Other people's parties

Totally agree with MawBroon, no idea so many others felt the same way. Never invited to any parties nowadays so no longer a problem but even smallish gatherings have the same effect on me.

I'm with MawBroon on this. Agree with you entirely.

I've just joined Gransnet, my first is due at the end of the year, so forgive me if I haven't yet mastered the abbreviations. I have joined a group to chat and learn and my first chat is about my anti social ways!

I really empathise, I never liked big gatherings and used to grit my teeth and join in, but now I don't, I haven't got the courage to be honest, and wouldn't want to hurt anyone's feelings but I do make excuses. I have lots of friends and meeting for a cuppa or lunch is nice but I feel self conscious and awkward at parties. And this time of year is the worst with xmas on its way. Being single doesn't help, lovely, well meaning friends and family issue invitations and how do I say no thanks. I have a couple of neighbors who are the same and xmas evening we get together and have a good laugh about it, having pretended we already have plans, and how we worry about getting found out.

Well, I think I've just discovered I'm the only one, Musicelf. The only one here that enjoys a party, that is!

Don't any of you enjoy dressing up, catching up with people you haven't seen for ages, and most important of all, dancing??

But for goodness' sake, if you don't want to go, be honest about it. Nobody would care if you'd just say it's not your sort of thing. One of my family is an introvert and hates parties, so we know she won't come to any. It's no big deal, is it?

I am just plain bored at parties. I just make an excuse and the invites eventually stop.

The poem by Wendy Cope just about sums up parties for me - they are agony!

'I don't go to parties. Well, what are they for,
If you don't need to find a new lover?
You drink and you listen and drink a bit more
And you take the next day to recover.'

I find it really hard to hear what anyone is saying above the din,, and generally have a headache when I get home. We avoid parties these days- I prefer a glass of wine and catching up on recorded programmes - what a bore. Come to think of it I believe the title of the poem is something about being boring - that's me.

Yes, I feel exactly like you do....to the point when I have lost one acquaintance...but I'm not bothered too much...as she is a "keep up with the Jones's type of person". She had a dinner party 2 christmases ago which my husband and I were forced to go to with other friends of mine....it was the most boring boring evening we ever had to sit through, while she and her husband sat and talked about themselves. Their youngest daughter then proceeded to tell us all about her wedding arrangements, encouraged on by her parents....the crux of it was she didn't even have a boyfriend at the time!!!! Haven't seen them since, even though they live across the road!! Like you I am happy with my family parties, but uncomfortable at any others.

Oh, isn't it good when you discover you're not the only one! I hate gatherings and have spent far too long in the past making up reasons why I can't attend. Now it's more a case of "I'd love to, but I don't want to."

I think we should all get together for a coffee and a chat......!

I stopped going out with friends for nights out years ago. Nothing to entice me. I dont dance, can't stand the kind of music played, not looking for a man and don't drink, so it seems pointless to put myself through the angst of it all, plus the cost!

I totally understand how you feel. I have spent my life attending parties talking small talk to people . I am really good at it but it gets tiresome. Sometimes you really click with someone and think a new friend but it very rarely happens. My career was in marketing so spent a lot of time working a room of strangers. So not shy at all but now I prefer to be with friendly intelligent people where you can talk about anything. Even stuff unPC.

I find a social gathering is like a day's work and always have! I've always had to grit my teeth behind my forced smile

It's all such hard work isn't it? Having to smile and look happy and cheerful and making small talk with people you don't know and may never meet again. Face aches from smiling, feet ache from smart shoes and back aches from standing too long. Must be an age thing.

Love my family get togethers either at home or eating out and we have one such at the weekend when our eldest DGD hits sweet 16. Can't wait!

I feel anxious when I go to parties, I often just want to go home. I often regret going and rarely enjoy it, people say, go you will feel better when you get there. This is rarely true for me. Reading these posts I can see quite a few people feel the same. When I am at a social gathering I always think everyone else is having fun and it's just me feeling the way I do. Might make me think differently next time.

I am a very social person, I am ok with lunches or dinners, coffees but parties no. I just want to go and do the washing up and I don't like washing up! I don't like small talk, I can't say I get nervous just waiting to make a polite exit. I would prefer to sit and talk with with a group of people and have a proper conversation.

I'm afraid I'm another who can't do parties - I've always been the same, although no-one would describe me as being in any way antisocial. I generally struggle to make conversation these days and can't wait to get away from large gatherings. Even extended family parties are a trial to me. DS and DiL throw very good parties but they have lots of friends and DiLs family are good at organising big bashes. We are generally included in their family celebrations, but I am never particularly comfortable with it, even though they are adept at making everyone feel included. We used to have a group of about a dozen friends and used to have rounds of dinner parties which we would enjoy going to, and hosting in our turn. They were great fun and went on into the wee small hours sometimes. Sadly, time has taken its toll on numbers and the remaining diners don't get together very often now.

If you are hard of hearing, or simply can't do small talk,
Then just listen, start off with a question, and most people will be very happy to talk about themselves, in fact, they will light up with joy.

I think hearing, or lack of it, plays a big part, it certainly does with me.Am used to smiling and nodding at large gatherings, without hearing much of what is said.?
Am happy enough to go, but after a short while these things become tedious and I want to go home, or at the very least, find a quiet place to sit. I often get stuck with a real bore who is overjoyed that somebody seems happy to hear all about his hobbies or trip to Outer Mongolia.
Have had to attend many of these kind of parties over the years, and DH enjoys them, all I can say if you have to go to one is have a glass of wine or three the moment you get there.?

downtoearth, now that's another story! Always easier to mingle when you've had a few. Can't hack the hangovers nowadays though!

Both sons married women with huge party oriented families. They invited us from the beginning and still do. I've tried, believe me I've tried but I just feel oh so uncomfortable. Mr C struggles with his hearing and finds any big group a trial. So now we opt out, often offer to babysit so others can go, there seems no reason to put ourselves through something I know will be unenjoyable and awkward. We get on well with them all in small groups and individually, I suspect some think we're odd but we have never been party people, unlikely to start now.

Glad we are not alone. Even DGD's first and second birthday parties were a trial, in the garden, her Dad's huge family in one huddle, us three on the other. Never again! The best ones we went to, only a few, were when we ended up in the kitchen chatting to whoever came through. "You'll Always Find Me in the Kitchen at Parties" certainly rings true!

Even when I was young free and carefree I hated "house parties"' going to someone's house, dancing in the living room, fighting your way to a Buffett in the dinning room, what's that song "always in the kitchen at parties". As for family ones, when the children were small, they would be off playing, the men in one room having fun, and the women in the kitchen ! Now I'm older, we opt for family meals in a restaurant, being a large family we have been known to take over the whole place.! I know it's expensive, but a general invite goes out, normally by my SIL, numbers booked, dB pays, then splits the bill by families and we settle with him a week or two later. No work, no hassles three or four times a year. I just declined other invites, why go to something you hate, life's to short. That said, I often do a Sunday tea, just very close family, brothers, SILs, now most children have left home I don't feel I have to invite them,

You're definitely not alone feeling the way you do.

I dont enjoy large gatherings and we rarely socialise in this way but I enjoy seeing friends individually and chatting .I prefer to observe rather than take part...until someone gives me a glass of wine or two....then its like jekyll and hyde....

Calypso I totally understand I am a very sociable person but I find parties a real trial always have been very very self conscious and feel awkward I want to be invisible but then I feel left out
Mawboon your sentence " I ve ducked out more than once and then wonder why I don't have a life' really resonates
Even some family parties make me really uncomfortable my son had a big one two years back I didn't know a soul as I don't see my family very often ( overseas) so had nothing really to connect with, nothing in common, they were all way out of my league moneywise .... I couldn't expect to hang around my son's family so tried small talk with the few people who approached me but was so much happier when all but a few people went home and we had coffee around the kitchen table I think my sons family thought I was ill or anti social which I m not at all I can spring up conversations easily on trains and buses and planes and am a good communicator but somehow parties totally intimidate me and I really do struggle .......but then I rarely get asked now and that conversely feels just as bad

I agree with much of what's been said so far and I feel we are of an age to say 'thanks, but no thanks' to invitations we don't want to accept without causing offence.

In fact, I don't know many people our age who throw 'parties' any more.