The Lost Art of Gathering: How to Reclaim Community and Connection
My husband is turning 50 in a few weeks, and I'm throwing him a surprise birthday party. It’s taken me a while to plan — I have a fun theme, a crowd-pleasing menu, and plenty of decorations.
As I was sending out event reminders today, I paused. When was the last time I was invited to a party at someone’s home that wasn’t a kid's birthday party? I honestly can hardly remember a time. It brought me to an even bigger question:
Have Gen-Xers Forgotten How to Gather?
Many people report to me that since having kids and establishing their careers, they have spent little time connecting with their friends. As a Generation X-er, I remember neighbours popping by for coffee on a random afternoon without an invitation, my mom hosting “bridge club” dinners and games, and having backyard barbecues in the summer.
Today, many of our calendars are filled with obligations, events, travel, and sports … leaving little room for spontaneous gatherings.
Why Is Gathering a Lost Art? The '7-Year Black Hole' of Parenthood.
I’ve tried to think of reasons why it’s difficult to get together in our 30s and 40s. I remember my uncle referring to this time in a parent's life as "the 7-year black hole" — a time when, once we have kids, we kind of disappear off the social scene because life gets so busy. I can relate!
Then, I think we get busy with prioritizing our work and kids' activities, and we're just exhausted from life. I’ve also noticed that different life stages cause a gain and loss of friends. When we move for school and work, get married, have children, or change jobs, we tend to gain and shed friends.
I also wonder if COVID made us more likely to retreat into quieter lives and stay inside our homes, and we haven’t quite emerged yet. I have definitely noticed that my own high school kids don't gather like we used to as teens. Outside of sports (thank goodness for sports), kids rarely get together in groups and go to the movies, the mall, or have parties. Schools are so large these days that they don’t even have dances anymore. The first high school dance my oldest daughter went to was her graduation.
Are we setting future generations up for lifelong loneliness?
Older adults say that their friendships are their most prized possessions. This makes sense to me, of course. And unlike family, we get to choose our friends, and we gravitate towards people who enjoy the same things we do. It’s rare to keep friends for a lifetime, but it's also so special when we manage to do so.
In Canada, 5 in 10 people report rarely or never feeling lonely, which means half of people experience moderate to severe loneliness. Our loneliest age group is 15 to 24-year-olds, where 1 in 4 report feeling lonely often or always. - These are numbers from Statistics Canada 2024
I wonder how much pressure it puts on other relationships when we don’t get together to connect with friends in real life. With half of all marriages ending in divorce, could we be putting too much emphasis on expecting our immediate family to fill up our cups? The reasons for divorce are complex, but we just might be asking our partners and kids to give us what a village used to provide.
Many women put other people first. So many of us cannot imagine going away for a weekend to a retreat or with girlfriends. We feel guilty for leaving our husbands at home to care for the children, that we’ll get behind on housework, and that we will miss out and not be there for our kids (and somehow damage them).
What if our lives are unbalanced?
What if we actually NEED to start socializing again?
What if it’s good for our marriages for us to have other people to talk to and relate to?
What if it’s good for our kids to see adults interact, and it gives us more patience when we are with them?
What if it’s FUN???
How to Reclaim the Art of Gathering
Step 1: Make Socializing a Priority
First, we need to make socializing a priority. We often feel like we’re too busy, so think about what you can say “no” to make more time for fun socializing.
Are you on a committee you don’t enjoy?
Can you delegate some of the housework to your family?
Can you leave work at work?
Step 2: Connect With Intention
Then, think about who you want to create or deepen a relationship with. Maybe it’s a neighbour, or your child’s friend's parent, or someone you just haven’t seen in a long time. I threw myself a birthday party a few years ago where many of my friends didn’t know each other, yet they all remarked how nice everyone was. I usually prioritized one-on-one friendships, but I realized that group gatherings are so much fun, especially when my friends become friends.
Step 3: Keep Your Hosting Simple
Finally, what do you want to host? Dinner? Games night? A watch party? Keep it simple, and when people ask what they can bring, be ready with a response. I love it when people bring wine, an appetizer, or dessert. You don’t even have to cook, and can simply order pizza. The point is to have some food and drinks, and something to do. The rest will take care of itself.
Don’t worry about your house not being perfect or things not going perfectly. The first few times I hosted gatherings, it was messy. Nothing was ready on time, and I ran around like a chicken all night. But I’ve learned a lot by doing it, and I only got good at it by failing, learning, and doing it again. I now love hosting more elaborate parties, and my secret to making it look easy is by planning and doing as much as I can in advance, getting people to help me before and at the party, and I try not to be hosting the whole time, but take time to enjoy the party too.
However, I also love impromptu parties, where we bump into people and say, “My house is a mess, but do you want to come over for Chinese food and Monopoly?” No pressure, no perfection.
A book you might enjoy on this is The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why It Matters by Priya Parker.
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