Working on how to make parties suck less

One of my secrets to making parties suck less is to radically decrease the time guests take to find the Thing They Have in Common

I sat down at the table and felt pretty uncomfortable. I think a generalized social awkwardness is pretty common for plus ones at a wedding, even if—like me—you consider yourself to be fairly extroverted and good at chatting with people.

I never figured out why the party favor at this wedding was a hand towel that said “THE WEDDING TOWEL.” It kinda seems like a bit.

Sometimes we're in a room full of strangers and we're talking with someone and we think, "I'm bored," or "this conversations sucksss" and I think it's good to remember in those moments that it's not just the other person that's boring or sucking—you are, too. It takes two to verbally tango and these moments are actually helpful reminders that we haven’t dug deep enough to find the Thing We Have in Common with that other person.

I think pretty much any two people have a Thing in Common.

But even the most social of us can get stuck in Small Talk City, unable to find our way onto a highway of more engaging conversations, and looping between such classics as "the weather is too hot," or "the weather is too cold," or "the weather is neither too hot nor too cold."

I went on a date once and the guy opened with, "How’s your week been?" and I responded, "It’s been good so look, why are you still single?"

As fun as that was (and it didn’t not work), small talk is an essential social ingredient so that we can determine whether someone is fucking insane. It's helpful to establish a baseline with a "boy, traffic sure was crazy" or “pizza is yummy don’t you agree” before diving into a stranger’s thoughts about how "human consciousness is an illusion we'll never fully understand because we're constrained by that very illusion can you pass the chips?"

But the feeling of striking conversational gold when you stumble across—and it does often feel like stumbling—the Thing We Have in Common is electrifying. You know the feeling: you've just pulled a book off a shelf and the shelf spins around to reveal an entirely hidden area that you didn't know was there—but actually was there the whole time.

It's as if we discover that the NPC we've been talking to is another human player.

Or… perhaps it’s possible that their Thing They Had in Common was actually there the whole time?

For me at this table of other wedding guest strangers, that NPC-turned-human-player was Laura. At first we exchanged our obligatory so-how-do-you-know-Annies, and then she said something like, "...and I’m wrapping up my masters program in immersive theater."

EEEEEE!!!

And just like that, we were off to the races with a symphony of questions that included, but was not limited to:

• omg wait, what do you love most about events? ("Making genuine connections.")

• omg wait, have you ever been to Sleep No More? ("No, but I want to.")

• omg wait, can you save the date for my annual Halloween murder mystery dance party? ("What is a murder mystery dance party?")

Laura did end up coming to my annual Halloween murder mystery dance party, Dark Corners. A few weeks after, we met up for dinner so I could download what she liked and what she thought could be improved.

It was a dinner that I could subtly feel was changing the course of my life.

Her notes were both surprising and retroactively obvious. “Make it darker. It was too bright and bright is the enemy of sexiness.”

I pitched that she should co-host next year's Dark Corners and she broke the news that she was moving to London to pursue her PhD in immersive theater and while I'm sure education is important or whatever, it felt pretty selfish of her so I threw my wine in her face and left.

Kidding—we've been meeting every week for several months and are thrilled to be co-hosting Stolen: An Art Heist Auction, which will bring 35 guests together to solve a mystery as a group of impromptu detectives.

Did I forget to mention that it’s a masquerade? We love a masquerade.

What's great about Laura is that she and I agree on what makes a good party: getting to know new, incredible people. And we also agree on how awkward it can be to get that energetic momentum started—Laura and I could have just as easily not spoken at the wedding, or spoken but said the exact wrong combination of words to never realize our Thing We Had in Common.

It makes me wonder how many other parties I've been to where a potential rich friendship just went undiscovered.

With Stolen, Laura and I are completely rethinking what it should feel like when a mixture of friends and strangers gather in a room, and how we can infuse more intuitive party dynamics that organically incentivize guests to connect on a deeper level.

It’s not easy.

A “party guest” is a fickle animal. They desperately want to make connection but, if asked, they would say they don’t want icebreakers or games because it’s feels like it’s trying too hard or it’s giving corporate retreat. But. What I personally find, time and time again, is the more structure I embed in my events, the higher the quality of a guest’s experience.

Basically, party guests know what they want but not how to make it happen.

So people often just order a drink or six and just hope for the best. Sometimes that works and a lot of the time you drive home feeling like you just stood in the corner all night.

We can do better.

If Laura and I can pull off what we are envisioning, guests at Stolen will leave with multiple potential genuine connections. We’re putting a ton of thought into every detail, asking a lot of questions along the way:

• what should it feel like immediately upon entry?

• what “rules” should we tell people to follow as they enter?

• what “rules” should we text people in the days leading up to the event to get their head in the game, literally and metaphorically?

• how much structure is too much?

• how much is not enough?

• how do we make it feel safe to engage for both introverts and extroverts?

• what about typical parties actually works and why don’t we do more of that?

• what about typical parties suck and why don’t we edit that out?

• how can we empower guests to connect after the party ends without it feeling forced?

These questions (and a whole lot more) are very exciting to think about. It’s like solving a math proof except the chalkboard is the event venue and the theories will be the guests moving around and enjoying the party.

Or not.

Kidding—they’ll love it.

I'm so excited at what we’ve created so far that I'm already thinking about how to scale this up for the 100+ guests that attend Dark Corners each year.

More to come.