the entire dinner party dissolved into little cliques, as the guest of honor’s friends from work, from her school days, and her family members stayed among themselves without showing the slightest willingness to mingle and mix. Worst of all, most of the couples seemed positively joined at the hip, utterly unwilling to move away from the safety net represented by their husband, wife, or lover.
It was a very NOKOP event. The vegetarian paella, on the other hand, was really good.
Folks, what do you think? Is compulsory separation of married couples at social events an antiquated relic of the WASPy upper-middle class? Or is it an important nicety that encourages people to step out of their "safety zones" and expand their horizons?
I seem to remember that you’re an extrovert, Hugo. :)
When my family had our family reunion this summer, we randomized the place settings and arranged things so that husbands and wives, and parents and children, were mostly separated from each other. And this worked–but it worked because all of us knew each other at least a little bit. But, if they had been complete strangers? Eeek! Yeah, I need a safety net. Doesn’t have to be a boyfriend, but I need to be with somebody I know. Ideally, yeah, things wouldn’t get all cliquey and people could meet new people for the first time. But not all of us are extroverts, and some of us need familiar people to cling to.
I think it’s the latter, Hugo. With studies and surveys popping up in the news every so often about how people have far fewer friends and close relatives tha ever before, it isn’t surprising to see people reluctant to move away from their significant others.
IMHO, we live in one of the loneliest times in history, with many familys scattered and the cost to keep in touch (physically) being too much for many. I think, while it seems a little antiquated, it’s needed far more these days.
being made to sit where you are placed seems very uncomfortable to me. the only times i’ve experienced it have been at wedding banquets or other formal occasions, and it always feels stiff and unnatural- kinda like dancing with those foot outlines painted on the floor.
people will gravitate to those they feel most at ease with, and although it may be the host (or hostess) right to ‘arrange’ dinner guests- i don’t advise it: let water seek its own level, pool where it likes.
I think it’s all about what one is used to. I’m betting that the people who were horrified by your arrangement weren’t complaining, “Oh, no, not *another* event where we get split up!” but rather being surprised by the unaccustomed burden of forced sociability beyond their comfort zone.
As an introvert, such a gathering is painfully taxing as well as oddly liberating. I’m “stuck” in the situation and had better make the best of it. I’m fully capable of having intelligent conversation with a stranger (although it gets harder with those whose values I find difficult to respect), but it drains me. I can guarantee that it would send me home much earlier than if I were with people I knew.
I’m rather horrified that they rearranged your name cards, though. That seems to put entitlement over supporting one’s hosts in achieving their goals.
Actually, this is the first time I’ve ever heard of this “separated couple” seating arrangement. In Filipino and Indonesian parties, usually seats aren’t pre-arranged. When they are (which is rare), couples usually sit together (with other couples that they don’t necessarily know).
Apart from this, I would venture to say that in most Asian contexts, guests are seated along a dimension of “guest status”. For example, in Chinese gatherings, the guest of honor sits facing the main door (the reason escapes me at the present moment).
Another consideration is the physical space in which one sits. (I guess this applies to my first example as well.) Especially in Bali (and to a lesser extent, the Philippines - I don’t know about other areas), you have to (gradually) know, given a large gathering, who is feuding with whom. (This is infrequent, but it does happen.) Once you know that, you have to decide if you align with one party or another. If you don’t, then there’s no need to go further, and you can sit amongst anybody. If you do align with one party (not a random choice either - it depends on whom you know and associate with most closely - and who else is there), then it’s best to avoid sitting with the feuding parties during that occasion, even if those parties are also friendly to you. It seems exhausting, but this is what happens when any Balinese family considers you one of its “members”.
I’m so sick of society’s prejudice against the shy or introverted and your privelige in reveling in it, Hugo. Some of us prefer to spend our time at social gatherings only with people we know intimately, be they friend or lover, because we just plain don’t feel capable or safe having forced interactions with strangers. If I’m forced to sit with a group of people I don’t know, then I tend to just stare at my plate unless someone goes out of their way to talk to me. That’s just how I am. I cannot relax around strange people, especially in large groups, to talk very much. I won’t just brighten up and chatter like you extroverts. I will make people uncomfortable with my silence, which is why I turn down invitations when I know I will not have the option to be with people I am comfortable with.
I don’t know why I expected more from you, Hugo. Extroverts already run the damn world and impose their view of how interpersonal functions are supposed to operate. Why can’t you just have some damn respect for people who aren’t like you and have no desire to ever be like you? Is that so much to ask?
Dr. Schwyzer:
Though there are many old-fashioned customs I’m glad to see the back of, this isn’t one of them. (Addressing people I don’t know well by their first names—and having the pleasure of being invited to use the intimate part of the name—is another.) I’m not extroverted. However, the point of dinner parties is to have interesting conversations, and I can do that with my s.o. any time. Why waste the opportunity to meet some potentially new and interesting folk?
And for those uncomfortable with starting the conversation, the usual `read any good books/seen movies recently or what is a hobby/interest and why (not what do you do?)’ works great. Even the most mundane topic can be interesting if one is willing to be open minded, and introduced to it by someone passionately interested in it.
In fact, I’d argue that arranged-seating dinner parties are a godsend for the shy because then we don’t have to work up the nerve to break into those cliques; and if the hosts have taken any trouble at all, (as one would expect of folks willing to bother in this day and age) chances are better than random we’ll `click’.
I am with you all the way on this one Hugo. I have had it ingrained in me since childhood that couples get separated at dinner and that, if you are part of the couple, you should make an effort to mingle separately. (Obviously, if it is a gathering of your friends, you want to check in on your significant other to make sure he or she is coping, but you can’t stay joined at the hip just talking to each other.)
This caused some friction for me when I get married. I remember one gathering where my husband wanted to hang out in the corner with me. And I was mortified. I was like, “No, I can’t just talk to you, that would be rude and it would look terrible.” Then my husband was hurt because I thought I didn’t want to be with him. Now, he gets the mingling thing.
I probably would never do an all-out seating chart. At my wedding, I did a seating chart that specified what table people were sitting at. I DID put couples at the same table but I left it to them whether to sit next to each other.
Oh, and don’t forget the seating arrangment at dinner is supposed to be boy-girl-boy-girl!!!
I am an introvert, although not generally one with social anxiety. (These are slightly seperate things. New people drain me and are work, and I don’t quickly admit myself to new people, but I’m not particularly made nervous by them.) Introverts tend to attempt to feel out how their perceptions and the perceptions of those around them differ - dialogue is like chess, then, where you’re thinking or feeling your way through all the possibilities. As a generality, we have trouble accepting the face value statement.
Someone you know is someone who all this work has been done with already. Way, way easier.
If I were going into a situation where I knew no-one but one person, I would not like to be split up from that one person. Someone to smile at or include in new social expeditions has the happy effect of re-filling the battery which is drained by new social interactions. I would be making my excuses to leave pretty quickly after the main meal unless someone went way, way out of their way to befriend me; which seems a bit much to ask simply because I’m introverted.
That said, and (for an introvert, especially), I have a pretty huge circle of friends. At parties, my husband and I tend to split up, because I am comfortable with most of these friends.
The thing about introverts: we tend to do better nearer the *end* of parties. If we can get comfortable in the situation, obv. In an utterly new situation, I will tend to draw to the people I know: but I will attempt to invite others into that space. Then, as the night continues on, I’ll gain my social footing and feel a little more comfortable. So I’d be okay with placecards seperating me from my partner after a day of mingling with the strangers.
As an introvert myself, I agree with rejiquar that arranged-seating dinner parties are a godsend for the shy because then we don’t have to work up the nerve to break into those cliques; and if the hosts have taken any trouble at all, (as one would expect of folks willing to bother in this day and age) chances are better than random we’ll `click’.
At the last few weddings I’ve attended, I happened to be only slightly acquainted with anyone who wasn’t the bride & groom (or the groom & groom in one case) and I found it hugely draining to circulate, mingle, etc., (as I was trained one *does*, whether or not one would prefer to hide in a corner) without the prop of assigned tables. Way too many social anxieties without the assuaging relief of knowing what one was supposed to be doing, if that makes any sense. I would a thousand times rather be ‘trapped’ next to Uncle Albert than be constantly trying to figure out the situation and if I am performing my part in it correctly …
Although I also agree with rejiquar & Marianne’s point about the awkwardness of open air mixing.
I suppose my preferred seating arrangement would be at a table with either a close friend or my partner, but not necessarily both, and a bunch of people we didn’t know. Then I could work on getting to know those people exclusively, narrowing the field of new people to a stationary subset.
I may be an ENFP, but my entire family is not made up of boisterous extroverts. My mother (whom I suspect of being an INTJ) is a big defender of seating arrangements. I think most of the “I”s in my family would be with rejiquar. And yes, Happy Feminist, boy-girl-boy-girl is always best. Hence the car seating arrangement.
As far as taking sides goes, I’d have to sit over at Glitch’s table. I think the practice is abhorrent, and reeks of extrovert privilege. Frankly, it is *not* the host’s decision as to when I need to step outside of my “safety zone” - and if the host is an extrovert, he or she may not even understand what that even means for me.
Most of the functions that I’ve gone to where I’ve had assigned seating, I’ve only known a couple of people there. Often, this isn’t the norm; most of the people know each other, and I’m more of an outsider. Separating me from the few people I know and plunking me down at a table of strangers who are acquainted isn’t going to get me to socialize, it’s just going to reinforce that I don’t belong. (I’ll echo Emily H’s sentiment that this only works when everyone in the group meets a threshhold level of acquaintanceship.)
“Is compulsory separation of married couples at social events an antiquated relic of the WASPy upper-middle class? Or is it an important nicety that encourages people to step out of their “safety zones” and expand their horizons?”
The former. You have to be pretty well-off in the first place to “give dinner parties,” as opposed to “having the family over” for a holiday meal or somesuch. And I agree with Karen, the idea of someone PLACING me (as Tshuma puts it, the “unaccustomed burden of forced sociability”), particularly without my soulmate by my side, would only add to my discomfort, and I would assume that making guests uncomfortable is NOT the point of a party.
Huh. In my family people just sit where they want. I’ve never known a host to try to exercise prior control over seating arrangements. My honest first reaction is that it seems like an unnecessary micromanagement of one’s guests social environments–I wouldn’t resent it should it occur to me, but I wouldn’t feel right imposing it on my guests. Also, we all live in smallish houses where people just have so squeeze in where they can. Now that I think about this, I can think of a couple weddings where some sort of seating arrangement occurred, but the people I attended with thought it was strange.
I think Elayne’s got it. I’ve been to family events with upwards of 30 people, but they were never “dinner parties,” they were always having people over.
Hugo,
I think of course it depends on the formality of the event, setting, etc.
At our union this summer, while the ceremony was highly formal and high church, and seating was arranged for planning purposes, we left seating at the reception up to our witnesses because of the more informal nature of the reception, and mingling did happen anyway as people played musical chairs. For my introverted self, having planned and executed much of the affair, being able to sit for a few moments with folks I knew well was enough to let me breathe to get up the energy to mingle with all of our guests. My partner on the other hand is an extreme extrovert (in comparison to me) and really followed through on the socialization side of things.
Personally, I think it helpful to have a preplanned seating arrangement, as it encourages more conversation, though it can be taxing for introverts if they have to meet an entire table of new people all at once. Should couples be separated? In more formal events, probably. Of course, cultural matters do come into play. Simple things like arranging of the silver on the table vary depending on culture, so do seating arrangments. I agree with others here that one might also consider the temperament of one’s guests, and if you know that a particular person is painfully shy, be kind and place him/her next to someone he/she knows.
I’m with you in spirit on this one Hugo, however, am against forcing someone (who may be morbidly shy or not) to sit amongst strangers; in that case I would consider it cruel to separate them from the security of a friend/ally. The libertarian in me shuns forcing people to do things against their will.
That said, I suspect that morbidly shy persons wouldn’t go to one of our social functions anyway, so that point is probably moot.
Hm.
Being able to seat people—as opposed to them perching on sofa arms, coffee tables, and trunks, with plates in laps, as we had to do early on, when we lived in a starter bungalow—is privileged. Putting place cards is merely old-fashioned. It occurred to me, as several posts appeared between the time I started and finished mine, that part of the problem is that social expectations have changed.
Even strong defenders of the practice (Judith Martin, whose books on etiquette I adore for their humor and careful explanation of theory) admit that when going against mainstream expectations, it’s a good idea to give people a warning of the treat in store, such as inviting them old-fashion style (hand written 1st person or engraved 3rd person snailed letters, ferex). Then they can reasonably be expected to follow old-fashioned ideas about mingling via assigned seating, and have old-fashioned defenses against their hosts’ well-meaning torture, to wit, a pleasant, prompt, and polite rsvp declining the invitation:)
Well, you and your wife show TREMENDOUS amount of class in having the dinner party to honor someone’s birthday in the first place.
The ones who insisted on their “own seating” arrangement are incredibly rude, and would not be invited back to something that I was hosting.
After all, it wasn’t about them…even though in their minds, they probably were convinced that the “event” was made just to please them.
This is also the first time I’ve ever heard of splitting up couples. The idea sounds good in theory, but if that were to happen to me, I would probably spend most of my time missing my so, wondering if she were having a good time, worrying that no one told her there was shrimp in the stuffed mushrooms, etc. We work really well as a duo, everyone always says that we are very funny and we play off each other a lot, so it is way easier for us to be social when we are together. Apart, both of us tend to be awkward silence plate starers who just eat too much so we don’t have to talk to people.
Every time I have gone to a dinner party or wedding with arranged seating, the rule has been couples together but either with previous friends or in among new people. That solves both problems. You get to meet new people, but you’re not stranded if you don’t like meeting new people or if your new people suck. My girlfriend and I once had the extreme displeasure of being seated next to this incredibly deluded, vocal, and rude Bush supporter who hated gay people (he was someone elses date to a wedding), and I was SOOO glad to have my girlfriend with me.
Plus I have a lot more fun at dinner parties and social events when me and my friends just form our own little corner. It makes the event more like fun and less like work. I have a hard enough time with networking as it is, sometimes you just want to make inside jokes about the crab cakes.
Phil Hoover: if the host is going to get offended, the least they can do is own up to their indignation at having their social engineering thwarted, and not pass it off as disrespectful to the guest of honor who likely doesn’t care who sits where.
Apparently, my great aunt Alice used assigned seating as a weapon of revenge at far too many Christmas parties and as a family policy it was finally abandoned in favor casual mixing. Sit down dinners were later debated after great aunt Evelyn’s Fourth of July Fiasco at which the caterers served coffee to the mormon relatives. Much consternation was caused and formal events abandoned altogether after Jim and Sharon’s and Steve and Donna’s divorces when seating arrangements became too complex. The final straw for all formal family entertaining was the unfortunate Show Tunes Incident during which tuneless and secretly drunk cousins attempted to sing Hello Dolly - it was off key, off color and amused only Alice and Ernst who saw it as revenge for the abandonment of formal family parties.
I must disagree with some of the comments made here. I do not believe a person has to be privileged or well-off to give dinner parties. My family is not WASPy upper middle class. We teetered at the poverty level at all times, and we often gave and attended dinner parties. Just because a family was poor doesn’t mean they aren’t social and gracious enough to give dinner parties, arranged seating or no arranged seating. I have to say I find people’s assumptions about poverty and the lower and working class disappointing. Do people think lower class people have no class?
As for arranged seating, I think the idea of of encouraging people to step out of their safety zones is important. Why go to a party if all you’re going to do is stay joined at the hip with your significant other? How rude. How unsociable. I say if you want to hang out with your significant other, decline the invitation and hang out together at home — not at someone’s party, especially when it’s clear they expect you to mingle with others. If your host wants to split up couples, be a gracious guest and go along with it with good cheer.
I am introverted and talking to strangers can stress me out. But such conversations can also be enlightening, and in the end, can be thoroughly enjoyable. Having the seating pre-arranged enables me to situate myself with some confidence, as I know it’s expected for me to chat with the people around me. It frees me from the awkward cutting in and out of little cliques in which everyone seems to know everyone else and share the group’s inside jokes.
Cutting into groups can be made easier by gracious people who attempt to include you in the conversation, but I’m afraid such social graces are not found easily these days. People seem to have forgotten what it means to attend to parties, that as a guest, one must be gracious to others (not just to one’s significant other), be interesting, be kind, add positively to the conversation and group chemistry, and not be a bother to the host.
I was appalled your guests switched around the name cards. I may be an introvert and it may pain me to talk with strangers, but I’d rather die than do something so rude and self-centered as a guest. I mean, it’s just not done.
Hmm. You know, this practice just strikes me as more old-fashioned than anything, and harkening back to a world where the status quo was having a wife that stayed at home full-time. I mean, in that situation, I can see why separating couples to mingle made sense: how else would you meet new people? How would you expand your social circle?
I think that as you start seeing more and more couples where both partners work full-time, the appeal of this sort of thing really diminishes. I have a full circle of friends or coworkers that I mingle with at happy hours or brown-bag lunches, as does my boyfriend, and if we are going out on a Friday night to a social event together I’d be none too happy about being seated separate from him. I wouldn’t do anything so drastic as change the seating arrangements at the party, but we’d probably be significantly less likely to accept social invitations from that source in the future; we spend enough time apart that when we go out together to socialize, we want to socialize *together* with other people as well as each other.
I wonder if (separate from the introvert-extrovert discussion) people’s reaction to this differs on whether both partners work full-time or demanding jobs?
Glen, I’ve been to some family events that sound suspiciously like that!
FWIW, my wife and I don’t always put out place cards when we have folks over. That’s a special treat. But I’m pretty committed to dividing the couples up. If we do have a man and woman over, I’ll make sure that I spend time chatting with both of them equally, of course.
Now that I’m reading the various responses to this post, maybe some introverts would appreciate the Balinese way of socializing during the party - it’s actually considered to be very rude if you talk to someone who’s eating. There’s plenty of time to chit chat over several glasses (yes, glasses) of coffee and sweets after the main meal. And for those who don’t feel like it, at least you got to partake of the meal, which seems to be the most crucial consideration.
I’m not sure if it means my family is downwardly mobile or just kind of trashy.
I’m vaguely aware that on especially formal occasions, husbands and wives might be encouraged to sit separately, and on extremely formal occasions there might even be place settings. But being generally committed to splitting couples up sounds very upper class WASP to me.
In a car, I assume that the host couple is supposed to offer for one of them to drive and for the other to sit in the back seat, but only because the front seat is the more desirable spot, and you’re supposed to offer the more desirable spot to your guest. I never thought of it as a way of splitting up couples (and if your guest counters your offer of the back seat by insisting on sitting there, especially if the guest has shorter legs, the guest gets the back seat).
Oh, another variation on this issue, something that used to drive me INSANE when I first got married:
Whenever we go out to eat with my husband’s family, everyone always makes a big deal about me sitting next to my husband: “Don’t you want to sit next to Husband?” “Here, let me make room so you can sit next to Husband!” I am sure they are just trying to make me comfortable, but it used to really annoy me. It was just weird that they thought I needed to be joined at the hip with him at a table of only 8 people or so. But I’ve gotten over that now.
I’m with Hugo on this one. My husband and I used to give big buffet and dinner parties before we had kids, and on a few occasions we used place cards. We decided on this both because of the rule from childhood and because so many people in the larger gatherings avoided even speaking to anyone they didn’t know already. As for “comfort zone,” presumably people get invited to parties because the hosts know and like them. Thus, it should automatically be in one’s “comfort zone.” I mean, you like the hosts, why shouldn’t you like the host’s other friends? I think this comfort zone thing comes from too much work-related fakey socializing, where the only thing the guests have in common is their employer. Those events aren’t real parties, they just use an ill-fitting social form to cover an unpleasant duty.
Not only am I an introvert, I’m hearing-impaired. I can ask people to please speak up or not hide their mouths all I want, but often people forget and revert back to their normal speaking patterns, or just decide I am not worth the effort of talking to. My mother used to tell me it was ok for me to ask people to repeat themselves, but as I have found out at social functions, this greatly irritates many people, who then treat me as if I am being rude. This of course angers me, because it isn’t my fault I can’t understand everything. Before long, I am very upset and only want to go home ASAP.
Things have been a bit different since I met my boyfriend a year and a half ago. He doesn’t hold my hearing-impairment against me and repeats anything I ask him to. As an introvert, I will let my extroverted boyfriend strike up the conversations with other people, and then join in. As a hearing-impaired person, I rely on my boyfriend to repeat things for me that I don’t understand, so I can participate in conversations at least some of the time, or at the very least, understand what other people are saying. I would much prefer to stick by him, and if the hosts knew my situation, I would resent it if they insisted on separating me from him anyway.
Tygirwulf, if I knew your situation, I would of course seek to accomodate you. Separating couples is not designed to be cruel, merely to allow for more free-flowing discussion.
It also gives the couple something to do on their way home. It’s fun to lie in bed after a dinner party and trade notes about one’s respective — separate — experiences.
I’m an introvert with the “splitting up people is a good thing” side. It’s one thing if there’s a bunch of groups and no one who is isolated. I think it’s better to split people up, but not needed. It’s something else entirely when there are a few people who don’t know anyone and everyone else does know people. A good host will pay attention to this, though, and work it out.
People who can’t go 2 hours without sitting next to their SO are people I’d prefer to stay away from. (Let’s keep separate “dinner out with friends” from “dinner party”. Though even in the former, unless everyone is coupled, it’s still oddish.)
The car thing, on the other hand, I’ve never heard of, and it seems sort of silly.
HF, I recommend telling people that you prefer to sit across from your husband instead, so you can play footsies with him. That should shut them up!
I do understand the reasoning behind separating people from those they know. I was a little upset when I first commented, as your post had only too keenly reminded me of all the times I had been singled out as different in social situations, not just among by peers, but with professional people my mother’s age, who I at one time thought would be a little more understanding towards me. Too many people choose to enforce social conventions strictly, not remembering that social conventions should exist to help and serve people, not the other way around.
Well, I’m not sure that I totally agree that a couple has to be seperated in order to be forced to socialized with others; I don’t think it’s an all or nothing proposition. I would agree with Sydney that not speaking to anyone besides your SO or friends is rude and unsociable and you probably should stay home: on the other hand, I’m not an infant, and so I don’t actually need to be seperated from my SO in order to use manners and act sociably in public.
It’s not an either/or, I don’t think.
JEFF:
Just remember this, the next time you take a potshot at me….
If you are EVER invited to someone’s home, or to a function they are HOSTING, it is THEIR DECISION…not yours. Either follow their directions, or don’t go.
It’s that simple.
When someone comes to your home, or to a function that you are hosting, the same rules apply:
They follow your instructions, or they should stay at home.
It’s that simple too.
I’m going to agree with those people who would find being separated from their partners unpleasant and, anyway, ineffective for promoting socializing. Both myself and my partner are quite introverted, but — like Sarah S — if you put us together amongst relatively new people, we are both much more social than we would be individually. Individually, I’m far more apt to be stressed and unhappy, sitting in silence for most of the time, and wanting to leave as soon as possible. If I can interact with new people with s.o., then we can play off each other and pull energy from each other with the result that we can really get into it and often stay (relatively) long into the night. (In fact, I’ve found that the only ways to get myself to enjoy parties are to do them in the company of an s.o. or very close friend, or get drunk; I much prefer the former).
I understand that the point of parties is to mingle and interact with everyone there, but some people do that far better when they have at least one very familiar person close by. By setting up seating arrangements that destroy that possibility, you might be (ironically) decreasing the likelihood of good socializing - depending, of course, on what sort of people you invite. :)
I’ll also add that it’s quite fun to compare notes even if you’ve been sharing the same experiences. Many is the time that me and my partner have lain in bed after a gathering, comparing our impressions of the conversations we had and people we met — it’s amazing how different they sometimes are, and how much more two people notice than one.
Am I missing something? At a dinner party, you’re separated just for that point when you are sitting and eating, not for every single second of the entire night. Usually there’s a less formal bit before, and between courses, and people have been known to stand up and walk around at times, too.
I’m gonna go with privileged on this one. A few quick points:
1: tygirwulf’s story. As you’ve said, you’d accommodate her IF you knew her circumstances ahead of time. But unless SHE knew ahead of time to warn you, you probably wouldn’t.
2: Seating couples together doesn’t automatically mean they won’t mingle. At free-mingling events, my SO and I often stand or sit side by side, facign AWAY from one another out to our respective circle fo friends. Same effect, plus I’m there if she gets overwhelmed.
3: I’m an extrovert, but as a youngster, my personality hans’t been stable for long: I spent most of my life as an introvert. I know all about extravert privilege, and I want no part of it. The shy folk among us (not to say that all introverts are shy; I wasn’t particularly) deserve to be able to take new people at their own pace; furthermore, in my experience, they’re likely to have developed their own habits and accustomed ways to voercome shyness.
4: To all those commenters who called stickign with friends “rude,” A question: Why do you fell entitled to control other people’s behaviors? Why do you demand that other people’s socialization be a performance for youor benefit? As far as I’m concerned, they don’t “owe” you anything. That guest who stands in a corner talking to a friend isn’t hurtng anyone, and if that’s where they’re comfortable, that’s where they should be.
5: The entire set-up reeks of paternalism. You’re separating people “for their own good”? You’re *just trying to help them* meet new people? I figure that if they want to meet new people, they will. This ties into point 4; you don’t own otehrs people’s socialization, nor do you understand thier circumstances. There are any number of reasons that someone mgiht not be up for mingling in a crowd of strangers. Maybe they’re shy. Maybe they haven’t actually seen thier SO for a while. Maybe they have a headache. Maybe they have important news ot pass to a close friend. Maybe they have to leave early and don’t feel they have time to meet many new people. The bottom line is, you don’t know what’s best for other people, no matter how much you want to.
So, yes, I’m going to call it pretty presumptuous. It’s just another manifestation of patriarchy–the belief that all people are the same (or all people of the same “type). That conformance is a value. That one size fits all. That social norms should trump individual preference.
I think it’s the opposite of what I thoguht we stood for.
Phil Hoover: if the host is going to get offended, the least they can do is own up to their indignation at having their social engineering thwarted, and not pass it off as disrespectful to the guest of honor who likely doesn’t care who sits where.
Jeff, I must agree with you here. Let’s face it: arranged seating and place cards and what-not are merely forms of manipulation. They are very subtle, and often socially acceptable, but they are ultimately manipulation.
I agree, though, with Phil’s point which is essentially “my house, my rules.” That is fair and his home is his place to do as he pleases. However, if someone is going to invite me and then demand that I sit in a certain place, I would prefer not to be invited to such an event.
Manipulation is neither here nor there. Sometimes it is positive, sometimes negative, often neutral.
Ignoring other people is rude, especially if those people are otherwise being isolated. If it’s because you’re sticking with friends and not making an effort to include them? Rude. Is it because you really are shy or introverted? Still rude.
If you want to go to something to just talk to specific people, then do something with just those people.
Rayven said:
By setting up seating arrangements that destroy that possibility, you might be (ironically) decreasing the likelihood of good socializing - depending, of course, on what sort of people you invite.
Yes, precisely! The notion that mixing people up into unfamilair groups will result in more people meeting new acquaintances is a form of extrovert privelige. Yes, extroverts might be able to do that, but I wont nor do I care to even if I could. Shy intorverts like myself will not feel comfortable and will likely make others uncomfortable through their silence. This is not a conscious decision to be rude, it’s simply the way social situations operate for us. I had one or two other shy, introverted friends when I lived in DC who were much the same way. We really couldn’t “mingle” and so we would tend to sequester ourselves apart from others. If strangers made the effort to try to talk to us we would certainly accomodate them, but we didn’t go out of our way to talk to every single person there.
Of course, I’m in a new city now and hurting for friends, but my situation is a Hobson’s choice. Do I force myself into situations where I’ll make other people uncomfortable and therefore make a bad impression? Or, do I just stay to myself? Either way, the results are pretty much the same. I’m always the “creepy, quiet guy” who doesn’t talk much.
I’m frankly offended by the notion that shyness is rude. Introversion and shyness appear to have genetic components, based on what research I’ve read. In essence, considering shy people to be rude for not living up to the majority’s standards of conduct is little different than considering an unattractive person rude for not living up to the majority standard on beauty. What, exactly, is either group capable of doing about it? I don’t keep to myself out of choice, but necessity.
I used to to be a paratrooper. I jumped out of perfectly good aircraft and had a lot of fun doing it. If I arranged for a static-line parachute outing and you refused to come because you have a deathly fear of heights and falling, is your refusal to take part rude? Please. Get over yourselves. Make allowances for people who are not like you. I will do the same for you.
I’m mystified as to why everyone assumes all upper-middle class WASPs are extroverts. I’ll say it again — my family is loaded with shy people who nonetheless understand that sometimes, we all have an obligation to move out of our comfort zones.
Glitch, I have a huge fear of snakes. I mean, a real terror. So, what have I done, time and again? I’ve handled snakes (pets, mind you, not wild rattlers!) I hated doing it, but I hated my own phobia more. Pushing ourselves out of our comfort zones is healthy for all of us.
Perhaps, Hugo. But why is it your choice of when I’ll do that? You have no right to force your guests into moving out of their comfort zones at your pleasure. Let them do it of their own accord.
It’s not just a matter of comfort, either. I’m deathly afraid of bees…because they can kill me. I am very allergic to them. Strangers are much the same way. In my formative years meeting strange people, fellow children anyway, almost universally resulted in getting the shit kicked out of me. I was much smaller than most children and therefore unable to defend myself. I was also much more “serious” than other children so the usual bullying and teasing hurt more. I was an easy target for other people’s anger. Sorry, but if I were to attend a dinner party where you forced me to do something that feels frightening and unnatural just because you have deemed it necessary for me to move out of my comfort zone, I’d leave.
Again, you display privelige. You feel you can decide for your friends when they need to step out of their comfort zones. It’s not your choice and I very much doubt you know what it feels like for a shy person to be put in that situation.
You’re right, I do have an obligation to occasionally move out of my comfort zones. When that occurs will be by my design, not yours.
Also, I wanted to add that as I mentioned above, moving out of my comfort zone in a social situation is not to my benefit. I make other people uncomfortable in forced social situations. I come off as quiet and intense. We’re I to attend one of your parties where you forced me to be social, it would be to my detriment. Your other friends would probably think I’m a creep. You are not making allowances for people who are unlike you. That is the very essence of privelige. Why should I have to denigrate myself in front of your friends just because you deem it necessary?
Sorry for the multiple posts. This point slipped my mind.
Hugo– note the phrase you used in your latest comment “pushing ourselves… is healthy”
Pushing OURSELVES. It’s a choice the individual has to make; to decid en their behalf is paternalistic. Furthermore, everyone has htier own preferred ways to meet new people. Personally, when I was younger, I preferred to meet new people one at a time. I’d start in a group of friends and slowly add strangers as the evening progressed. if an individual stranger wanted ot tlak to me, I’d of course converse with them. But throw me into a large group of strangers? My parents have done that a few times, with unfortunate results.
Nowadays, my situation is complicated by the fact that then “strangeness” doesn’t go both ways. As a speaker, a leader, a performer, and one of the earliest memebr sof my current social circle, most everyone I meet knows me better than I know them. That’s good, because I get a pass for not knowing everyone’s names, for instance. Through simple experience, I’ve gotten used to mingling in groups with acquaintances, since they so often form around me, but only, I think, because I have the “higher ground,” so to speak. I still fell uncomfortable among large numbers of people who don’t know me.
Again, Hugo– Why do you view others’ socialization as a perofrmance for oyur benefit? Isn’t this the attidue you condemn wiht reference to, say, women’s sexuality?
Two questions:
Why are all the self-proclaimed “introverts” writing paragraphs and paragraphs and paragraphs here…just to tell us how “introverted” they are? It’s self-defeating, and deceptive.
Where did we get the idea that we are going to be invited to the WHITE HOUSE…it’s a dinner party for a friend for God’s sake! Sit at your assigned seat, enjoy the time together, and talk with people that you have never met before.
For Pete’s sake, people, I’m not talking about getting people to run a marathon or climb a mountain. I’m asking them to sit with folks they don’t know and chat politely. It’s like asking folks to chew with their mouths closed or not pee on the chairs.
You’re certainly not being forced to do something. There is something known as declining an invitation, which is what you do if you do not want to go to someone else’s party for some reason. It is not at all rude to decline.
What do all the other shy introverts do at parties when they’re single? Do you refuse to go to parties if you don’t know enough people there?
My experience, as a shy introvert (not terribly shy, especially for an introvert, but very introverted) is that parties where couples sit next to each other all the time are incredibly isolating for single people (we still exist), and parties where the host has made no effort to mix people up suck for guests who don’t know more than one person. Whether I’ve known people at a dinner party or not, and whether I’ve gone single or with an SO, *invariably* I have had a better time at a dinner party where seating was planned.
People are describing all sorts of other parties, not ones where you’re sitting down eating food next to some specific people. (But even at those parties: rude to not talk to people who are isolated. Maybe they’re shy or introverted too, and they don’t have other friends to talk to.)
Running a marathon or climbing a mountain would probably be much easier for some folks than it would be to ask them to exercise (or perhaps develop) some adequte social skills, and make others feel comfortable and to get acquainted with folk they don’t know.
You hit the nail on the head, Hugo!
Great blog by the way.
It’s like asking folks to chew with their mouths closed or not pee on the chairs.
Hugo, I’m sorry, but I find this incredibly disrespectful. Comparing those who suffer from social anxiety, shyness, or any other issue that makes it uncomfortable and less-than-intuitive to chat with strangers to those who are unable to conform to a minimum standard of hygenic, civilized behavior in public is one of the more insulting and dismissive things I’ve read recently. If you really find the idea of someone objecting to being forcibly thrown into a social situation that causes them distress just as disruptive as “pee[ing] on the chairs,” well, I’m glad I’ll probably never have occasion to be invited to one of your social gatherings. It doesn’t seem like you’re particularly concerned with the comfort of some of your guests, if you’re willing to mockingly compare them to the severely mentally handicapped just for the galling crime of not being as comfortable around strangers as you are.
Some people are not as social as others. Less social people are not disabled, nor are they inferior beings to be pitied and subjected to unsolicited “help” in conforming to whatever social skills you, as someone with a totally different personality and level of social comfort, have decided they need to conform to. Believe it or not, it’s possible to lead a perfectly healthy life, with good friends and a well-developed social support system, without often subjecting oneself to unnecessary, prolonged contact with large groups of strangers– some people just don’t like that, no matter how much more convenient it’d be for you if everyone did. That doesn’t make them entirely unsocial, or uninterested in making friends, or in need of rescue from their own natural social tendencies. And why does it only seem to be the introverts who have to “step out of their safety zones”? I seem to remember a post from you way back when complaining about people who’d rather read or listen to music than chat with you, a stranger, on public transportation– why didn’t you take that as an opportunity to move past your safety zone and deal with being alone with your thoughts for a while?
This whole thread reminds me of why it is so much easier to socialize with those who were raised with the same value systems! And Keri, I don’t foist myself on the unwilling. I adapt. “When in Rome, do as the Romans do” is hardly an oppressive rule, even though everyone’s going to be a bit out of sorts on their first visit to Rome.
Again, for the umpteenth time, my family is filled with shy folks. They just don’t see their shyness as an excuse for avoiding social obligations. I recognize that seeing socializing with strangers as an “obligation” is not a cultural universal. I can lament, however, that it isn’t.
For that matter, everything Keri says should go double for Phil Hoover. Again, the extroverted and sociable are judging those of us who are not by their own standard of what constitutes a polite person and demanding we hold to it. Again, this is privelige. You feel as if you can demand others obey your standards just because we are in the minority.
Also, Phil, introversion does not mean you dislike writing in blog comments. An introvert is simply somone who find extended interpersonal communication taxing. An introvert can manage social situations for only so long (which depends on the degree of introversion) before they have to get away and be alone to “recharge.” For the shy (not the same as intorversion, I’ll grant) writing in a forum like this is much easier than speaking at a table full of strangers. There’s a degree of safety involved that makes it easier to open up and express oneself. Your inability to grasp that more or less proves my point on extrovert privelige. You are so used to having things done your way you cannot even grasp how it must feel for the other. You insist on holding people to your personal standard of conduct, which is very far from universal.
Hugo, shyness isn’t an excuse, it’s a reason. I am not looking to excuse anything. I am who I am and I don’t have to apologize to you or anyone else for it. Your demand that your guests hold to what seems to some of them to be an unreasonable standard is just that, unreasonable. The intorverted tend to keep to themselves because they find talking to others tiring. The shy stay quiet because they are not comfortable in those settings. You are in no position to demand anything of them. If you really have that much of a problem with people who are different than you, then stop inviting them if they offend you so.
I’m not sure what the proper or correct thing to do at a dinner party is, but I agree that it is best to get people to mingle as much as possible. I lived in Japan for the past few years, and they had an interesting solution for some of the parties. At the dinner parties of groups larger than 30 or so (generally an end of the year party), guests drew numbers for seating. So it was completely random who you ended up being seated next to. I found this solution interesting, although perhaps a bit uncomfortable at times for me. Occasionally I got placed at a table with no English speakers! But it sure improved my Japanese and gave the opportunity for people to speak to me who were normally too shy to talk to the foreigner. After the food was served and everyone was just on drinks, you were free to move about and join another table if you liked. Seemed to work quite well in general.
While it’s true that guests have obligations to hosts, I believe that hosts have obligations to guests as well. If you’re going to invite people over for a dinner party, you should make resonable efforts to ensure your guests’ comfort. For example, if you invite a vegetarian to your dinner party includes vegetarians, it’s incumbent upon you to make sure that vegetarian options are available for him or her.
Add a separate guest of honor to the mix, and it gets even more complicated. If I attend an “ordinary” party where I’m being socially pushed around, I can just leave. If I’m attending a party thrown on behalf of someone else, my leaving risks being interpreted as a comment on the guest of honor rather than on the party itself.
I think one of the problems here is that different people have different ideas of what the “point” of a party is. For some people, it’s to mingle and meet new people; for some, it’s to spend time with specific people; for others, it’s simply to have as good a time as possible. What appears to be happening here is that the host is taking it upon himself or herself to decide what the “point” of their function should be for the other people attending, and there’s a culture clash when the guests don’t agree.
Also, I think an extrovert’s perception of the “obligation to socialize” may be very different from an introvert’s, especially an introvert who’s not accustomed to said obligation. From what I gather, the extrovert’s sense of obligation involves talking to people they don’t know; from other posts, you say that you tend to like to do this in other circumstances (e.g., on a plane). The person interacted with may not be the extrovert’s first choice to interact with, but the fundamental nature of the interaction is one they tend to enjoy and are comfortable with; it’s just that they might rather be conversing with someone else. In other words, even when it’s an obligation, it’s one that’s largely on your terms.
For me, an “obligation to socialize” in most contexts feels like an obligation to put up a “false front” in order to make myself as acceptable as possible, for fear of being regarded as arrogant, or rude, or snobbish for being quiet and untalkative. It means I say inane things and keep any actual personality carefully hidden, because anything but conformity leaves me open to criticism or ostracism (and because even if do try to be outgoing, all the extroverts in the crowd are going to be better at it than me). And it means I don’t have a good time (and neither, I suspect, do the people conversing with me).
Delurking to comment on this one, ’cause I’ve thought a lot about it. I’m a borderline introvert who also really likes to host dinner parties. The two key aspects to organizing social situations like this are: 1)know your guests 2)take pains to make them comfortable.
I have several introverted or shy friends and I would never dream of throwing them unarmed into a group of strangers. If I am arranging the seating, I always try to make sure that people sitting near each other have something in common and that I introduce them, either during pre-dinner mingling time or when they sit down. I also usually let them know ahead of time so that they can decline if they don’t feel like dealing with being social.
I do think that just expecting everyone to suck it up and deal with being social is extrovert privilege. Personally, I hate walking into parties with lots of people I don’t know and trying to insert myself into conversations. I always feel like I’m butting in. Ideally, I prefer to have a job of some kind–greeting people at the door, collecting coats, whatever, because it gives me a chance to ease into sociability. Barring that, the host had better be prepared to make introductions and suggest topics of conversation. If your guests aren’t comfortable, you have failed at your job as host.
Hugo– I find your comment about the open-mouht chewing a tad disingenous. Of course, everyone, even the should be able to make polite conversation. It comes easily to some, mroe difficult to tohers, but I’ll grant you that being able to make small talk is a life skill, like reading. Not everyone enjoys itespecially, but everoyne will eventually have to learn.
But what you’re talking about is more than “asking them to sit with people they don’t know and chat politely.” You’re deliberately setting them up with strangers in the expectation that they weill get to know one another and get along. This isn’t abot disrupting a party; even as an introver,t I could avoid being disruptive.
This is about your that you know best what other people need. Your statement that you manipulating them for their own good. That they just need to learn to be like you. It does seem a little bit narrow-minded.
Again, what gives you the right to decide how many friends Anyone else needs, ro how they should make them?
Finally, I understand that there *is* a social obligation to “socialize,” and that it’s veyr difficult at times to avoid being overwhelmed without being rude. But it’s amazing to me that you tamely accept these “social obligations” as what they are–and even want to enforce them on others.
We’re feminists! we are *all about* examining social norms. And I, for one, think our society puts too much of an emphasis on shallow, phony, “socialization.”
GLITCH,
Don’t worry…you will probably never want to come to a dinner party that I am hosting.
You would have to meet people that you don’t know…and most of them would probably AUTOMATICALLY like you…
Now wouldn’t that be a pity?
Since we’ve picked a location for my wedding and reception — one that includes dinner — I’ve read this with interest. As it stands, I’ve assumed we’d let guests self-select their tables. That will probably remain the case, but I can definitely see an argument for mixing things up a bit. I personally like the idea of randomly assigning tables, but I’m admittedly biased as an extrovert who enjoys meeting new people. I’ve also learned by now (mid 30s) how to get other people to talk about themselves and to draw out introverts. My (INTP) husband-to-be might see the matter differently, but then neither of us has much room for the word “should” in our worlds in the first place, and that’s one of the reasons we get along so well.
It’s interesting, Hugo: You admit that in your family a brand new addition will be sat beside the person that brought them to quell the shock of new exposure. So there is some care for the less socially confident of us; I imagine that the introverts in your family do produce some sort of interweaving schemes for seating. I also will point out that the Obnoxious Uncle Albert may very well be LESS taxing to the introvert than the Much Admired but Unmet Favorite Author: and that therefore parties with family members are not analogous to parties with disperate groups meeting for the first time.
I’m finding some of the tone here rather smug, though. I think this is what Glitch is seeing as extrovert’s privilege, although I’m seeing it as a very different concept of entertaining. I’m beginning to channel my grandmother, here.
Should I go to a party where people other than my SO were *known* to me, I could be comfortable without my SO.
But putting me at a table where I knew no-one would be, in my family’s hosting rules (and we also have used place cards on occasion), extremely rude.
So obviously there’s context about what’s considered okay. MY grandmother’s rule was that if a guest of the family drinks out of a finger bowl, or uses the wrong fork, the host and hostess are also supposed to make such a gaffe. The supreme job of the gracious host and hostess was to make the guest(s) comfortable, not to teach them something. (Not that I have much call for finger bowls. My grandmother married down. I sure did learn the rules tho’.)
When I am *hosting* a party, I have a number of jobs, some of which may make me uncomfortable - I do attempt to draw out cliques of people, and I do mingle widely. If I am part of the hosting “ingroup”, I do the same - seeking out the alone or new and attempting to put them at ease, asking questions about their lives, and helping them warm to the situation. As an invitee to a new party, I have a variety of jobs I must do including recognizing the work of the host/hostess (and not moving out of their seating arrangements), and attempting to mingle with people who are unknown to me: but if there has been no consideration of who I am, then it’s not a party, it’s a job.
At my wedding, we worked to have people from groups A & B & C interwoven, but it is utterly possible to have strangers on the left and right and known friend or partner across. Which facilitates more easy conversation among a variety of social styles. A socially anxious friend I would place with a friend on one side, and a friend across the table. For eye contact and the ability to turn and hide.
As a guest at a function, I would never move away from the place I had been given; and I agree, that is an example in our shared cultural context which may appear rude. And I understand you like the way your family’s culture works. However, I do question the tone of some of these comments as well as your statement that the introvert (who is not generally *phobic* about other people, unless they also suffer social anxiety), should by necessity be shamed as unmannerly or rude because they have a harder time to cope with extremely stressful situations which are ostensibly for pleasure.
And posting on a blog is not the same as meeting someone, Phil. It’s asynchronous communication. There are a lot of intros on the interweb: synchronous communication is what is hard. I would not react to Hugo, who’s blog I’ve posted on for a while now, as someone I knew at a party. I’d be more able to get to know him, having had some common experience that we could draw from, but if I were suddenly transported to a party of Hugo’s - with, say, everybody here around the table - I would very much want someone I knew with me.
That we are even having this debate surprises and saddens me. IMHO, there’s no point complaining about how you don’t like attending social functions that require you to be social, about how hosts have no right to force you to mingle, get out of your comfort zone, separate you from your significant other.
No one is forcing anyone to do anything. It’s an *invitation* issued graciously by your host. If you don’t feel comfortable mingling and socializing with others in the way the host wishes, then simply decline the invitation.
And if you find yourself at a party that isn’t turning out as you’d hoped, be a gracious and sociable guest while you’re there, then when appropriate, excuse yourself, thank the host, and be on your way (and take mental note never to accept an invitation from that host).
If you feel parties should be arranged differently, by all means hold your own. But please don’t criticize other people for the way they do it, especially when they’ve been kind enough to invite you in the first place.
FYI, I’m an introvert. Talking to people drains me. But when I’ve been invited to a party (invited, mind you — not forced), I go knowing I’m supposed to be sociable and friendly to others, particularly to people who may appear isolated or alone. If I’m not up to it, I decline the invitation; I don’t go about whining about how manipulative the host is, or how the host’s choice to have assigned seating or split up couples in indicative of some kind of socio-economic or extroverted privilege. Good grief, it’s just a dinner party. If you don’t want to go, don’t go.
Don’t worry…you will probably never want to come to a dinner party that I am hosting.
Many of us introverts would probably rather have oral surgery sans anesthetic than go to a dinner party where small talk was exchanged with total strangers.
You would have to meet people that you don’t know…
You betray your ignorance here, Phil. For the intorvert, it’s not the meeting of new people, it is the forced intimacy that is the problem. Small talk - polite conversation - is among the hardest things with people you do not know. I may hug some old friends. For a total stranger? I stiffen. I almost instantly dislike the person for what I regard as a total an inappropriate invasion of my space. I don’t know you. Who said you could TOUCH me?
and most of them would probably AUTOMATICALLY like you…Now wouldn’t that be a pity?
I seriously doubt that. Generally speaking, either introverts like ourselves retreat behind formality and get tagged as “stuffy,” or become blunt and get tagged with “rude.” You extroverts aren’t near as accomodating and open minded as a whole as you’d like to think.
You have no idea how much the notion that we are somehow broken or damaged is offensive, and how much we resent you for it. You really want to be friends with an introvert? Leave him or her the hell alone, and respect their privacy, space, and reserve. You may not have a hell-raising buddy out of it, but I guarandamntee when the chips are down you won’t have a more loyal one willing to pull your bacon out of the fire no matter what the cost to them.
My impression, Sydney, was that we were having this discussion because Hugo was interested in interrogating his own hosting style. I am very much someone who likes to host and go to parties, but in my neck of the woods it’s a very mannerly thing to be concerned about the comfort of one’s guests. Much like Kris has suggested, there are ways to make one’s guests more comfortable regardless of their particular personalities. If mandatory, no-holds-barred splitting up of couples is a set-in-stone rule in Hugo’s culture - and I have the suspicion it’s not, actually, since there is the out for a new invite to a family table - there is reason to question ways of setting up parties that add to greater social lubrication. My goal as a hostess, based on my own culture, is to work to insure that no (or few) guests go home feeling as if they’ve had a horrible time; and when I make seating plans (as I did throughout my wedding), I was attempting to maximize for both comfort AND socializing, with any errors being on the side of providing comfort.
I see no reason to assume that a person unseperated from their spouse becomes someone who will do nothing but exclude and fall into an unpenetrable conversation of two. That’s an assumption I would not be willing to make, and I question the wisdom of that assumption in party planning. Sitting cliques together at seperate tables may be problematic, certainly; but weaving groups together and leaving people with the one other person they know can also be done in ways both comfortable and social. This is not an either/or situation.
With comfortable larger groups who all have acquaintence with one another, I would certainly not be adverse to splitting couples up (and we do naturally tend to, because I have heard my partner’s stories before…), I would question the basic *hosting* etiquette of enforcing such a stance with people who are largely foreign to one another.
Now, if Hugo’s rule is the way he wants to run parties, he is certainly welcome to do so. He did, however, open the floor for suggestion, at a party that worked less well than he had hoped based on his goals for the party. Questions that naturally come to mind are: what culture are you interacting with? And, if you are in fact trying to introduce people to a new way of socializing, what can you do to make that more successful? It is possible that everyone in the known universe (or at that party) is merely a putz who shouldn’t be allowed outside without etiquette retraining, but I rather like to assume better of my guests and I imagine Hugo does too.
I’m asking them to sit with folks they don’t know and chat politely. It’s like asking folks to chew with their mouths closed or not pee on the chairs.
That was what handling snakes was like for you, was it? “A real terror,” I thought you said. But now, you’re saying that facing it was no more impressive than refraining from soiling yourself, hardly an achievement at all. It’s funny, because that’s not how you described it before.
I apparently have this amazing super power: I’m able to socialize with more than one person at once. That means that I can have my SO joined to my hip, and yet also somehow manage to include one or more other people — including potentially strangers — in the conversation.
Arwen, I appreciate your comments and hosting insight. I, too, enjoy hosting parties.
As a host, I am not a fan of forcing couples to split up and sit at different tables. I usually seat them several people away from each other at the same table so they can chat with other people, but also have their partner nearby. I should add not everyone arrives as a couple. I’ve never heard of compulsory separation of couples, but I would be fine attending a party where I was seated far away from my significant other.
A related rule I *have* heard of — that it’s considered rude to be joined at the hip to your significant other for the entire party and interact primarily with him/her (at both sit-down parties and non-sit down parties).
I understand Hugo is opening up a conversation about his hosting techniques, and I am glad learn about other people’s hosting styles. However, I remain surprised that certain points are even up for debate. For example, I’m baffled by complaints from people who resent that they’re expected to socialize with strangers when attending parties. When did socializing with strangers at parties become optional? This concept of social obligation seems a given when one has accepted a social invitation. I’m also baffled by assertions of socio-economic privilege and extroverted privilege; they hold no water for me.
I am an introvert. If I agree to attend as a guest, I’m to be sociable and friendly and do my best to go along with my host’s arrangements. Introversion is not an ample enough reason for neglecting one’s social obligations.
Parties are a group effort. They are about making others feel comfortable, and both host and guests must do their part to make this happen. And in the event a host has not been successful making his/her guests feel comfortable, a guest still has a social obligation to be friendly, inclusive, and respectful of the host’s wishes (just as a host is obligated to remain gracious even if a guest has not been the best guest). We cannot control whether others fulfill their responsibilities, but we certainly can do our best to fulfill our own.
Sydney:
I think Jeff already stated it pretty well: I think one of the problems here is that different people have different ideas of what the “point” of a party is. For some people, it’s to mingle and meet new people; for some, it’s to spend time with specific people; for others, it’s simply to have as good a time as possible. What appears to be happening here is that the host is taking it upon himself or herself to decide what the “point” of their function should be for the other people attending, and there’s a culture clash when the guests don’t agree.
I’m sorry but I see no obligation whatsoever to chat with strangers at any function. If I’m going to a party I intend to have fun. Making the occasional pointless small talk with strangers, punctuated by long periods of uncomfortable silence and the frequest refills of my drink are not fun. I don’t find it fun, other people don’t find it fun to be around me when I’m feeling out of place. Fun for me is chatting and drinking with one or two people I know well for a few hours before I feel overwhelmed and have to leave. Fun could be someone new coming to me and finding out we get along well. I’m not going to interject myself into other people’s conversations, making them uncomfortable in the process, just to make the host feel better about themselves. If someone wants to meet me, they can come to me and see if we mesh. I’ve never had a party host tell me I’ve had an obligation to talk to strange people. If one did, I’d leave.
The smartest thing said yet:
If you feel parties should be arranged differently, by all means hold your own. But please don’t criticize other people for the way they do it, especially when they’ve been kind enough to invite you in the first place
Thanks Sydney. You are ALWAYS invited to any function that I am hosting…ALWAYS.
It seems to me a good portion of the potential discomfortable situations mentioned here can be solved by the host being careful as they draw up a guest list. I have friends whose company I enjoy that I obviously wouldn’t invite to certain gatherings because their history with other friends would make them feel awkward. For the same reasons, I would consider not inviting shy friends to a group of strangers a favor to them, and make time to see them privately or in a smaller group instead.
If the host wants to have certain people meet each other for the first time, it’s their responsibility to make introductions in a manner that makes it easy for those people to talk to each other. At my house, early arrivals help with setting up the dinner and that’s a pretty effective ice-breaker, but we stick to pretty informal parties. Giving quiet people something to do or starting a conversation about a completely neutral subject are parts of the host’s responsibility to make sure their guests are comfortable.
I have some very introverted friends who don’t enjoy talking but do enjoy listening to other people talk. If I were to arrange a seating list (my home is too small for very large parties at the moment), I would be careful to place them near someone they knew and hopefully also near some people that are entertaining talkers so they wouldn’t be subjected to awkward silences. Some of my more extroverted friends enjoy talking but aren’t always good at drawing people out - pairing them with people who are happy to be entertained by conversations without participating in them works well for both people.
I’ve been offended by guests who imposed awkward political conversations on others or behaved in other rude ways to my other guests. But I don’t consider talking to people they know or simply not talking rude behavior. I should know my guests well enough to give them the option of talking to new people in a comfortable setting if they feel like it, but I don’t think they have some general obligation to specifically seek out the people they don’t know. If anyone feels awkward and alienated, I would consider that my fault as the host.
Glitch, there seems to be a fundamental difference between our understanding of the role of a guest. As a guest, I do not feel the party exists for the primary purpose of providing me fun. Sure, I want to have fun and I hope to have fun (and I usually do), but the party, as far as I’m concerned, is a group effort with the end goal of ensuring *everyone* enjoys themselves. As a guest (and as a host), I feel I can take steps to both have fun and contribute to other people’s enjoyment of the party, too. It doesn’t have to be an either/or situation.
Like you, I would find it nice if someone approached me at a party and it turned out we got along well. But I also recognize it’s not just everyone else’s role to approach me; I have to do the approaching sometimes, too. Again, it’s a group effort.
And I agree — like you, I would not feel comfortable if a host explicitly instructed me to talk to people. But I’ll wager most hosts are not so heavy handed in their approach, so this is a non-issue in my book.
Phil, thank you for the generous comment!
Vacula, your guest list advice is wise and should be heeded. Unfortunately, certain social functions (e.g. weddings, anniversary part