> but the dislike of parties.

Parties are also a little over-hyped, even a social construct, I would say (writing it down it actually sounds tautological).

On my country's local sub-reddit someone was asking people older than him how did they spend New Year's Eve parties in the past, which reminded me of the New Year's Days I used to spend with my grandparents in the countryside, in a village close to the Carpathians. There were no New Year's Eve parties in that village, or in the villages surrounding it, for that matter, young, unmarried, people would usually congregate on Saturday's evenings for a "village party" so that the boys would find girls to marry and that was pretty much it, once you were married and especially once you had kids of course that parties were not a thing anymore for you (why would have gone there? you were already married).

A little on the conspiracy-oriented side I would say that modern parties have been presented to us as the way we now know them ("you have to be there! you have to be seen as a likeable person! you have to talk and make conversation! you have to small almost at all times!") out of consumerist reasons, I would even that most of this whole "modern socialising thing" is backed-up by consumerist reasons.

Not every village was like that.

People in the past did celebrated with friends and family, but it also involved drinking and music and general partying. Kids were generally present until they were sent to sleep.

There were taverns and pubs where people went to drink and be noisy too.

That is what I got from my grandparents and parents. And when I read memoirs (from wwii and such), people mentioned very party like a activities too.

I think it depends on the region. I can see what you’re saying to be a thing in Western Europe, especially the UK, where because of the earlier industrialization there would be more occasions to socialize outside of the family and you would have been expected to socialize outside the family a little more compared to the only-agricultural past.

Also, the tavern can only be a thing in a society that has cash/money, which also makes me think that a place like Western Europe would have the upper hand on this. Even going in the second part of the 20th century my grandparents’ village was trying to avoid money/cash as much as possible, work-days were often-times paid in other work-days, so to speak, i.e. “I help you out with that hay thing for three days you help me out in return with two days carring wood out of the forrest” or something like that.

Big parties did indeed also happen at weddings and after burials, the latter ones are called “parastas” and I think it has been directly taken from the antique Greco-Roman tradition.

Parties, basically by definition, require excess. It's no shock that people without an abundance of resources didn't throw big parties. In contrast, pretty much every cultural moment where people had large surpluses threw parties: China with drinking and gambling games, India has a whole slew of holidays involving general excess and merriment such as Holi, Diwali, Nowruz has been celebrated by a variety of middle eastern cultures for millennia.

Not to mention weddings, coming-of-age celebrations, and funerals/wakes, which date back well into prehistory.

No, it was not West. It is in post communist block. Industrialized only later then west.

Every village big enough to have church has also tavern. Usually close to each other. People drunk a lot, actually. They were poor a lot, but alcoholism was a thing and big social issue.

Paying in work or work for work was a think exactly as you described.

If anything, current western norms are significantly less social. People visit each other less often. You don't have drinking and talking till late while kids run around never at all. Especially as you get older. The way we live forces us isolate in middle age and lonely in old age.

I’m curious about party design/engineering. Can you tell me a bit more about how to do it? Are there any good books/resources you can point to?

I can’t share a whole lot, mainly because I don’t know much myself. In the pre-COVID days, before I stopped going to parties, then blew up my life and moved to another city (thus not having a social network to attend parties with) there were many things to consider when hosting:

- who to invite (complicated by melt/flakiness) - involves making predictions about how people will behave and interact with each other - how many to invite - when to start - when to end and how to end - what beverages, snacks, food to include; how such things will be prepared and delivered in sequence - drug and alcohol (also a drug) choices - what music to play - lighting and furniture arrangement; use of space generally - desired outcomes; things to watch for; connections to encourage or discourage - props, toys, games, and other objects (I suppose food and snacks are partially a subset) - compartmentalization and breakaway spaces

An example of a party that the author would likely enjoy would be an informal book club gathering with a mixer before or after, or perhaps a showing of a film adaptation with discussion for interested participants after, while less interested people can break off to play board games. Or perhaps board games would be stimulating enough, there are a broad range of kinds, and they can drastically change the feel/experience of an evening.

I suppose “engineering” implies a formal discipline. I think that actually is a profession, I just know nothing about it. But design thinking can be applied by anyone to anything, and I do try to be intentional and/or am slightly neurotic about hosting.

Thanks for the pointers. I would buy a book/course about hosting different kinds of parties if you ever decide to write it up :)