[REPLAY] How to Stop Dreading Parties and Take Charge of Your Guest Experience

If you’re somebody who dreads going to a party, then this episode is for you.

Sometimes the couch feels more appealing than going out into the world and socializing, and I get it. Attending a gathering takes energy. Sometimes it feels awkward. But gatherings can also make us feel inspired and supported and invigorated.

Today I offer an approach that will help you take charge of your guest experience with three simple questions. You can ask yourself these questions before you leave, while you’re driving, or even on your way inside. It’s that easy.

My hope is that this episode helps more gatherings feel like time well-spent – and that, consequently, you’ll want to say yes to more invitations in the future, too.

In this episode you’ll hear about:

• Why do we like being invited? What feeling do we think a gathering will offer? And why do we sometimes feel dread on the day of?
• What the very best gatherings can provide: a shift in momentum, a feeling of relief, a connection made, something learned
• How to take charge of our guest experiences and create moments of meaning by asking three simple questions
• Remembering that we don’t always know what will happen – and that sometimes the most unexpected gatherings can actually be the most impactful

Reflection Question:

Are you a person who dreads gatherings? What is it about them that you fear? What tools from this episode will you take with you for your next gathering?

Notable Quotes:

“The best gatherings – I think, if we look back on them, there's something about that gathering that caused an internal state change, an emotional shift, or some sort of momentum in our lives. We're all out here spending so much time in our own heads – which is great, by the way. I'm not saying don't spend time in your thoughts meditating and being present with yourself. I'm just saying, for a lot of us, that's how we spend the majority of our time, and sometimes, it is nice to be with other people who might inspire you, or offer a fresh perspective or a boost of information or a new way to see the world – an opportunity to feel invigorated or nourished or supported.”

“We can't just keep walking into these gatherings pretending like we have no real power here. We do and we can create meaning for ourselves. So how do you do that? Well, I have a very simple strategy. All I do is ask myself three questions before I walk in the door. You could do this while you are driving there. You could sit in your car for a moment before you go inside. You could do this honestly, even between the time it takes you to park your car and walk in the door. It really is that easy.” 

Resources & Links

Read The Art of Gathering by Priya Parker. It’s amazing!

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Transcript

Podcast Intro/Outro: 1:28

All right, gang. Here's to nights that turn into mornings and friends that turn into family. Cheers. Hello, hello, and welcome to the Friendship IRL podcast. I'm your host, Alex Alexander. Each week we talk about what is working(and what is not) in our friendships, community and connections. Have you ever wished you could sit down and have a conversation about what is really going on in your friendships? Well, you found your people. Join us as we dive into real life stories and explore new ways to approach these connections. Together, we're reimagining the rules of friendship

Alex Alexander: 2:18

Today's one of those episodes where we're gonna talk about just like a small shift you could make in your life, but that small shift could lead to a really big ripple effect. Could have a huge impact in today's episode. If you are somebody who ever dreads going to a party or a meeting or a get together, then this episode is for you, because one I might might just maybe unlock why you feel that dread, and I'm gonna give you a really simple tool to try and change that pattern. I think this is worth exploring, because today we're going to talk about how you can take charge of your experience as a guest at your next gathering, how you can create your own meaning. So to start off, I want to ask you a question, and I want you to give me an honest answer. How often do you wish that you were invited? It could be to a group or a gathering, a conference, meeting, get together, party, celebration. How often do you find yourself wishing you were invited shoot, it could be invited to just simply hang out at a friend's house. Because I think that a lot of us are so trained to answer that question a certain way, we're going to say something like, Oh, not that often, no, no, no. I just prefer to stay home. I don't really like to go out and people, I have social anxiety. I hate small talk. I don't like to get dressed up. I'm just I'm more comfortable at home. I just would rather stay at home by myself. And sometimes I think that's absolutely what we want or what we need, but I do think that a lot of the time. These are just excuses that we're using to throw out there to cover up something's actually a lot deeper, which is where we're gonna dive into today. Because I don't think that most people would say like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I don't think they're being honest. Sorry, I don't I think that most people want to be invited, not to everything, but to certain things, and I think we're just scared to admit it. So let's explore some of these scenarios where you might desire an invitation, because I think these might jog some memories for you, like there might be big moments that stand out, a moment where that you saw all your friends got together, and they were hanging out, and you didn't get invited, like there was a big party, and it could be your friends, or it could just be a big gathering that stands out for you. Like, I'm thinking of an example here I was scrolling Instagram the other night. I live in Seattle, and if you live in Seattle, or maybe you don't, there's a fine dining restaurant called Canlis. And a couple times a year they throw these really big themed parties. And they just threw a Ken-lis party, k, e, n, l, i, s, so play on their name. And really it was just this massive Barbie themed party. They painted this historic restaurant here in Seattle, hot pink. It's right by my house. I could walk there. I saw all these people posting about it. There were people like, dressed up in themed costumes on rollerblades. There were Kens in all their different Ken attire, dancing on the roof. Yes, this is a real thing. You can look it up on Instagram, and I'm sure there were people that the Canlis brothers have on an invite list. Like, hey guys, do you want to invite me? I'd love to be there, but it's also a ticketed thing. Like, I could have gone, and I could have invited myself. To this party, because I'm watching all these Instagram stories and I'm just sitting there thinking like, I want to have fun like this. I want to laugh with my friends and rollerblade and be silly and eat delicious food and get dressed up and just act a little random for a night. I want to laugh at all the Kens dancing on the top of the building. And I think that's really it. That gets to the heart of the matter here is that I don't think it's necessarily being invited or not being invited, being included. Like, sure, sometimes that is it. There is a group of friends we thought we were a part of, and they didn't invite us. But I think so often the experience of wanting to be invited is because we believe we will feel a certain way when we partake in that experience that land with anyone. Let me give you another example. Let's say that you are talking with a coworker, and they mentioned that they had a barbecue at their house this past weekend, and they're telling you how they just kind of gave an open invite. People came, they went. They had the barbecue going. They turned on the bonfire later that night. People were just kind of like sitting around having casual, mellow, catch up conversations, meeting friends of friends. They were just kind of like all existing together and having this easy, fun weekend, and you're sitting here listening to your coworker tell you about his weekend, and you're thinking to yourself, I would love if I had friendships where someone just invited me to hang out like that. Like that would be nice to be invited to a friend's house to just casually hang out with no real agenda. Another example could be seeing two friends of yours who decided to go on a trip together. Maybe they invited you even, and you said no, and now you're watching them on this trip. They're posting on social media, and it looks like they're having a really fun time. They're being adventurous, and they're laughing, and they seem like they got lost in this, like, big park in the city they're in, but there's like, giggling about it, and they're taking photos, and you're just having this moment where you're watching it, and you're thinking like, I would love to be invited to go on a trip like that. I would love to feel like that. And I'm gonna give you one more example of this, because I really wanna hit home that like I think we do have these moments. And this one's a personal example. Actually, I was scrolling through social media a couple weeks ago, and a very historic friend of mine, someone that I am just currently not as close with that our friendship is kind of like naturally drifted apart. This friend had a major milestone celebration, and at one point in our lives, I really envisioned that we would be there for each other at every single one of these big milestone celebrations. And so I saw the posts about this party, and I was hit with this moment where I was thinking to myself, like, wow, I wish I was invited to that. And it's not really about me being invited or not invited, or proving that we're friends, or like, she didn't invite me so we're not friends anymore. Like I personally don't feel any of that. I know some people might, but I don't. What I felt was this moment where I just had to be really honest with myself, like I always thought that we would feel close for these big milestones, and the honest truth is we don't feel close in this moment. Now. That's not to say we never will, but right now, we don't. And I want that invite because I want to feel close to her, to go and celebrate and tell her how excited I am for her, because I am so if you're somebody who was out there initially telling me that you don't ever really want to be invited, maybe these were some examples that made you realize that there are moments where you wish you were given the invite. Now here's the wild thing, although I think so many of us are feeling that we would love to be invited, because we want this end feeling of connection, of joy, of fun, of spontaneity, like whatever that feeling is, I think So many of us also feel this immense dread when the time arises to actually go like, you wake up the morning of you're like, Oh, I'm kind of tired. I don't know. I don't really want to socialize with people today. I don't know everyone that's going to be there, and I'm not good at small talk. I can't believe I have to get dressed like we have all this dread about going. And I have a working theory as to why this is it's that we want to go to these gatherings because we have this built up expectation of how we will feel. And it's actually not even say expectation. We have a desire for how we will feel when we go and gather with these people, but when we go to leave and we go to put our shoes on, we are already anticipating the possibility that we are going to be disappointed that this gathering, like so many, will not meet that feeling. And when this happens over and over and over again, because maybe that reality comes true. Maybe you do have this desire for how you're going to feel. You go to the gathering and you leave disappointed. So this is confirmed, and this happens over and over and over again. We create this pattern, or this cycle, where we desire these get togethers that will make us feel a certain way, but then we also simultaneously dread them, because we're already anticipating the disappointment. Because how many times have you left a party and thought to yourself, like, Why did I even go? This was so much energy. I don't want to be here. I wish I just stayed at home. And that's a bummer. I'm bummed for you, because not only are we left disappointed, but also because I just believe that overall gatherings are really important. If we take a step back and we look at what a gathering is, it's a bunch of people coming together to feel something. And the best gatherings, I think if we look back on them, there's something about that gathering that caused, like an internal state change, an emotional shift, some sort of momentum in our lives, and we're all out here spending so much time in our own heads, which is great, by the way. I'm not saying, like, don't spend time in your thoughts and meditating and being present with yourself, but I'm just saying a lot of us that's how we spend the majority of our time, and sometimes it is nice to be with other people who might inspire you or offer a fresh perspective or a boost of information or a new way to see the world, an opportunity to feel invigorated or nourished or supported. The best gatherings, the ones that we will remember are because we felt something that caused a shift in us, whether that is like a shift up in momentum, or it was that kind of like hangout, chill gathering, where we have a sigh of relief because we feel supported. And the unfortunate thing is, I think we can all agree that those ones, those like, really life-altering gatherings. Unfortunately, for a lot of people, they are pretty few and far between. Like, it's more common to leave a gathering and kind of be like, Oh, why did I go with that? I don't know if I want to go back to that. I don't know if I want to do that again. And the more that we feel that dread the more we don't want to go and then we say no, which creates even less opportunities for the times where they might be the truly life-altering ones. Now some of you might say to me like, oh, well, I can tell which ones are going to be the life-altering ones. No, you can't. No, you can't. Don't, even the most unexpected of gatherings can actually be the most impactful in our lives. As much as we think we know what's about to happen, we do not. And the thing is, we spend, actually a lot of our life gathering. I mean, as kids, we're gathering in our neighborhoods, on the playgrounds, in school, at sports functions, birthday parties, and then as adults, we're at weddings and meetings and conferences, casual hangouts. More birthday parties, backyard barbecues, dinner parties, field trips, birthday parties. Oh, I said, birthday party. So many birthday parties, like, even if you're trying to get away from gatherings, there are still probably quite a few that you are stuck attending. And it's a bummer when you just continually leave them feeling underwhelmed. So today I wanna talk about like, how do we break this cycle, how do we ensure that we're not just endlessly attending gatherings that feel meaningless for the rest of our life? Because even saying that sentence out loud makes me sad, I want to share with you a simple strategy that I use to create these little moments of meaning in. The gatherings I attend, because I think that if you can take charge of your own experience at a gathering, the ones maybe that you want to attend, or the ones that you're stuck attending, if you can create your own more moments of meaning that is those little like breadcrumbs of momentum that keep you showing up, that push down the dread and the overwhelm and the anxiety and you start to actually look forward to putting your shoes on and getting out the door, because you start to build this trust in yourself that You can create your own meaning, and maybe, just maybe, this will be one of those life-altering get-togethers that you didn't even see coming. But in order to do this, we have to be more active in our role as a guest, like when we are stuck in this pattern of feeling overwhelmed and starting to dread attending. It's easy to just fall into this passive role. And I would love, I would love, love, love, love for every person to read the book The Art of Gathering by Priya Parker and to design the gatherings that they plan intentionally. Like if you're hosting you like to host, even if you don't like to host if you just hate meaningless gatherings. Everybody should read this book, because that really is what creates that feeling that those like powerful, life-altering get-togethers, is that somebody, normally, the person who's hosting, has spent time designing a gathering that elicits those feelings, and not everyone's going to do that. Like, if you want to be one of those people, you should go pick up that book and read it. It will truly change your life, because you will be surrounded by more life-altering moments. But not everyone's going to do that, unfortunately, and we are all going to have to go to gatherings that are hosted by people who are just following the same cookie cutter formats that really don't create an environment that is eliciting feelings. We're just like following through the motions. We're there. We show up, we eat the cake, we blow out the candles, we go home, something like that. So if we're going to have to live in a world where gatherings aren't designed for us to optimally connect or to change or to cause that emotional shift, then sometimes, and by sometimes, I mean quite often, we are going to have to do that for ourselves, because we can't just keep walking into these gatherings and pretending like we have no real power. Here we do and we can create meaning for ourselves. So how do you do that? Well, I have a very simple strategy. All I do is ask myself three questions before I walk in the door. You could do this while you are driving there. You could sit in your car for a moment before you go inside. You could do this honestly, even between the time it takes you to park your car and walk in the door. It really is that easy. So let me tell you the three questions that I asked myself. The first one is, why are we gathering like, "What is the point of this gathering?" The second is, "How do I want to feel when I leave this gathering?" And number three is,"What is one thing that I can do to leave feeling that way?" Now, obviously I'm going to dive a little bit into each one of these, and I'm going to try and give you some examples, but I also just, I don't want to make this too overly complicated, because it really should be a simple exercise. So let's break these down. If we go back to the first question I asked myself, it is, why are we gathering? If you're going to a birthday party, then you are probably gathering to celebrate the birthday person, and maybe you are there to make them feel supported, or to bring them a night of laughter, or to remind them of the impact they're having in the world. Maybe you are going to a funeral, and the point is to gather all these people together and appreciate all the connections that the person who has passed had in their life, to remember how they touched everybody, but also perhaps just to remember how valuable a life is, how much we can all do. Maybe it's just a casual hangout, and the point is to feel relaxed in the company of others, to remind yourself of. How supported you are, and that you always have people to call and that you can have that deep sigh of relief that like relaxation when you're surrounded by people. Maybe it's a networking event and you're there to meet new people. Maybe it's a conference, and the point is to feel inspired, whatever it is, I want you to spend a second before you walk inside that gathering. And I want you to ask yourself, why are we gathering? And this question isn't so much to like, make your own meaning. This question specifically is actually like, maybe there will be some of that life-altering energy at this gathering. But if you haven't spent a second thinking about what that energy is supposed to be, you might not be present enough, and you might miss it. You might just be there, following through the motions and miss the little moment that somebody tried to design to give you that feeling. And I think that if you spend a second just thinking about like, why are we here, you are more likely to tap in to those moments, into those feelings, than you would be if you just walked in blind. That's the reason I have that question out there. The second question I ask myself is, how do I want to feel when I leave this gathering. Now, this might align with the overall reason for gathering, and it might not. So if it's somebody's birthday party that I'm attending, then maybe I want to feel a moment of connection with the birthday person. You know, I mentioned earlier, having this realization that I'm not going to be present for every milestone I thought I was with friends in life. Maybe that's what I want to feel. I just want to remember that like I do have great people that I'm currently celebrating big milestones with, or maybe I'm going to a conference, and I want to feel engaged and creative. Perhaps I'm going to a casual hangout at somebody's house. We're just kicking it in the backyard. And I want that feeling I mentioned early on, of just being able to exist and have fun with others. I just want to leave that barbecue and remember that I have people who care about me that I can call, that I can talk with about the silly things that I can just casually be in community with, which brings me to my third question, which is, now that we know how we want to feel, let's figure out how to make that happen, and we do that by asking ourselves, what is one thing I can do to feel that way. So this might mean talking to a specific person. So if I'm at that birthday party, it could mean really working hard that night to find a moment alone with the person we're celebrating, just to tell them what an impact they've had in my life and how much they mean to me. This doesn't need to be some 40-minute heart-to-heart. This could simply just be walking up to that person, I mean, like, Hey, I just want you to know our friendship means a lot to me, and I'm really happy to be here celebrating you tonight. And like, we've had so many great memories this year, and you could rehash a little bit of that doesn't need to be some big ordeal. If you're that person that's at a conference. It could be seeking out a specific person and discussing some maybe a talk they give, like seeking them out at the conference. That could make you feel creatively engaged if you're at that backyard barbecue, and the idea is just to feel at ease. It could be I want to laugh as much as I can tonight, like I want to remove myself from any really intense, deep conversation tonight, and I just want to go home feeling like I laughed the most. I want to be silly and fun and peaceful and at ease and free. And by doing this, by asking yourself these three questions, when you walk into the gathering, I believe you're taking back control of your experience. You're not just being that passive attendee hoping that the host will throw together a party or a meeting or a gathering that leaves you feeling something now this approach may not turn every get-together into some life changing, life-altering event, but what I do, think it does is that it helps ensure that it feels like this was time well spent, that you made a connection or learned something new or affirmed a friendship, and that that small positive experience adds up, that we leave and instead of feeling like it was an absolute bust, we walk away from this gathering seeing that there was some sort of forward momentum, which makes us more likely to say yes to future invitations. Yes, and in doing so, makes it more likely that we will show up, that we will have moments where we show up to a gathering that we had no idea was going to be completely life-altering, but we are there. And I really think it's as simple as that. I have found in my personal life that asking these three simple questions before I walk into a gathering, just taking a moment and being intentional can save me so many times from a get-together where the host spent no time thinking about it at all. But I don't want to waste those moments, because I do think that being in community or gathering with people can really be a spark in life. So I'm going to make that spark, I think, by being an active participant, you might be surprised at how much it enhances your experience at the next get-together. It also might be shocking to you how many moments you have in your life where you are feeling the feelings you had when you wanted to be invited, because you are out there. You are living life. You're not watching it go by. You're doing the thing, and you're present to feel the feelings, and sure you're still going to wish you were invited to certain things, or be in my situation where a past friend is having a milestone moment you're not at and yet simultaneously, like this weird feeling that you're also celebrating a different friend this weekend. That's just how it goes. I hope that the next time you're heading to a gathering, you take a moment and you ask yourself these questions. I think you'd be surprised how much it can make an impact. See you next week.

Podcast Intro/Outro: 29:30

Thank you for listening to this episode of Friendship IRL. I am so honored to have these conversations with you. But don't let the chat die here. Send me a voice message. I created a special website just to chat with you. You can find it at alexalex.chat. You can also find me on Instagram. My handle, @itsalexalexander. Or go ahead and leave a review wherever you prefer to listen to podcasts. Now if you want to take this conversation a step further, send this episode to a friend. Tell them you found it interesting. And use what we just talked about as a conversation starter the next time you and your friend hang out. No need for a teary goodbye. I'll be back with a new episode next week.