You know what I've decided upon when it comes to parties? Well, a small, intimate affair, with perhaps no more than 6 or 8 people, tends to be very fun, quite lively, and leaves you all in fits and giggles by the end of the night.... if it doesn't, your not drinking enough or talking enough, one or the other. When it comes to slightly larger do's, there seems to be a sort of what I would call a "ring" effect. Let me explain, you see, with any party, there has to be one to two people that the party is for - be it birthday, engagement whatever. If it happens to be "just a dinner party" or new years eve or so, then it centres around the person / people who organised & are hosting the event. With me so far? ok. Now, as I've said, if it's up to around 6 or 8, this is fine, everyone can get involved and join in and have fun with equal vigour. When it becomes more than that, not everyone can be involved with the central people, well, it's difficult to spread your self so thin isn't it? So, what happens with any party of some numbers, is you have your central couple (lets say) surrounding them is a core group of close friends or family, outside of this ring is another group, this group are the group who want, so very much, to be part of that ring so attached to the centre, however, as we have established, more than 6 or 8 makes this difficult. These are the people who embarrass themselves at parties, these are the folk who get on the dance floor when no one else is there to "show willing", or get very loud and very drunk at a much quicker rate than anyone else and so the stand out from the crowd. For this ring, there doesn't necessarily have to be more than one person, this person on his own does enough running around, trying to "impress" that he creates his own ring around this little, mini group. As the drink keeps flowing, and the drunker the "central wanna-be" becomes, the more down hearted by being in this outer ring he is. Eventually getting poured into a taxi and sent home with the central couple mentally shaking their heads and wondering if his social status is good enough to be invited to the next soiree .
Then again there is another ring of people, these are the ones who have resigned themselves to the fact that the most they will get out of the central couple is a quick "hi, how are you doing? Glad you could come" greeting and then they'll be off - oh, not before of course accepting a drink from this by-stander and being on their merry way back to their central, core group of party people. This group are sensible enough to know they won't really be much use at this party, except to make up the numbers, and for this central couple, the mark of a good party for them is to see many heads around them, seemingly enjoying themselves. This ring, form their own mini rings of maybe 3 / 4 in order not to feel like party poopers / wet lemons and spend the evening in various corners of the room, chatting away amongst themselves. These tend to be the ones who leave the party early, professing the have an early start, don't feel very well or the babysitter is waiting for them. They simply don't want to offend the central couple by admitting that they're bored and would prefer to get into bed. There will be the odd additional extra to this ring, a non-core attendee who will circle these outer ring mini-groups, making sure "everyone is ok, having a good time" and will perhaps spend 5 / 10 minutes talking in amongst these groups, be part of the conversation and then will feel free to move onto the next group.
Then of course, in some extreme circumstances (not all mind you) is the wet lemon. The one who can't seem to engage in any mini-groups, doesn't want to buzz around everyone as they don't have the energy or don't want to, and have perhaps had previous experience in trying to become part of the central group and failed, and so, now they have been burnt, don't wish to try again. The reason for wet lemon? They tend to have a combined look of where they've just tried sucking on a lemon & didn't know how sour the taste would be, and have been caught in a rain storm and are now feeling uncomfortable and irritable.
So, we have central couple, central ring, orbiting wanna-be, sub mini groups, non-central flyer & the wet lemon.
Most people if they're honest, desperately want to be part of the central ring. You can only enter into this ring if you are very close to the central couple, have a lot in common with them, go out with them on a regular basis etc. Basically, it's the "cool kids" group. But the central couple, nor the central ring will notice any of the other sub-rings. They may get annoyed by the orbiting wanna-be, eventually, a central ringer will tell him he's being a prat and to stop mucking about. but everyone else, is un-noticed until they wish to go home and the response is often "Oh shame you couldn't stay longer, we didn't have a chance to catch up!" the truth is you had the last 3 hours to catch up with that person, but you didn't want to!
There are of course, other levels to this party analogy, including at least one central ringer who will stand out from their own crowd - this is the one who gets the central couple dancing, who helps to look after them by getting drinks in etc. Making themselves a favourable candidate for the next party because they were such great company (who perhaps also suffers afterwards from not only a hangover, but also a brown nose). These are the annoying ones who no matter what is going on, firmly believe that they too deserve central recognition. I hate these people.I think I have been in each category over time. sometimes changing rings in the same party. This one in Norfolk tho, definitely a sub mini-group / non-central flyer (for about half an hour, then I couldn't be bothered!). I mostly stuck with Marie, J's sister, who also seemed to be a little fed up with this family gathering - nothing wrong with it, but lets be honest, you should either have a family do, or a thing with friends - do one party with both never seems to go well. You always have your preferred person / people you want to hang out with, and since you can choose your friends and your stuck with your family, in most cases, you end up spending the majority of the party with your friends - well, who wouldn't? With family, central couples do force themselves to do the right thing and chat with family for a little while before excusing themselves or are taken away by a central ringer. Marie and I spent most of the evening wondering down stairs to the main bar to get a drink, stand outside in the fresh air for a while, at one stage played the I.T box before wondering back upstairs to again take a seat and do not very much at all. Still, if we hadn't of gone it would have upset the central couple and that wouldn't have been fair on them.
Parties, honestly, I don't see why we get so worked up over them.
Whilst in Norfolk, we were able to catch up with little Roxy, one of our nieces! (come on, I know we're not married, but being together 4 years earns me the right to be Aunty Nina, and similarly to my sisters kids, he is Uncle J). She's certainly getting bigger!
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