Mid-century Americans knew how to throw a party, for better or worse. In some of the most famous titles of the 1950s and 1960s—Couples, by John Updike; Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, by Edward Albee; Revolutionary Road, by Richard Yates—the drama (and martini-soaked melodrama) took place in middle-class living rooms. The stories were fictional, but the setting was realistic. Until 1975, half of Americans said they entertained guests at their home every month.
Then something changed. Americans stopped throwing parties. Even more fundamental, they stopped visiting one another. From 1975 to 1998, the share of Americans who gave or attended a monthly dinner party declined by half. The share of Americans saying they never entertained people at home tripled. Although cultural critics often bemoan the decline of organized religion, the dip in church attendance was downright modest compared with the collapse in hosting, according to data gathered by the DDB Needham Life Style Surveys.
In his 2000 book, Bowling Alone, Robert Putnam wrote that if these trends continued, the ancient practice of visiting with friends “might entirely disappear from American life in less than a generation.” Check your calendars. One generation and change later, Putnam’s prediction needs an update.
If I announced that I’d be hosting a party to the dozen or so friends I have here in town, only two or three would actually show up. And that’s not because my friends avoid me or something, it’s just impossible to hold anyone to any plans these days. For whatever various reasons they have going on in their lives. Busy, burned out, forgetful, who knows. But it’s not just that we aren’t planning in-home events as much, people also aren’t showing up to events.
So many of my friends have become infuriatingly flaky, and I can at least be sure that it’s not just with me because the other ones that can still make plans for something have independently mentioned it themselves. Even getting some of them together for some online games in the evening is a pain in the neck. Most often I just try to find things I’d like to do regardless of who shows up and say “I’m doing this thing at this time, if anyone wants to come too then give me a shout”
I set up a fun weekend a couple weeks back with one person visiting the house. She bailed a couple of days early for all sorts of reasons. People aren’t just flaky, they’re getting aggressive about how it’s unreasonable to make plans.
Until 1975, half of Americans said they entertained guests at their home every month.
1975 was roughly the time that America’s age of prosperity was winding down, in which wages vs. cost of living was high, and social safety nets were still in place, etc. So it makes sense to me that it would begin to equate in a decline in hosted dinner parties. Plus, there’s always restaurants & bars to take their place, more or less.
With regards to your last sentence:
“Perhaps, an optimist might think, Americans are hosting fewer dinner parties because they’ve simply moved all of their hangouts to restaurants and bars. Nice idea, but almost certainly wrong. As Putnam wrote in his book, “the practice of entertaining friends has not simply moved outside the home, but seems to be vanishing entirely.” Overall face-to-face socializing has declined significantly in the past few decades, and the restaurant industry has actually noted a sharp increase in people eating alone.”
Well, it wasn’t out of optimism. Things in the States have been going downhill sharply since around the time of Nixon, so I’d certainly be happier if we were back in the dinner-entertaining era. But I think we could say that less group time is more or less an expected outcome of moving out of the prosperity era. Less free time, less money and all that.
Some statistics supporting that mystery quote might be interesting…
I’m not fitting guests into my apartment.
