True Sociability

Parties have become synonymous with sociability because of certain underlying ideas about what true social connection might require and entail. We assume that sociability naturally springs up when lots of people are put together in a room, that it means speaking a lot and notably cheerfully about things that have been happening in our lives, that it depends on a jokey manner and ideally on the possession of a few entertaining anecdotes, often involving striking coincidences. But such assumptions sidestep two sizeable objections. Firstly, true sociability that is a real connection between two people is almost never built up via anything cheerful. It is the result of making ourselves vulnerable before another person, by revealing some of what is broken, lost, confused, lonely and in pain within us. We build genuine connections when we dare to exchange thoughts that might leave us open to humiliation and judgement; we make real friends through sharing in an uncensored and frank way a little of the agony and confusion of being alive. Secondly, true sociability requires a context. We are generally under such pressure to appear normal, self-possessed and solid, we are understandably uninclined spontaneously to disclose our true selves. Our default mode is without anything sinister being meant by this to lie about who we are and what is really going on in our lives. This suggests that a genuinely social occasion might be rather different from what we typically envisage.