People who've been to a (regular) party, what do people do there?

u/lukmly013 đź’ľ (lemmy.sdf.org)@lemmy.sdf.org to Asklemmy@lemmy.ml – 164 points –

By "party", I mean a physical social gathering of people for the purposes of having fun. It may be used in a sentence as "I am throwing a party!" or "Let's party!".
Basically what I am trying to say is the default "party".

I've never been to any, and I have no idea how people spend their time on parties, so I am curious how you did.

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God, that sounds miserable. Good to know my neurodivergent ass wasn't missing anything.

I mean, it doesn’t sound fun written out in bullets but parties are usually a great time for my own socially anxious neurodivergent ass lol. That said, besides work events, I haven’t gone to a party where I don’t already know most of the people in years. Jumping alone into a convo of strangers is my hell.

As a neurodivergent, I get through these events by pretending to be an alien anthropologist trying to blend in and study humans. Conversations are usually easy to start by asking, "So, how do you know the host?" Most people enjoy talking about themselves, so if you nod and listen, you'll be popular.

Occasionally you'll meet someone truly interesting. Arrange to meet with them later and follow up. This is pretty much the best way to make friends in the modern age, with intentionality.

“pretending” to be an alien anthropologist trying to blend in and study humans

There, I fixed that for you

At the "talk and socialize" bullet, I was imagining sidling up to some group I don't know, eavesdropping on their conversation, and standing there like a creep trying to figure out the best time to say anything relevant to contribute, but failing and standing awkwardly in silence until I just walk away.

I'll stay home, thanks.

Haha, I can definitely understand this feeling. It can be difficult to overcome! It doesn’t always “work”, and sometimes you will just stand there awkwardly. The good news is that nobody is going to care or remember. Seriously. You’re basically an NPC to people you don’t know. I’ve been to hundreds of parties in my life and have zero tangible memories of other people’s “awkward proximity”. Nobody cares about you as much as you do, which is slightly sad but majorly liberating.

Yeah same. I never know how to integrate into an existing group

Make a new group consisting of you plus the members of the existing group.

The part where you screw up is seeing yourself as a creep.

I understand others have probably said that to you enough times you just internalized it but you gotta stop believing people when they tear you down.

Good parties are wonderful, the type of party described above does sound miserable but you can choose which parties you want to attend. Personally I like parties that revolve around board games and interesting conversations where the only real social rule is to bring something: cheeses, an appetizer, weird booze, just something so all the provisions aren't the sole duty of the host.

I'm ADHD, never investigated but scoring high on ASD assessments. It can be fun, with the right people. It wholly depends on who's there. I'm usually with the people sitting outside, having fun conversations over a beer and/or a joint. It's just the genetic term for "gathering where there's food and substances". You'll find that you can often meet other NDs overwhelmed by the amount of people and music waiting for you over there. Chill times.

Reading comprehension seems difficult, so I'll go over it again, quoted verbatim from my previous comment:

ADHD, never investigated but scoring high on ASD assessments

Here's what you can deduce from this sentence:

  • I'm ADHD
  • I scored high on ASD assessment tests
  • Never got diagnosed for it (it being ASD)

Here's what you can't deduce from this sentence:

  • "random online tests": the self-assessment tests I made were provided by both my family doc and official governmental health resources
  • that I don't have something because I don't currently have an official diagnosis: do you think people with cancer don't have cancer until a doctor says so? I spoke with professionals, but I'd need an adult assessment. Neuropsychiatric resources are already scarce for children as is it, getting an appointment for an adult over here is a rather difficult and time consuming process, for, in my case, discutable benefits

Why do you do this?

My least favorite thing in the entire universe is having to take time to explicitly spell out what I’m not saying.

I fucking hate that people can’t stop reading extra shit I didn’t write.

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