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It’s Saturday night and the entire back half of the tapas restaurant is packed for my friend Ivy’s birthday dinner.
Ivy is queenly at the centre of the table, bouquets and little gift bags crowding her elbows. Multiple lines of conversation flow above the small plates, and drinks and desserts keep coming, because no one wants to call it a night. It’s an unequivocal success.
Then Ivy confesses that she’s been racked with anxiety – from the moment she circulated the invites, right up until she walked into the restaurant. “What if nobody had come?”
I am bemused. Ivy is beloved, as tonight’s turnout shows, and she’d asked us out for a nice dinner – not on an overseas trip, to an open mic night, or anything else that might have tested budgets or enthusiasm. Why wouldn’t we have come?
“I’m worried that my friends don’t like me as much as I like them,” she later tells me. “Like, why would these people come and celebrate me?”
Ivy isn’t my only friend who feels this trepidation around birthdays. Some put off making plans until the last minute, as a self-protective strategy. “I’ll organise it with a week to go, because I’m fine with the idea that people won’t come because they already had plans,” says Robert. (Some names have been changed for privacy.)
Others go the other route: anxiously over-inviting. Rhiannon sometimes asks two or three times the number of people the venue can accommodate – “an insurance policy,” though she admits “it has backfired”.
Throwing a party can be nerve-jangling. The prospect of low turnout or off vibes is mortifying – as though a referendum has been held on your character, and found you sorely wanting.
Nonattendance may not even be personal: people get sick, have family or work emergencies, or are anxious themselves. But with the contemporary scourge of flaking, where people renege on social plans, can be hard to take.
“People who say they will be there and don’t come sucks so much,” says Jewel. “I’m anxious to call people up on it because I don’t want to push them away, but it hurts.”
Some hosts try to proactively prevent flaking. “Especially after age 30, you need to be intense about RSVPs,” says Marie. Others just seek to mitigate its impact. In the lead-up to her birthday party, Kate texted guests to say she was hyped to see them, and requested that last minute drop-outs not message on the day – “the most stressful thing you can do to a person having a party”.
Such are the perils of hosting. “I hosted a New Year’s party where, like, three people came,” says Helen. That was some 10 years ago: “I haven’t hosted a big party since.”
These days, flaking has become so normalised, it may be putting people off making plans entirely. “I’m such a flake myself that I’ve started to assume that everyone will do the same to me,” says Amy.
How do we get over anxiety so we can get together?
According to a 2023 YouGov survey of US adults, 84% “liked” or “loved” parties. But we’re not so keen on throwing them ourselves.
An earlier survey found that only 12% of respondents said they would “definitely” have a party for their next birthday, but 59% said they “probably” or “definitely” wouldn’t. A 2020 poll of British adults found that nearly half (44%) did not regard a milestone birthday as a chance to celebrate.
Birthdays are part of a broader trend, amounting to what the Atlantic called a “party deficit” in the US. Just 4.1% of Americans attended or hosted a social event on an average weekend or holiday in 2023 – a 35% fall since 2004.
This could reflect the so-called “social recession”: people are spending more time alone than ever before, and have fewer and looser ties. In 2022, 13% of US adults reported having 10 or more close friends, compared with 33% in 1990.
Filling the room isn’t the only hurdle to throwing parties. The reported decline in leisure time is depleting people’s energy and availability for socialising; and more older adults are renting or sharing accommodation, curtailing their ability to host. Household budgets might not allow for food, alcohol or other festive essentials.
But you can’t improve your social life and relationships without venturing out of your comfort zone. “The biggest risk there is, when it comes to social interaction, is not taking any risk at all,” says Marisa G Franco, a psychologist and author of Platonic: How Understanding Your Attachment Style Can Help You Make and Keep Friends.
Buying into all the reasons not to party only serves to stoke isolation. Plus, “that fear might not be warranted”, says Franco.
“Our predictions, when it comes to social interaction, are so often skewed towards the negative. That’s why I tell people: stop predicting and start experiencing.”
If you want to throw a party but are worried about people flaking, Franco suggests stacking the invite list with people you know to be reliable, or sharing the risk by co-hosting with a friend.
You might also speak in advance to your fickler friends, so they know their attendance matters to you. At the least, the conversation may bring you closer together and “help soften your expectations”, Franco suggests.
Often, people who don’t turn up to events doubt their absence will even be noted, she says. “We feel people don’t care about us, so we can’t acknowledge the harm that we cause.”
Serious, persistent social anxiety may justify extra support or treatment. But in many cases, a positive mindset can help to create a positive experience, says Franco. “Ask yourself: ‘What if it goes well? What if I find people I really connect with?’”
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Research shows that, by choosing to believe that people already like you, you actually become friendlier, warmer and more open – and perceived as more likeable.
By the same token, low expectations may make the worst-case scenario more likely. For example, making plans at the last minute – so as to save face in case of a low turn-out – may mean fewer friends are available.
One way to make guests feel welcome is a thoughtful, personalised invitation. “When we fear rejection, we tend to reject people,” says Franco. Conversely, “the closer you are to people, the more likely they are to show up.”
On the night, hosts can support anxious guests and ease the initial awkwardness by introducing some structure, such as a game, quiz or other focal point, or being a bit more assertive with introductions. Then, embrace “an attitude of surrender,” says Franco.
“People are adults, and they’re responsible for their own time at this party. If only three people show up, they’re just going to have to be cool with it.”
If this all feels foreign, or daunting, it’s not just you.
Since the Covid-19 pandemic, people have become accustomed to feeling isolated, with the result that “the pain feels less acute”, says Franco – a phenomenon known as “learned loneliness”. A 2022 survey found that 59% of US adults found it harder to form relationships since lockdown.
But social skills are like any other muscle, Franco says. “The less you use it, the more you adapt to not using it. It withers, and makes it harder to get back out there.”
That’s why it is important to take small social risks, build your confidence and test your assumptions, whether by going to a gathering you’re tempted to flake out on, or organising one yourself.
“You actually have to put in effort,” Franco points out. “You can’t do nothing and expect to have great friendships, or any kind of relationship.”
She suggests focusing on the longer-term benefits. “You don’t always want to go to the gym, but it’s worth it for your overall health, and you do it enjoy it after you’ve been. Sometimes social interaction is like that.”
Not only does it get easier; it may start a cycle of reciprocity. “That’s what makes people want to invest in a friendship with you – when they know that you’re going to show up,” says Franco.
More from Why am I like this:
The last party I threw was my housewarming last summer. In the lead-up, I agonised over who to invite, how to encourage a good time, and whether vodka jelly shots would be welcomed or ridiculed – and frequently rued having made the commitment.
Some invitees did flake. But many more didn’t, and some even travelled great distances to be there. The memories of seeing so many people I love together under the same roof – my roof! – have warmed my home through the winter.
It is always easier to do nothing than it is to do something. But if we’re going to reverse the social recession, we’re going to need hosts, guests and dates in the diary.
If you’re uncomfortable celebrating yourself, it might help to reframe a party as a community service, giving the people in your life a chance to gather – or at least a change from the same old Saturday night.
Equally, anxious guests can be reassured that just showing up is a gift.
Ivy had spent weeks fretting about her birthday – what to do, who to invite, whether they’d come. But it paid off as soon as she got to the restaurant: “I was like, ‘Oh, this is lovely. Why was I ever worried?’”
