How to Party
First New York Times wrote about it, then Emily Sundberg wrote about it, and now I’m writing about it.
(Note: this turned out to be soooo much longer than expected. I thought about cutting it, but decided not to because I didn’t want to edit it. So enjoy all 4,700 words.)
Yesterday evening I went out to dinner with my cousin who I haven’t seen in a while. She’s 12 years older than me and growing up, everyone in our family always said how much we looked and acted alike. I never felt that much of a connection, probably given the age gap. She’s getting married in October, and I told her how much fun it was to talk about the wedding with her and my aunt because all the other brides I have known in the past didn’t seem as excited about it as she was. They were stressed about the planning.
She replied, “At the very beginning, our wedding planner asked [fiancé] and me, ‘What do you want to be the biggest takeaway from your wedding night?’ And I responded, ‘I just want people to party and have fun!’ But then [fiancé] responded, ‘I just want to get married’. And I felt bad, but we’ve been together for 15 years now so he knows what I meant.”
At this moment I saw all of the similarities – my cousin is also a full time party girl.
Last Friday the New York Times published an article in the Style section that immediately got a lot of traction titled, “How to Party (Without Regrets)”. I was eager to read, thinking that NYT was jumping on with the Charli XCX album release and riding the wave of “2024 is the year of the party girl” by interviewing socialites in NYC who attend great parties. Instead, I found myself reading an incredibly in depth dinner party guide aimed for anxious, old, white, rich people.
Reading some of the pieces of advice people left seemed incredibly obvious such as “Remember not to show up early” or “Show up 15 minutes late”. Such normal things spelled out as if they are revolutionary pieces of advice felt like a flashback to reading WikiHow and Teen Vogue articles my freshman year of high school the evening before I went to my first high school party with my senior field hockey teammates.
Since that first high school party, I have been to many more (some may argue that I was even attending, or hosting, parties in elementary school when I would invite friends over, head down to my basement, and we would play Kesha on a Jukebox while roller skating on the cement floor). There are many different types of parties, not just eating dinner, and I like to try my fate at all of them. Whether that’s clubbing, house parties, bars, tailgating, or that one time I went with a boy I had just met to a party in an abandoned sewer in NYC (way cleaner than you’re imagining).
I feel as though with this experience, I have the knowledge and aptitude to write my own “How to party” guide aimed towards people in their 20s who see “partying” as a verb synonymous with “having fun”. I have done copious (and dubious) amounts of thinking and research but before we get started I need to make one point exhaustingly clear –
My biggest complaint with the NYT article was that the interviewees seemed to make up so many rules for partying. They were giving black and white answers to extremely subjective topics, like whether you should bring candles as a gift for the host or if you should be able to wear shoes inside. Whenever I go out partying, I see that there are only two rules – 1) be nice and 2) have fun. Therefore as you’re reading through my “how to party” guide, I try to make my advice be just that – advice, not rules to live by. I often fluctuate between opinions as nothing in life is really set in stone.
The NYT article was split into eight different chapters: 1) getting ready 2) entering the space 3) how to converse 4) party etiquette 5) hot topics 6) houseguests 7) drinking, gummies, etc. and 8) when the party’s over. These are okay, except that I have problems with every single one of them.
To improve, I made my own chapters. These are tentative and need to be peer reviewed before they are completely MECE.
1) getting dressed 2) pregaming 3) making friends 4)at the party 5) BOYS 6) alcohol, drugs, etc. 7) after the party 8) morning after. Let’s discuss.
Chapter I: Getting Dressed
There was nothing in the NYT article about getting dressed. That was the first of many flaws.
One of the first posts I wrote on my blog, as a day old 20-year-old was “Going Clubbing For The First Time” in which I stated, “As any good day or night does – it started off with the clothes.”
There are many types of parties beyond dinner parties and every one of them calls for a slightly different outfit. For me, the fun begins when I figure out an outfit to fit the correct vibe of the party I’m going to that night.
This goes beyond just me being a self-proclaimed fashion girlie. For me, the fun of a night out is to have fun and meet new people, or get to know old people better. I feel as though dressing for the vibe of the party, while still keeping my personality, helps me to do that better. People are more likely to approach me to talk, and continue talking with me, if I am dressed in a way that is recognizable to them.
When I’m driving out to the lake to have a bonfire, drink beer, and sit on truck beds with my Oklahoma Boys I’m not going to wear the same thing as when I’m going to the bar with my NYC friends.
I’m not saying you have to ‘dress up’ like someone else just to fit in, I’m more trying to say that it seems like social media is always trying to push that people hold one “aesthetic”. You can either be a downtown girl or a granola girl or a clean girl or whatever else there is. These aesthetics make it seem like people cannot hold all of these people inside them at once, when containing multitudes is only natural.
Feeling confident in what you are wearing is integral to having a good time though. If you’re insecure in your clothes, that will be all you can think about and you won’t be able to maximize your fun. One night in Madrid my roommates all wanted to dress in the same aesthetic which meant they gave me a sheer corset where you could see my nipples. I was fine in the apartment but as soon as we left I got in my own head about my clothes and the way my hair was styled and I started having period cramps. I decided to go home. As soon as I got back and changed out of the clothes and took my hair down, I felt completely better. Dressing for the vibes of the party is fun, but it can also be damaging.
Access the vibes and location of the party, dress accordingly, and make sure you’re wearing something you feel comfortable and confident in or else you will not be able to have fun.
Chapter II: Pregaming
There is so much fun that happens before the “party” officially starts, NYT why must you rid us of this fun?
I love hosting pregames because I love strategizing with the homies about plans for the night and missions that we must accomplish and when I’m the host I feel as though I have the star power to gather everyone around my giant whiteboard and do just that. Like if our single friend is feeling too single and we need to find her a hot dance date, if there is someone who is going to be at the party that we must avoid, or just going over any dramatic life stories since the last time we saw each other before heading to a crowded and loud party.
Personally, I’ve had a couple occasions in which the pregame has turned into the actual party because we were having so much fun. Over the summer while living in New York, it was my roommate’s birthday one weekend and we had what she likes to call a “three day bender” since we were off school on Monday. Friday night we were planning to go out somewhere, but everyone was sitting around our kitchen table drinking and laughing and talking and we ended up spending the entire night in our apartment. It was just as fun, probably more fun, than going out to a bar.
There are two important things to note when it comes to a pregame.
The first is that there still has to be a curated vibe for the pregame, or else everyone might get tired and decide not to go out anymore. You can’t be lounging on the couch watching TV. There has to be a curated pregame playlist, enough drinks, and an absolutely enticing and outrageous story (can be real or made up) to tell when everyone arrives to get the night rolling. I never let my friend Blakely host pregames because she always keeps her apartment really dark, hands out blankets because it’s cold, and turns on some kind of Disney movie. Nobody wants to go out after that.
The second is understanding that pregames bring out the smaller friend groups within the bigger one, especially in the case of house parties when a lot of people know each other. When the pregame travels and arrives at the party, it’s easy to see that you all arrived together. Sometimes this can make people feel hurt or left out. It’s not your responsibility to invite someone you don’t know to your friend pregame, but one of the two rules to partying is to be nice.
Chapter III: Making friends
If I had a nickel every time I made a best friend dancing to “Good 4 U”, I would have two nickels. Which isn’t a lot but it’s crazy that it happened twice.
Personally I’m a big fan of making friends at clubs, bars, and house parties because making friends at parties is so much easier for me than in my normal day-to-day life. There is less talking required and it’s more about feeling out the vibes. I have fantastic vibes and poor conversation skills.
The secret to making friends at a party depends on the type of party you’re at. At a club, it’s about scouting the landscape and seeing who gives off similar vibes but also making sure your body language is inviting of those who might want to approach. At a house party it’s more about conversing, which takes a lot more GUTS and is far harder for me to do.
One piece of advice from the NYT article that was actually good came from Tefi Pessoa, a pop culture commentator and online content creator who said, “I decide that everyone in the room already likes me before I even enter said room.”
This is advice similar to what Jack Shit (my old therapist) told me once, in one of the rare instances in which he was intelligent. I always have had trouble conversing with people because I used to go into things in the mindset of, ‘they probably don’t want to talk to me’ without even realizing it. Before a night out to somewhere like a house party or a dinner party in which I will be speaking a lot to others, especially people I don’t know, I always have to hype myself up before officially knocking on the door. Keeping this sentiment that everyone already likes me in my brain helps to make me less tense and slightly better at conversing.
When in doubt, just keep asking people questions about themselves. Most people love to talk about themselves. The only downside is they might feel as though you are interrogating them. But honestly, wouldn’t that just make you more intriguing?
Chapter IV: At the Party
This is where my only two party rules come into play – be nice and have fun. The biggest thing to try and drill into your brain while at the party is that nobody is thinking about you as much as you think they are. As much as you might feel awkward and as if everyone is looking at you, it is generally the opposite. Most everyone else is just as worried that you are looking at them. Except for the people who aren’t thinking about either of these things and who are just bumping up and down to the music. We can all aspire to be more like them.
It’s easy to be overly concerned with your appearance during a party. Especially if you’re dancing and hyper aware of the sweat wiping the makeup off your face. Once again I say, people who party are far more chill than NYT makes them out to be. Nobody is really looking that closely at you. Blakely and Madelyn have started mocking me because whenever we go out to a party I don’t really put on makeup, except normal mascara, and always say “It will be so dark nobody will even be able to see me, or you, don’t worry.”
And generally this is true. It is dark and nobody can really see if you’re wearing eyeliner or not. At least in the poorly lit frat basements and Oklahoma clubs it is that way. But I’m still a freak for my skin, which anyone who had acne as bad as I did would agree on. My face is completely cleared up now, and has been since December, but I am still constantly in a state of worry. Whenever I go out, I bring a makeup wipe with me so that I can wipe my face off
We have to talk about bags to bring – personally I’m a big fan of my pink fanny pack, whether it is worn like a fanny pack or worn like a cross body bag. I believe that older, cooler girls are the backbone of our society and my first, and only, goal in life is to be that for someone else. But one of the coolest, older girls I have ever admired took me clubbing and wore a multi-colored Patagonia fanny pack while I stuck my phone and keys in my waistband and bra and I thought she was the coolest person ever and the next day I went thrift shopping with my friend and bought my pink one. I do not come by anything naturally, I am an amalgamation of all the girls I ever thought were cool.
In my fanny pack I generally pack my phone, keys, and a little silver digital camera that I bought in a Madrid thrift store that still had two pictures on it from the previous owners dated 2008. I don’t want to be one of those people who say “well, I did it first!” but when it comes to bringing digital cameras into parties, something that is really big right now, I did do it first! Which comes as no surprise to anyone that knows me, because I generally have a camera with me everywhere. During my phase where I was obsessed with Tyrell Hampton I would literally go out to parties just to take pictures. I love taking pictures of my friends or just random strangers who are drunk enough to let me. The most favorite picture I have taken at a party was in a club when one of my friends started doing the salsa with a random man –
This has been a lot about clubs, but there are many other types of parties. NYT talked about dinner parties profusely, so I’ll keep that category short. I generally eat something before dinner parties because I really hate being at the mercy of whatever the host decides to cook. NYT kind of made fun of people who have dietary restrictions and I, too, would love the freedom to eat whatever is placed in front of me but alas, I have no control over that. At house parties I’m generally leaving early (and obviously, saying goodbye to the host before I leave and thanking them for having me) unless there is someone there who is making superb conversation. I also was not a fan of the advice of “do things without being asked, take out the trash and do the dishes.” I understand the sentiment but if I was hosting a dinner party and someone started doing the dishes in the sink or tying up my trash can I would feel immense amounts of rage. I invite my friends over to have fun and relax, not to do my chores. As the host, you signed up for that. Sometimes my closest friends will stay late and help me clean up a bit, but even that is unnecessary when I am the host. But everyone is different.
House parties are like a mix between these two. There are some things you can incorporate into a house party from clubbing, but one must still acknowledge that they are in someone’s house. If the host is not wearing shoes, I am taking off my shoes. Whenever I go over to someone’s house, I go with the notion that I might need to take off my shoes. My biggest insecurity is my toes, so I always think of this before leaving. I’m also not as freely taking out my camera because I’m not sure I would like someone photographing my house without permission. If I’m at Blakely’s house though, I will photograph whatever I want and she doesn’t get a say.
Beyond house parties there are the tailgates and bonfires and NYC sewers and parking lots and all of those parties have their own set of common practices but since they are somewhat rarer than the usual bar, club, house party, it’s more about feeling things out as they go.
Here is one tip I can give you though – Oklahoma Boys sitting on their truck beds throwing beer cans into the fire they built don’t like it when you take the AUX and start playing KESHA. Just an FYI.
Chapter V: BOYS
In all types of parties, something always has to come along to ruin a good night. Generally, it’s boys.
Overall when it comes to boys you shouldn’t overthink it in either direction, and you shouldn’t let other people influence your decisions. If your first instinct is to reject someone, do that. If your first instinct is to have a DFM (dance floor makeout), do that.
Emily North wants to bring back DFMs and I agree. People aren’t as messy as they used to be because of social media and the fear that everyone one does might be recorded. I remember the absolute SHOCK I felt the first time I was clubbing with some older, cooler girls and I saw one of them making out with a guy who she didn’t know and I felt like such a little kid and I still think she’s the coolest person I have ever known.
Always protect your friends though when their decision making skills keep voiding due to alcohol. I went out with my friends Maeve and Nola once and Maeve got way too drunk and some 50-year-old man was trying to get with her and she kept dancing. Eventually this other guy we were with, Jesus (not to be confused with the holy trinity guy), started grinding back on the old man and pushing him away with his ass. King behavior.
Warning, if you go out clubbing with your guy friends, they will try to make a move! Once I told my friends that I was going to leave the club and our apartment neighbor said he would walk home with me. While we were on the street he tried to kiss me. Yuck. When I went out with another guy friend, Jaden, and his friends to a two step bar in Oklahoma one of our mutual friends kept hitting on me. I told the guy I was into fashion and he told me a long story about how he learned how to sew because he kept getting holes in his socks and needed to mend them. Yuck. When I got Jaden’s attention to give him the ‘help me!!’ look, he just laughed at me.
In short, partying should be for girls only.
Chapter VI: Alcohol, drugs, etc.
Admittedly I do not have that much knowledge on this subject. I had a brain injury that completely wrecked my ability to consume alcohol or drugs in a normal manner. When I was first getting to the age of partying and drinking I was constantly anxious because I couldn’t drink. I always wished someone in a position like mine would talk about it. Online it seemed like everyone who didn’t drink or do drugs thought they were way better than the ones who did. I have never felt this way, I have always been (lowkey) jealous.
The short answer if you cannot, or do not want to, drink is to just keep going out until it becomes comfortable. I was so insecure about it but nobody I was with ever made any comments about it except this one boy in my study abroad program, but I already hated him anyway so it didn’t matter.
I used to order water and ice with a lime on the top so that it looked like I was drinking a vodka soda. Or a Coke in a shoot so it looked like there was rum in it. Now I don’t really care. I’ll milk an alcoholic beverage all night long, five hours or more. I save so much money. Sometimes I order a drink and take an hour to drink ⅓ of it, then hand it over to Jaden to drink the rest and he finishes it in a couple minutes.
My drug of choice for long nights out is caffeine. I never drink caffeine in my day to day life (yes, I am perpetually exhausted) so when I do consume it, it works wonders. I get so much energy from just one drink. I fear what would happen to me if I ever did cocaine.
As for house parties, I used to have a roommate who had a friend who would just come over to our house and smoke weed in our living room. It smelled so gross, and our balcony doors were literally in the same room. We would have to air out the living room for days later. I’m pretty sure there were multiple times that I did my international trade homework while hotboxed.
I’m going to Winnipeg in July and have been told that the weed there is the best. Thinking about trying it for the first time. Worried because I know nothing about the Canadian healthcare system. Will keep you updated.
Chapter VII: After the party
Similar to how some of the best vibes are before the party, more of the good vibes happen after. I had the best pizza in my life in Barcelona at 5 a.m. after going to a four-story club – and I don’t even like pizza.
If I’m in a walkable city, I love walking home by myself (when it’s safe) and how quiet the streets are. When I lived in Madrid I would always run home from the club. By the time I woke up for the day, I already had my workout done! I swore that this helped with hangovers, because any alcohol that isn’t processed in your liquor has to be sweated out.
When I can’t walk or run home, I love being chauffeured. I’m a bougie girl! In college when we would have bonfires at the lake 45 minutes away from campus, one of my Oklahoma Boy friends with big trucks would always drive me home because they drink beer so often they have the highest stamina I have ever seen. It’s so peaceful to be sitting in this huge, raised truck with music playing in the background. The same thing happened whenever we went to bars or clubs downtown.
I go back and forth between wanting to chat with people after to discuss the night and just wanting to peacefully return to my house. Both have extremely good vibes, it just depends on the mood of the night.
Chapter VIII: Morning after
Even though I don’t drink that much, I still get hangovers the next day. They’re generally from the loud music and flashing lights making my brain fatigued rather than the alcohol, but either way the symptoms are the same. Headache, sensitivity to light and noise, slight dizziness, and maybe some nausea. When I was first talking to a doctor about my head symptoms and he asked me what it felt like I responded, “It just feels like I’m hungover 24/7”.
Hangovers are part of the partying though. When you go out to a club or rambunctious party, you must allot time the next morning to lay in bed, slowly walk to get breakfast, and stare at the wall for a couple hours before joining the land of the living.
If my friends sleep over in my living room, we’re making waffles and talking over the night in extreme detail while laying on the floor. If they didn’t, then we’re either facetiming or meeting up at our favorite pancake restaurant.
In Madrid I lived on Calle de Cervantes which generally has tours all hours of the day on Saturday and Sunday. I always thought it was so fun to put on a sweatsuit and walk out my apartment looking extremely hungover to grab a muffin from the local bakery while the tour group stared at me.
I am definitely not ‘clean girl aesthetic’ and never have been, so my advice is to indulge in the hangover lifestyle. Let people know that you had a good night last night.
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The last point I would like to make is that I feel as though lots of people I see on Substack live in NYC or San Fran or LA and sometimes it seems like these are the only good cities for partying. But that is so far from the truth! I will admit parties in all three of these cities are superb, but there are so many different kinds of parties happening everywhere. Like the two step bar or the lake bonfires or that time we got the cops called on us for partying too loud in the Walmart parking lot.
Now stop reading about partying and go do it!
Yours truly,
Calihan
This was hilariously comprehensive and I loved it
love love love :)