#206: Hosting parties, having babies, being “original”

Good morning!

Welcome back to Dear Baby. Today I’ll be answering three reader questions on friendship, babies, and writing. The first is about learning to be more social (and throw parties) as an adult who doesn’t have tons of friends; the second is about knowing when you’re ready to have kids (this answer includes a lightly cringe entry I discovered from my journal titled “AFFIRMATIONS,” which includes all the reasons I decided I was ready, lol); and the third is about whether “originality” is a worthy preoccupation as a writer or artist, and how I navigate the fear of saying what’s already been said. Thank you for tip-top questions as always! You can submit more here or call 802-404-BABY.

Also, thank you so much for all your incredible children’s book recommendations in the comments last Friday. I don’t think I’ve ever had a Rec of the Week spark so much input! Blown away.

1. On throwing parties

“Dear Baby, I’ve been thinking about this a lot since you last shared that article from The Atlantic about Americans needing to party more. Excluding family holidays and similar, I think I’ve been to three parties in my entire life (F29), all like 10 years ago. I had a really difficult time socially in college which is when that culture sort of...appears out of thin air? And now I live in a small town where I don't have any friends my age. I've been lucky to have developed friendly acquaintances around town who are funny and kind, but they are all middle aged and parents (no shade, they just have different priorities…or do they?). I'm an introvert and fine with that, but I feel like if I told someone like my boyfriend I wanted to change things up—proclaimed ‘I WILL HOST PARTIES NOW’—he would tell me I'm trying to be a different person than I am. I don't feel the need to be a different person; I just long for the connection that parties are evidence of (at least the parties I’m interested in). But being a person who hosts parties feels like a catch-22: I have to have people to invite to them. This is related to so many other things you've talked or written about like friendship, loneliness, ‘am I doomed?’, etc. And I guess I am asking another version of ‘am I doomed?’”

Two things I’ve learned about friendship over the last decade of writing about the topic is that there are people looking for friendship at every age and season of life, and there are always more of them than you realize. I say season because friendship isn’t always linear—a rich, fulfilling social life during high school, college, or any era of your life doesn’t guarantee the same later on when you’ve changed priorities, moved to a different city, broken up with someone, had a baby, or gone through any number of common shifts in adulthood. I’m sure you know this on some level, and I respect that your question is distinct from a “everyone is hanging out without me” social spiral, but I wanted to first establish that your longing for connection is ordinary (in a good way) and above all, not doomed.

You refer to yourself as an introvert and you seem to assume this means your desire to throw or attend parties is somehow false. When you imagined your boyfriend’s judgement, I was reminded of the Jungian theory that everyone in our dreams is just a version of ourselves: Do you really think he would respond that way, or is he just a stand in for your own inner critic? Either way, I think this is a limiting way to see yourself. I’ve spoken before about my wariness of introversion as a social litmus test; I think it’s become an over-generalized term that tries to capture too many different social phenomena, like social anxiety, neuroticism, or even depression, which shouldn’t really be regarded as inherent, immutable traits. You may not agree—I trust you understand your own nature—but I don’t want a label to hold you back from doing something you are explicitly saying you want to do. Labels are only as useful as they are liberating. And anyway, introverts can throw lovely parties. Anyone can!

You say you’re more interested in the connection parties facilitate than the parties themselves. I wonder if you’re also intrigued by the qualities required of hosts: confidence, joviality, risk tolerance. It takes a lot of self-possession to put yourself in charge of other people’s time for a while; maybe your longing to party is also a longing for the sense that you’re worth other people’s time. I’m sure you’re self-possessed in many ways already—it likely took some confidence for you to make peace with being an introvert and learn to thrive in a culture that venerates the opposite—but it can also be a trap to settle into your comfort zone. I think about this every time I go to something in New York that turns out to be annoying or over-stimulating. It’s almost always worth the trouble to disrupt my patterns a little, if only so I can return to my status quo with a new appreciation for it.

You made a good point in your question: if you want to host or attend more parties, you need to make more connections first. I keep thinking about risk tolerance with you—you may need to cultivate it as a less outgoing person (if you see yourself that way, although I don’t think all introverts do). Plainly speaking, if you’re not getting the invites you want, you have to become the inviter. Inviting someone to hang out in early friendship is always going to feel a little awkward and risky, even to more obviously social people. This is where fakery is very useful: Confidence performed in these situations is enough, and can be weirdly self-fulfilling.

I’d recommend more active hangouts to avoid some inevitable friction: going to the farmer’s market, a show, a painting class, a hike. And as you become closer, instead of falling into the trap of always getting dinner (still great), I recommend activities that make you feel like a team: running errands, helping with a project, trying something new, etc. I love my friend Gyan’s advice to always help your friends move, or do other unpleasant things, because difficult experiences are more bonding than easy ones (think of how you made friends as a kid). It may seem easier to just get coffee, a drink, or a meal, but in repetition those things lack texture. You only see one side of a person.

When it comes to inviting two or more people to hang out who aren’t already close, I find it often goes better than expected, even if it’s not ultimately something you want to repeat with the same people. A group puts less pressure on every pair of people to have good chemistry—as long as everyone has enough in common, there will be plenty to talk about. I also recommend throwing people together in a group chat if a hangout goes well (if you’re a group chat sort of person). It can help establish an easy rapport that might otherwise require tons of quality time you don’t all have.

Facilitating this stuff can take guts, but you may be surprised by how many people are grateful you took up the mantle. I never forgot when a friend of mine thanked me years ago for always facilitating group hangouts, because making plans made her anxious. I appreciated her gratitude, but I also remember wishing I could say: Of course, but please share the burden sometimes! I knew she’d be completely fine planning stuff, she just needed to get over the initiation hump.

One thing to remember is that making new friends and bringing people together won’t always work out as you want it to. There will be friendships that fizzle (wanted, unwanted) and groups that don’t really work, and none of that means you suck at this or aren’t meant for it. If you believe some people are “your type” then it follows that others aren’t, it just requires some experimentation to figure out who’s who. When you get to the point of feeling ready to throw a party—a dinner party, a game night, a movie night, a dance party, whatever you’re feeling up for—remember that you’re doing people a favor. You’re giving them an opportunity to meet new people and disrupt their patterns. Whether they come or they don’t, have fun or not, you’ve invited them into your world, and that’s a lovely thing to do.

2. On knowing when you’re ready for kids

“Hi Haley! My partner and I have been together for three years and last week he told me he wants to have a baby by 35. For context, I am 29, he is 33. We have a beautiful, loving, and supportive relationship and both know we want to spend the rest of our lives together. I’ve always known I wanted to be a mother, and ever since I met him, I’ve known I wanted to have kids with him. So why am I in such shock? When he broached the conversation, he was quick to assure me that timing was ultimately my decision but that he wanted to let me know that he felt ready. Am I ready? How do you know? How did you know? Also curious to know what raising Sunny in different states from your parents has been like. Do you feel far from your mom? I’ve lived in a different country from my parents for the majority of the last 10 years, and I don’t want to uproot just to be closer to them—OUR WHOLE LIVES ARE HERE—but I find myself thinking about the distance more than ever since my partner said ‘I am ready.’”