Gather your people anyway
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It feels like we’re in this interesting moment regarding gathering our people. We know we need to do it—for our own mental health, but also for the civic life of our strained nation, but we seem confused about exactly how. Why this widespread confusion? Maybe it’s that the long tail of the ways the pandemic has changed our understanding of connection, closeness, risk, disease/dis-ease, and our own energy and appetite for socializing. Maybe it’s that economic precarity makes us ever busier and more worried about our inability to keep up with the proverbial Joneses. Maybe it’s that our screens are making us dumb about real life connection?
Whatever the cause, I am following the public conversations about how to get our gathering and hosting sea legs under us again with great interest.
On the one hand there’s the highly intentional model, probably best embodied in my mind by people like Priya Parker, author of The Art of Gathering, and Casper ter Kuile, author of The Power of Ritual, where one pays exquisite attention to the details of hosting, not to perform like some modern Martha Stewart, but rather to be deeply intentional about the space that is created and the way people feel within it. In this kind of gathering, you are like one part chaplain, one part resident artist of your own little community—finding just the right question for just the right moment, “curating” the guest list, making the space beautiful and welcoming.
I’m a nerd for this kind of gathering, as anyone in my circle of friends and family knows. In many ways, I think these kinds of gathering have become substitute spiritual communities for many of us who are less attracted to formal religious community. There’s a depth to it, but also, of course, it can be a little self-serious. At it’s best, it’s a sacred container people have been craving in their daily lives. At it’s less awesome, it can become daunting, forced, awkward, even a little fussy and righteous.
Which is perhaps where this emerging model of “deep casual hosting” feels like it’s coming from. Katherine Goldstein, who coined the term, writes:
In this method of hosting, you are going casual on the surface, so you can go deeper with your connections and relationships by regularly gathering in a more relaxed setting. Think of this as “having someone over for supper.” It is the opposite of elaborate, memorable dinner parties, the supposed hot trend of 2024/25. In a society that demands SO much from us, we can only pull off regular hosting if we set realistic standards. I want your dinner (brunch, lunch, campfire weenie roast, etc.) gathering to feel totally doable for you, and not require much (or any) more than you’d do for yourself or your family WITHOUT guests.
In Katherine’s model, which is very much a throw-back in many ways, you’re just making twice as much food and inviting the neighbor family over to eat around the same table you would have eaten around otherwise, and maybe even watch the same TV show after dinner that you would have watched. You are letting them do some dishes if they offer. You aren’t watercoloring place cards or getting out the good dishes. You may not even be cleaning up all that much (she advocates for “Minimum Viable Cleanliness”).
Apparently people are hungry for this kind of permission, as Katherine’s post on the idea went viral. The comments section is filled with people relieved to have a label for something they’ve been longing to do:
My brother does this all the time and I always think “How does he find the (emotional) energy? It’s because he does this and I set my own bar something akin to dinner at Downton Abbey.
VIOLENTLY in favor of every single thing on this list. Not to sound like the cranky elder millennial I am, but social media has tooooootally shifted our expectations when it comes to hosting: everyone thinks they need a cute theme, corresponding decor, matching dinnerware, a perfect playlist, and a spotless kitchen with bare-ass countertops.
This is pretty much EXACTLY how my Italian grandmother did things. She was effectively the matriarch of a huge network of extended family and friends and she was hosting little get-togethers just like this sometimes 3-4 days/week. It was all extremely casual with people randomly coming and going as time allowed with no real formal invitations. She kept food extremely simple by having easy to set out things like cookies, crackers, cheeses, sausage, etc. If the group got large enough she might bake some frozen appetizer, or cook some meatballs.
So maybe part of this is knowing when to channel your inner chaplain and when to channel your inner nonna? (And please please, please, never channel your inner comparisons to others’ highly staged and cherry-picked outside, ala social media.)
This is where the seemingly surface-level questions around hosting, etiquette, and expectations reveals itself to be rooted in much deeper soil for all of us. Sure, we don’t want to be embarrassed about our dusty shelves or our mediocre food. But more than that, we really want to be known—deeply known and accepted for who we are, dishes in the sink and all. We want to belong to a group of people—whether that’s a crew of friends, neighbors, or families. We want people to share our ups and downs with—the lay-offs and the diagnoses and the mean girls, the creative projects finally finished and the new loves and the old loves re-imagined. And we wisely know, deep in our bones, that depending on all of those things from our immediate family, from our marriages especially (if we have them), is going to lead to a hotbox of heartache (see Esther Perel’s work).
The biggest impediments to being known and belonging—our core social emotional needs—are inside of us (trust, worthiness, imagination), but so many impediments are also outside of us. We are too busy—juggling color-coded Google calendars packed with work meetings, after-school activities, school holidays, exercise classes, therapy appointments and so much more. This is part of why creating a ritual of gathering—whether of the deep casual variety or something more elaborate—is so key.
Many of us live in homes that aren’t built with gathering in mind (and don’t have access to “third spaces”). I have felt this last one acutely since moving into a traditional home and out of my cohousing community, where I could easily host women’s groups, organizing meetings, film screenings, without inconveniencing or crowding my family.
Many of us are also struggling to afford the rising cost of living where we live, especially when it comes to food, so shopping for more people at the grocery store feels beyond our means even if we are trying to keep it casual.
The structural—the design of our homes and communities and the cost of living—and cultural—the ever rising bar on hosting thanks to social media and the never-ending busyness—barriers are real. Naming them feels like it takes some of the shame out of our struggle to just holler, “Come on over!” to people we love.
But we can’t let these cultural barriers stop us either. We need each other right now. We need to be spurred into action on Gaza and ICE and so much more. We need to make one another laugh so hard we pee a little. We need one another to remind us to pick up our kids from summer camp. We need one another to bring soup after the surgery and champagne after the promotion. We need one another to say, “Hey, I think you need a night alone, away from your kids and partner, so you can think straight.” We need one another to go to the funeral with us. We need one another to drop books and mint off on our porches, to invite our kids over to the meet the foster kittens, to take hikes in the woods near our house and open up about how hard it is to be a person—any kind of person—right now in this time and place. We need each other for perspective and podcast recommendations and political solidarity.
Which is all to say, let’s acknowledge all that keeps us from reaching out right now, and do it anyway. Whether you throw one elaborately planned dinner party this year or 52 super causal potlucks, don’t let the structural forces prevent you from opening the door to your beautiful people and saying, “Hi, welcome, welcome. Come on in.”
What kind of host are you these days? What kind of guest? Any recommendations for the rest of us?
*I have a Slate How To! episode coming out soon with Katherine Goldstein so stay tuned for that!
The only gathering I expect to need a theme for is a child's birthday party. Perhaps this is because I have never been on social media nor read books or magazines about hosting.
But I understand what you mean about homes not necessarily being built for gathering people for a large indoor gathering! My home of 38 years has a small kitchen eating area for a maximum of five people. There is a room built as a dining room, but that has been my study/project area/Mama central for 38 years.
So if I have people here, it has to be in the living room, which fortunately has nothing in the middle, so I can put a folding table or two there. Unfortunately we are getting old for moving tables and chairs around and doing the clean-up afterwards, and the 90 pound dog in his senior years has entirely forgotten his canine good citizen training.
The rest of it it I don't find difficult. My plates and silverware and platters don't match, and none coordinate with the tablecloth. I have always been a funky individual, and no one who comes expects any fussiness.
I think people can tell they are loved, and I figure out cooking that will allow me to meet everyone's dietary requirements- the vegans, the low carb, the no fish, the eating-challenged child.
I think everyone feels loved and like that rather than the decorative arrangements or anything thematic takes central position.
I was lucky for a few summers to be part of a weekly community ritual where we gathered around a fire and shared stories and wish I could find such a thing again in the city I'm in now. The hosts called it Eat, Drink, Burn and everyone brought a contribution of food, drink, or wood so the hosts weren't on the hook for anything except the space and dishes. No themes, decor, or cleaning mecessary, except for the clean up afterward that people always helped with. No coordination on food yet it always worked out. They were working class (if/how people host is based often based on class) and their rented trailer home was tiny, but their yard was big enough for 20-30 people. The fire was the ever present circle keeper - every new person had to offer a story to the fire. And no one had a phone in their hand!