Pink was right: You better get the party started
The surprising health benefits of getting together with friends
One of the downsides of becoming a grown-up is that it gets harder to gather everyone in your friend group together at the same time. Schedules become harder to coordinate. You may see a friend or two individually, but random hangs of the whole gang become rare.
When we managed to get all our friends together on a random Saturday in August for a barbecue without it being a special occasion, it was so remarkable that I took pictures to document the moment.
You can see by the burgers and dogs that it wasn’t anything fancy, but nobody cared.
It took a little effort to organize–extending the invites, planning the menu, coordinating who brought what, and making sure the house was presentable–but it was worth it.
It’s easy to default to staying home by yourself. Binge-watching and scrolling are comfortable ways to occupy your time that aren’t a heavy lift. But spending recreational time with friends shouldn’t be considered optional.
Humans weren’t designed to be solo beings. Regularly communing with other people gets you out of your head. It prevents your social skills from getting flabby. It’s good for you.
Grabbing dinner out or hitting the bars are simple ways to fill in the blank about how to spend time with your friends. But too much time out of the town can strain your budget. One possible solution–start taking turns hosting.
Hosting doesn’t have to be hard
Inviting people over for a meal or gathering can add a layer of stress to hanging out. But it doesn’t have to be complicated.
Dear Nina from Conversations about Friendship offers 10 tips for making hosting easier. Her first one is key–remembering that the goal of hosting isn’t perfect food or a perfect setting. It’s to allow people to connect.
Priya Parker, who wrote the book The Art Of Gathering, says giving your gathering a specific purpose can help. She told NPR’s Life Kit that identifying a purpose can begin to shape the group’s experience and help refine the other details.
Parker also offered guidelines for how many people to invite to a gathering. She said 6 is a good size for a really connected conversation, 8-12 is a great size for a dinner party, and 20-30 feels more like a full-on party.
So go ahead and make some plans. Organize a barbecue or dinner party to celebrate a random holiday (This calendar of fun, random, and weird holidays might inspire you). Host a trivia night. If your circle of friends lives near enough to one another, host a progressive-style gathering where guests move from house to house for different courses of drinks or food.
And remember, you don’t have to do everything yourself. People love to feel like they are contributing to the festivities. Ask somebody to bring a dessert. Say yes when someone offers to bring a salad. Put your clever friend in charge of the group activity.
Gathering together is good for your health
Spending time with others is an essential and meaningful aspect of life. In fact, getting into the habit of gathering would be good for our national health.
In 2023, Surgeon General Vivek H. Murthy released an advisory report, “Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation. He warned that loneliness can increase the risk of premature death by up to 29% — the equivalent of smoking 15 cigarettes a day. Yet data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that in 2024, only 4% of Americans attended or hosted social gatherings on a given weekend or holiday.
The surgeon general’s prescription: “Given the significant health consequences of loneliness and isolation, we must prioritize building social connection the same way we have prioritized other critical public health issues such as tobacco, obesity, and substance use disorders. Together, we can build a country that’s healthier, more resilient, less lonely, and more connected.”
Likewise, Pope Francis said that isolation is contrary to human nature: “Life exists where there is bonding, communion, fraternity; and life is stronger than death when it is built on true relationships and bonds of fidelity. On the contrary, there is no life when we claim to be self-sufficient and live as islands.”
I bet the surgeon general and the pope would be happy if you got the party started.