'burbs parties, Camberville parties, and c.

[quietann]

So this was a busy weekend, but everything tonight except for one party was private invite, and it seems that we've fallen off all but one of the Camberville crowd's private invite lists. So we went to the public one (which was conveniently located halfway between an afternoon party and our house). And it was small, and really nice, and a mix of people I know reasonably well and people I had never met before (including the hosts, who were involved in MIT theatre when deguspice was). The high point for me was the presence of a 10 week old black kitten, who was just too cute for words. I am rarely around kittens, and all but one of the cats I've adopted since junior high school have been adults. (The exception was about 4-5 months old, so past the "cute" kitten stage...)

I also had a nice discussion with a susboid about weightloss and exercise. It was a very sane discussion, and her approaches could match mine well given that we have a lot of the same attitudes and experiences about diets and all (e.g. that we both *gain* weight when we try to diet....) I will put most of that in another post.

so... here is the "take ann with a grain of salt because she's PMS-y" reflections... The party we went to was in Stow, which is out in the suburbs. There was *no one* from Cambridge or Somerville there except for a non-susboid couple from Cambridge co-housing near Porter Square. There's a well-known phenomenon of Cambervillians thinking that those parts of the world not within walking distance of the upper end of the Red Line don't exist (or at the very least can be ignored). Those of us out in the suburbs try to make it as easy as possible for people who live closer to Boston to attend our social events, but rarely get taken up on it. It can be frustrating; for the car enabled, it takes 25 minutes to get to our house in Andover at non-rush hours.

Now we don't think, "oh, Somerville, gosh, that's soooooo far away." Maybe we're just used to driving longer distances, but it's no big deal for us to come into town for OPN or a party or whatever. But the reverse is not true as far as I can tell. (A friend who used to live in the DC area has noted that DC-area 'boids were quite willing to drive up to an hour to get to a party, and people were more organized about ride-sharing and so forth.)

It's frustrating, but OTOH even if we are not invited to party with the "cool kids", the suburban parties have been really nice recently. For one thing, they are smaller and less crowded. One can have interesting discussions with small groups of people without having to shout. There's usually plenty to eat and drink, and what there is tends not to be overrun by chips and other "cheap and quick" snacks. There's less psychodrama, less poly drama, less people trying to one-up and impress one another, and just a much more relaxed atmosphere. Yes, there are likely to be more kids, but there is also more space and the kids are less likely to be underfoot.

Someone recently commented about how people scheduling open parties should try not to overlap (especially at the last minute, e.g. in 1997 when Rancho Apocalypse decided to hold an open party about 2 days beforehand, thereby completely decimating the guest list for a party in a more remote location that had been announced weeks earlier...) In general I agree, but I'm starting to prefer the smaller suburban parties (or maybe also the parties that are smaller because they overlap with private parties held by really popular folks) to the mob scenes in Camberville. So maybe overlapping parties aren't such a bad thing, and maybe stretching, if not cutting, my susboid umbilical cord to Camberville will ultimately be a good thing.

Comments

[lyonesse.livejournal.com]

i dunno. i live in the very center of the camberville universe, but the one social event i went to this weekend was in westford, and the previous party i attended was in north reading. (one very small private event; the other an open-invite party; both very enjoyable for me....) i will be at an (open-invite) somerville party next weekend, but then i'm part of the featured entertainment :)

just a datapoint for yr musings....

[lyonesse.livejournal.com]

oh -- wanted to add that if you live in the suburbs, driving is likely part of your daily lives in a way that's not true for those of us who chose to live on public transportation. i share my car among three people, and no, we don't always go to the same parties anyway. (i ended up hitching rides back and forth from my most recent burbs-located social event, somewhat to the inconvenience of those who shuttled me around, but another member of my household was using my car to go somewhere else....)

[candle-light.livejournal.com]

I sympathize & understand your plaints WRT to the denizens of the hub of the universe not wanting to come out to the uncharted lands :-) Yes, it takes me 25 minutes to get to my parents place in Porter Sq.

I also agree with you that the smaller 'burb parties make talking to people *so* much easier. It was nice being able to talk to you last Saturday, as a matter of fact.

I'm bummed we missed the Stow party. We're not part of the "cool kids", we went and saw the grandparents instead (time well spent, actually).

[quietann.livejournal.com]

It really is interesting... I wonder how many of the Cambervillians have either lived in the city all their lives, or grew up in suburbs and hated it so much they vowed never to return. I grew up in a semi-suburban part of San Diego, probably equivalent to Melrose in terms of socio-economics and density. Camberville just seems overcrowded, noisy, and overpriced to me.

I enjoyed talking with you, too :)

[donnad.livejournal.com]

I was only invited to one party last night, it happened to be in Somerville. Friday night I was invite to three. I only went to one, It was the one I was asked to co-host BTW. But even if I wasn't asked to co-host it I probably would have gone to that one anyway. Why, because it was 1. the people we usually spend every other friday night with anyway and 2. It was the first one announced (to us.)

Usually we try to choose a party based on how well we know the hosts, or the people who we think will be there that we know. Or who invited us first. It usually turns out that if we are invited to several parties in one night and we are equally friendly with all of the hosts and don't think we can make it to all of them, we will choose the one who announced the earliest.

It's rare we choose a party based on location. We have in the past traveled all the way to DC specifically for a party. Lately we haven't frequented too many parties in general, life and health issues have interferred.

I too prefer smaller parties where one can actually carry on a conversation without shouting and not be sweltering because there are so many bodies that the place is like a sauna. I often will leave a party early if it gets like that.

[tb]

In our car-oriented culture it's hard to remember that many people who live in Camberville do so precisely because they don't have cars or access to same. Mass transit to the 'burbs is pretty sucky, especially on weekends if you want to stay late at a party.

We've fallen off (or never were on) most private invite lists too and that's just fine; my company at least is hardly sought after in the larger crowd. We didn't go to the Stow party because I'd pretty much filled my weekend quota of socializing in JP and frotz was not feeling inspired.

[quietann.livejournal.com]

I'm aware of the transit issues, but ... I know many many people in Camberville who have cars; in fact amongst the susboids I know, probably about 2/3 do (though some, as lyonesse pointed out, share their cars.) I really think it's an attitude issue. One friend from there drove up to Lowell for an event, after being told that Lowell was "soooo far away". He was amazed to find that it took him only 35 minutes to get there.

At this point, private invite lists are becoming less of an issue for me. I see at least some of these lists as an attempt to make parties more manageable in size -- which is understandable given how many people live in really small apartments. Sure, there are lists where I don't understand why we are excluded, but their loss, eh? Like you, I am becoming more picky about my socializing as I get older.

[gingicat]

Oddly, last week the chocolate party was the "closer in" party, in Malden, but got less attendees than the party in North Reading. Though, the parties in North Reading tend to be as crowded as the Camberville ones, perhaps because of the long standing of that family among the susboids.

I'm not complaining; the chocolate party was just the right size for me. But it would have been nice to see some of the other people who didn't make it.

[lyonesse.livejournal.com]

heh, i had the hardest time prioritizing those two parties! in the end i went to n reading b/c i had made a birthday gift to give to the celebrant, and it was vanilla and not chocolate :)

hope to see you around before too long -- rememeber [plug plug] me and my band will be playing at a certain public-invite party in somerville on saturday :)

[gingicat]

No danger of my forgetting... but unfortunately, I'll be chaperoning 15 teenagers at a Model UN conference at Brown U. *pout*

[quietann.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure that the North Reading party was really much bigger than yours. It was definitely mostly suspects, however, while yours seemed to have more poly-Boston folks.

[ceo]

Ditto to the point of people who live on public transit being less willing to use their cars. It's extremely convenient to be able to walk to social events, as it means one doesn't have to worry about being too tired or inebriated to drive home safely, and it also means that gosling and I can arrive and/or leave separately, plus it means less wear and tear on the aged car that we can't afford to replace. So if there's a conflict between a walkable-to party and a suburban party, all other things being equal I tend to pick the former, which is part of why we went to the nearby party last night. The other reason is that we knew the hostess better; in fact I expect the comparatively small attendance of the Stow party had more to do with the fact that not as many people knew the hosts than anything else. And there was also a That Kind Of Party last night, it turns out, which probably cut into both parties to some degree.

As I mentioned in the earlier thread on this topic, I really don't like it when parties conflict. There's a large subset of my friends whom I pretty much only see at parties, so it involves having to figure out who's going to be where and in what order people are likely to party-hop in. Small private gatherings are less of an issue here, of course. I suppose what this really means is I ought to be better about coordinating with people and/or getting together with people privately, but these days I'm already so busy and overextended that it's really hard to find time to get together wth people. (It also runs into shyness issues that I may talk about in a future post.)

Of course, I'm rather an extrovert (and gosling even more so) (and yes, it's possible to be a shy extrovert), so I like the mob-scene parties. :-) I tend to find talking to people one-one-one for long periods of time intimidating (see above re: shyness), so being able to flit from conversation to conversation is nice. However, part of why we decided to start our party next weekend at 2pm was so that people who don't like the mob scene that it will inevitably turn into in the evening can come early.

[quietann.livejournal.com]

I get the bit about the car... That was how I was with my old car, towards the end. I made deguspice spend more nights at my place than I did at his, because I didn't trust my car.

Also, yes... the Stow party was hosted by people probably known only to the real old-time MIT folks (and in fact, most of the people I knew were exactly that -- lillibet, tom & steve, P&F&kylie were all there.) Steve and Amy were around MIT in the early to mid 1980s, and then went to California and only just returned. It turns out that almost everyone else I knew was at J's private-invite thing in Somerville, and of the people I've talked to about it, most of them assumed that we were invited, but we weren't. I guess that does sting a bit, since so many of the people we are closer to were there.

I've been using the big parties to stay caught up with folks, too, but it's really not a very satisfying way to do that. Most of my interactions at the big parties are really superficial, which is why I often end up in a corner reading or crocheting. I just don't feel like I am "getting anywhere" with whoever I actually want to talk with.

More recently, the people I'd most like to talk with at parties are too busy with their partners or the people they are already closer to, so I don't try too hard. (e.g. the couch at P&F's house last weekend was overladen with people like this, but it was pretty clear that there was no room for me, either physically or conversationally. I finally just wandered away, because I felt like they were being pretty rude to me -- though not deliberately -- and found someone who actually *wanted* to have a conversation with me and wasn't preoccupied with cuddling her sweetie or telling in-jokes to her nearest companions. I'm re-evaluating "who my friends really are" now.)

I'm probably not a good data point. Perhaps an exception that proves the rule?

[marmota.livejournal.com]

Oddly enough, despite likely being lumped in with the Cambervillians, I prefer the parties outside of town. I relish the chances to get out of the city, I can't stand public transit for a variety of reasons, and trying to find parking around most of the party venues local to me is an exercise in frustration guaranteed to ruin my mood long before I walk into a party. I definitely think like a driver, not a pedestrian. It's also fairly well known that I'm pining to move as far outside the city as I can manage.

Re: I'm probably not a good data point. Perhaps an exception that proves the rule?

[quietann.livejournal.com]

well, I don't lump you in with Cambervillians... Your apartment is somewhat close to Davis, but not within walking distance. And your preferences for quiet and solitude are well-known.

[badgerthorazine.livejournal.com]

Wow. It sounds like a good time, overall. For me, well, I can't think of the last time I was invited to a party, so I don't generally go to parties. :P The exception was this Saturday, when we went out to the town of Harvard for an old college friend of mine's wedding, which was delightful.

I know what you mean about Camberville area though...I tend to prefer going to parties where I know I can park my car and have it not get towed and stuff. ;-D And, well, I don't public transit as well as others do 'cuz of my now-re-sprained ankle.