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Comment by weatherlite | Hacker News Reader

> 3 or 4 people who I know well is optimal for me.

Even that is a challenge of finding the mental energy to pick the date , see that everyone can come, picking some activity (or if you're hosting - make sure with your wife that the date is fine. What about your kids - you wanna put them in bed before?) etc etc. Some of it is probably no big deal but my brain is making it look big, perhaps because I lean introvert as well. It's so much easier to just think about the idea and say 'naaa fuck it' and open Youtube instead.

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Helps if your friends are uncomplicated. We just chat, drink beer, make or order pizza, cook or bake something else, talk about work and family, sit in the sun, maybe play cards or just listen to music, talk about stories at recent events like concerts, rehash old stories, or updates about other friends, etc. There is no need to make a big deal about any of this.

But this is not a networking or new-friend-making style of party of course. Not even really a party, but fits "inviting people over for dinner".

I think a big problem is that people see this also as a thing where efficiency and productivity is important and they plan complicated activities etc. Similarly to how kids don't get much free time to just play and relax, adults also try to organize activities for themselves when just being together is often enough and the rest follows naturally.

> It's so much easier to just think about the idea and say 'naaa fuck it' and open Youtube instead.

I think this gets at the heart of the concern—it’s always easier to find something else distracting to do, but what’s the real cost? I don’t really know how to measure that, other than to say that American society and culture are doing particularly poorly right now.

This is something that has been going for generations and centuries. We are less and less dependent on people near us and more dependent on father-away large-scale systems. Same with extended families, neighborhood communities, etc.

You're right. But I think it's more than just about being an introvert or extrovert. In the past, boredome created a reason for most people to visit someone, play cards, host friends, or go somewhere. At present, more and more people (introverts and extroverts) are already turning to social media, streaming, gaming, YouTube, and any other online platforms as these offer modern, instant, unlimited entertainment with almost no coordination or planning.

I understand the feeling, what worked for me was "you know what, fuck it, I will just plan it more loosely, let's see what goes wrong or who is unhappy".

Most of the times, everybody is happy even if things are not perfectly planned, and then they thank me for the "effort" (which was minimal, and sometimes can introduce confusions, as I need to adjust the date or the style as more constraints become evident).

I sometimes think it's a problem of my education of engineering as well, because I want everything planned well, think of all exceptional cases, etc.

> but my brain is making it look big

100%

You can say naaa fuck it and open Youtube when your friends are over, as well as putting your kids to bed when they're there. It's fine!

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