Why doesn’t anybody come to my parties?

21:45There are people who go and never come back or people who see the invitation and decide not to come. But it's hard because what you're describing sounds very normal and fine. It's super normal. And you've never been, I'm not trying to, I guess I am trying to lead the witness. I'm trying to resist my own temptation to lead the witness. But you've never been at a party of Claire's where you've thought, this party's kind of weird. It should be different. No, never like it was weird. Like it's always a small gathering, but it's always pleasant. Huh. Okay. I'd say like maybe if there was more food, like that would be my one piece of feedback, like more food would be great.

22:18Is it not many snacks? There aren't that many snacks, but I would never say that that was like a turnoff to the party. People appreciate charcuterie, crudités, tiny pigs, and tiny blankets. You might even show up for good enough snacks, but their scarcity wasn't a reason for a 70 % decline rate. I made my next call. How far back do you go with Claire? So we met the summer of 2023, I want to say. So it's been a few years. This is Meredith, another fellow mom, but less a friend or an acquaintance. Meredith had some different experiences at Claire's parties, although not at the first one. The first one was fine.

23:06It was lovely. They invited maybe the entire class of families, like not just kids, but whole families, to their place for a get-together. It was like a beautiful late May or June day. They have this wonderful backyard where they had like a swing set and they had a bouncy castle water feature type thing set up. Oh, wow. Had they rented the bouncy castle or did they have a full time? Oh, no, they owned it. Yes, they owned it. I've never been to anyone's house who owned a bouncy castle. I know. Yeah. The bouncy castle. There'd been this kid I'd known in junior high. I remember being somewhat ostracized, not because anything was wrong with him, except how badly he was trying to be liked.

23:56The decadence and opulence of his seventh grade birthday party. He would have had a bouncy castle. Could the problem here just be the visible sweatiness of it all? But I looked into it. This bouncy castle was actually modest, one you can get on Amazon for about 150 bucks. And besides, the bouncy castle had charmed Meredith. I was like, wow, okay. The kids were, like, thrilled, you know. If I had been hosting the party, I would have been like, that was a great success. Have you ever been to a party at their house that felt unusual or awkward or weird or not fun? So, the third party, and the final party that I was invited to at their house, was different.

24:44It was a joint party for Claire and her daughter. It was more indoor, and it was a totally different vibe. She had invited, there were some family there, there were co-workers there, there were some of her husband's friends were there, and a tiny smattering of the same preschool parent group was there. And were they not mushing in a coherent way? No. No. I mean, because the co-workers kind of stuck together. And then, like, the ones of us that had kids, like, we were in and out of their basement because that's where, like, the kids were mostly hanging out. And they weren't able to reach across the gap.

25:30Because sometimes it's fine. Like, sometimes it's fine. Sometimes people mix. But they were not mixing. Yeah, I mean, yeah. I don't think they were mixing that well. I don't think I was mixing that well either. and Claire was being pulled in a bunch of different directions herself. What do you mean? Can you describe what that was like? She and her daughter had these very cute matching outfits. They were trying to get photos. She was trying to like get drinks and stuff. I don't know. She was like hosting in very normal expected ways. But I don't remember feeling like she was sort of doing the connecting work.

26:03She wasn't doing like, oh, you should talk to this person and you guys need to talk about Pittsburgh because you guys both went to Pittsburgh one time. Right, right, right, right. Maybe one of the more common forms of bad party in this world. The one where you're an ingredient placed into a mix in which you're never going to belong. You're mustard squirted into the batter of a cake. It was one of those things where, you know, I didn't know how long to stay. It was a very open-ended party. and I definitely felt like relieved, you know, I don't know, that it was like coming to, like, we're going to be here for the amount of time we need to be here.

26:43And when you go, you get in the car and you're like, let's go home. Yeah, we're like, okay, I did that. But it's like so hard because like, I do really appreciate people who are willing to host. And I think it's amazing that she is. So it's, I feel like awful, honestly, being like negative about it in any way. It was just like, it did not feel like a party I wanted to stay at. I filed these stories away and began to reach out to a new list of people. The San Franciscans. People who'd known Claire longer, even before she was a mom. I sent my emails. I waited for responses.

27:22Why do parties matter? I hesitate to say this next bit because I believe it so earnestly it makes me cringe. But I do think parties matter. in a deep, serious way. Parties summon the thing we actually care about, community. Not community meaning fans of an influencer. Not community meaning consumers of a product. Actual community. When people who know each other a lot or a little come together to risk something. Risk being embarrassed or embarrassing, bored or boring. Nobody has time for a party. We all work too much. It's shameful to care about them, certainly as much as I do, certainly as much as Claire does.

28:02But I think they reach us somewhere that's deeper than modern. Two inches beneath the surface of our brain were cave people, scared, alone, afraid that when we wake up, the tribe will have moved on and we'll have to fend for ourselves against all these bears. Claire doesn't know what it is about her that drives people away. That woman she tried to befriend, the woman's husband, her group of friends in middle school, who one day out of nowhere just permanently voted her off the lunch table. You don't get to do exit interviews with the people who decline your friendship. But a party, it's a way at least to test her current phone book.

28:39To see if the people whose numbers she knows will actually show up if she calls them. That's why she'd asked about the parties. That's why I was here. So my name is Alyssa, and I've known Claire, I don't know how many years, since she very first moved to San Francisco. So maybe 14 or 15 years ago? Alyssa's a long-distance friend today. But back in SF, she and Claire were extremely close. Which means she attended many of Claire and her husband Nick's parties. And what she had to tell me was informative. For starters, even way back then, these were low-yield parties. I would say a handful of people would show up, often the same characters, often random characters who are people she was trying to befriend that week.

29:29I don't have a problem with these smaller group gatherings, but I think in her mind, she always wanted more of a rager. So I guess she interpreted them as being disappointments, but as an attendee, I never did. So more evidence that Claire kind of just hodgepodges people together. Some people mind, others don't. But Alyssa, helpfully, had also done a little reporting of her own. I asked my own husband for his perspective. I was like, do you remember those parties? And he's like, well, I remember that their place was really small and we would just sort of all be crowded around a TV watching music videos.

30:10Wait, really? Yeah. She wanted this, like, upscale martini drinking vibe in her apartment. But then when you get there, it was definitely like an apartment that was very decorated by Nick. Kind of like looked like a guy's place. It's not as polished compared to where they live now. Help me see it. Like how did Nick decorate an apartment back then? It was dark. Dark. There was sports paraphernalia like on the walls. There was a license plate that said ass man on it, on the wall, which I always loved. And that's what my husband brought up to. He's like ass man. I'm like, yeah, I know. That was so good.

30:46We have so many photos of it.

30:51The Ass Man license plate, of course, a Seinfeld reference. Kramer's license plate in one episode. And under the Ass Man plate, they would participate in some strange party rituals, led by Claire's husband. So we'd get to his apartment and the TV was always on. And he always wanted to show, like, music videos. Music videos? Like, do you remember the genre? I'm going to mispronounce it, but David Guetta, he really liked him. The like, I, like dance music. Dance music. I think they did as EDM. I never watch music videos. Outside of their apartment, I don't think I would ever intentionally look up a music video.

31:27But it's very core to like the party scene there. The second genre of events that would happen at these parties would be Claire's impressions. I think she did like an Iggy Azalea one. She's always been into doing impressions. Nick would sort of like, you know, get everyone quiet and be like, hold on, hold on. Like, Claire's going to do an impression now. It was a little forest, maybe. And, you know, he was always her biggest cheerleader, like laughing it up and thinking it was so great. But I think it was never my husband's sense of humor or something like he was entertained by. Like, she is not everyone's cup of tea.

32:08And her sense of humor is absolutely not everyone's flavor. listening to this I got the feeling I imagine defense attorneys get when they learn something about their client that might not play so well in court an upscale martini drinking party in a man cave where the hosts go kind of Michael Scott on you the husband demanding you sit quietly and be an audience for his wife's humorous impressions while meanwhile you're also subject to unsolicited David Guetta tracks on YouTube

32:41This did not sound like my idea of a good party at all. I don't like David Guetta. I would remember that party, but I don't think I would come back for another. What kind of monster would do this to people?

32:56My name is Nick. I'm her husband. We've been together since she was 19, so 17 years. We've been married almost 12 years. Yeah, we've been together. I know her pretty well if you have any questions. Nick, not his real name. As Alyssa had alleged, Nick was responsible for those David Getta tracks. And by his admission, he'd also been egging Claire on when it came to her comedic impersonations. She was an incredible impersonator. She can sing and just do all these different artists. So I would hijack the party and make her do a show for people. Everyone would be laughing and laughing. But I always think if she put her talents more in display...

33:36I always say, you get more friends that way. That's always my philosophy, and she always goes the complete opposite, not wanting to be the center of attention anymore, never wanting to talk about her work or anything like that. It's hard not to appreciate Nick's profound love for his wife, his conviction that she's the funniest person he knows, his desire to show her off. It was sweet. I was even willing to give him a pass on the David Guetta stuff. And so the problem that she is, that she's identifying, that the invitation yield is bad. Is this a problem that you also perceive to be real? It's definitely a problem.

34:13Yes, yes, it is. It's been a problem. So we lived in San Francisco for a while. And back then, we never had big turnouts, but we always had a good group of people. And since we moved, we've just never had consistent turnouts. And she really likes throwing parties. She grew up, and her family always threw parties, these big extravagant parties. So she's always trying to do this. It just never comes to fruition. And what do you suspect is going on? Well, I think there's probably a pie of a lot of different reasons. I'm sure I'm part of the problem. I also have OCD. I can definitely get hyper-fixated with people scratching a table or leaving a glass of water on a table without a coaster.

35:01So that's a little piece of the pie. I think, like, she can definitely get very anxious when her kids aren't in sight. And I think, like, at a party, that probably can make people feel a little bit uncomfortable. Or, like, I mean, the other thing, she, you know, a lot of the moms typically will, like, wear, like, even to, like, a party would wear, like, maybe just, like, nice sweatpants. I mean, not very dressed, but she comes, like, fully dressed up, right? I think that could also make people feel a little bit uncomfortable. The thing about the clothes, I'd actually wondered about this, too. One recurring theme on Claire's sub-stack on Cartoons Hate Her is the outfit she wears.

35:34She often makes her own clothes. She posts photos with her face blacked out. Internet commenters have remarked on her fashion. Someone called her clothes indecent, immodest. They're being prudes. But anyone who dresses remarkably risks annoying some people. Nick and Claire had both noted that sometimes women in particular react badly to Claire. Like the women at the office where she used to work. People she worked with, like the cool girls from work, that would come, and they would be very mean to her. They'd be mean at the party? They would just not pay attention to her or really engage with her.

36:09I remember we were getting the party ready, and we were on the roof deck, and we saw someone waiting at the bottom. They had a huge bottle of rosé. I was like, you can come in. It was starting to rain. You can come in. They're like, no, no, no, I don't want to come in until the other girls are here. Oh, my God. She was waiting outside. She didn't want to be just in there with Claire until all the other girls from work that she was friends with were there too. That is really painful. She's had a lot of really painful experiences. I tell her to just stop. I just do not care that much. I just don't see the effort or the stress.

36:40It puts you through so much stress, I don't get why she keeps doing this to herself.

36:48Nick would prefer to not see his wife get hurt like this over and over again. He wishes they could just stick to dinner with friends. The big parties aren't even fun. Nick's brain doesn't have the feature Claire's does, a deep curiosity to know why some people don't like him, which is a sane position. Because all of us are annoying and boring some of the time, in ways we'll never detect. How many times have I been at a party telling what I think is a hilarious anecdote when I noticed that the person I've been talking at, Their phone has the Uber screen on it. Because while I was enjoying how funny I think I am, they were summoning an escape pod.

37:29It's just a fact of being a person. And unless you're a politician or a celebrity, the world will never tell you the specifics of your unfavorables. But for Claire, the unfavorables were impossible to ignore. Because her whole life, she found herself bumping into them. Months had passed now. I'd mostly worked through the list Claire had sent. Everybody had grasped a part of the elephant. It wasn't even that mysterious. For one, Claire's very anxious. It's not uncommon for her to have a freak out because she's convinced something terrible has happened to her husband or her kids. Another part of the elephant is Claire's sense of humor, a distinct flavor, not for everyone.

38:11Big performer, the kind of person who once so thoroughly hijacked a party with her Lana Del Rey impression that no one could hear anything else. A ham like that is never going to be for everyone. Although Claire says she's purposely, over the years, taught herself to dial that down, to spend less time trying to be funny, more time trying to just ask people questions about themselves. But still, the RSVPs were coming back no's, and at such a higher rate than any of this would have predicted. The last person I talked to probably should have been the first, a person who could see every part of the elephant.

38:47Claire's brother. He knew he'd always known why nobody goes to his sister's parties. It was like he'd been waiting for my call.

38:58I guess, first of all, is your perception that this is a real thing? Like, do you feel like people don't go to their sister's parties? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. I mean, so like, my sister and I are like, really, really, really best friends. And by the way, this is not background. You could print this. She's just a very difficult and annoying person. But she's my absolute best friend. So for example, today, she's texted me over 100 times about Hantavirus and whether she's going to die from Hantavirus. When you say over 100 times, are you speaking rhetorically? No, no, no. I think that the number of texts about Hantavirus are probably about close to 100.

39:42And they were probably over 100 yesterday. Oh, that's a lot. And like, that's like, I ignore her like when I don't want to like respond to it. But she's like, she's like a genius and genuinely one of the most originally funny and like amazing people ever. But like, she does a lot of things that would make her being like a really popular party host difficult. Claire's brother would paint me a picture of Claire at a party that was clearer than anyone before had. But before he did that, he needed me to see what I'd been missing in Claire's story. The skeleton key to all of this. So she's never been popular at all.

40:19She's always been quite widely disliked because she has a very polarizing set of traits. For one, she has a very narrow series of interests, and the people who do have those interests are almost never women. So groups of women usually hate her because she's constantly violating conformity and being different in a way that's very unsettling and uncomfortable. And what is she trying to engage them in conversation? When you say she has a narrow sort of interest. For example, like, she's really into, like, social taboo conceptually, which is very funny because she doesn't have very good social skills, but she's very interested in other people's bad likes.

40:56So, like, anything that's a cringe, like, she really loves cringe. Oh, okay. And so, like, she has, like, kind of the sense of humor and the disposition of, like, a Mountain Dew drinking Redditor, like Reddit bro. But, like, obviously, like, if you talk to her, like she doesn't give off that impression right away. She's like— She looks like a very normal person. Yeah, so like people like see her and they think like, oh, like I know this kind of like woman. And then they like talk to her. And if she's like being completely authentic, they're like very immediately bothered by her. And she like has never known why.

41:28Because just to— I just want to make sure I have a clear picture of this. It's like she looks like a person who like maybe like— Normal girl. Yeah, wants to talk about how great the office was or something. Or like Parks and Rec. Yeah, yeah. And then instead, it's like she's reading really off-putting. Like, she wants to spend her time online looking at, like, weird subcultures that are behaving in terrible ways and talk about it with you. So she was, like, really into, not into as in being a supporter of, but, like, really into in terms of, like, being a lurker of, like, red pill and incel blogs.

41:59Like, years before, that was, like, a thing. Like, in, like, 2013, she was, like, reading, like, red pill blogs. Because she's just like, what are these sickos thinking? Yeah, yeah, she was really into it. To his mind, terminally online cringe merchant is the realist version of his sister, what she actually cares about, what she can actually connect with other people over in a real way. He thinks the solution to all this is clear. Claire should stop trying to fit in with normal people. She's not normal. Find a scene of weirdos where she can be herself. But what he's seen instead is a person who's taken the wrong lesson from being shunned so much, who now just keeps trying harder and harder to fit in, particularly after leaving San Francisco.

42:40When she moved, she was like, okay, this time is going to be different. So now what she does is she performs the role a lot. So in short, I don't think her parties are well-attended because I don't think they're fun. I've been to them. I don't think they're fun. And the reason why I don't think they're fun is that she's pretending to be someone who throws well-liked normie parties. For the normal person, it's a kind of like, off-putting, bizarre performance. And to me, it's like a hilariously inadequate performance.

43:17I want to put VR goggles over my eyes right now. I've walked into one of her parties. Yes. What happens? So, like, at these kinds of parties, I feel like I'm going to a movie with my favorite comedic actor, but it's a drama, and their performance is bad and boring. Mm. And so it's like, she is performing her idea of what a mom should be and what a woman in her 30s should be. And it's like, it's just very boring. Because the thing about it is that she doesn't have that many things to talk about. She has a couple of things to talk about endlessly, but those are not appropriate topics usually. So it's like, if I meet someone who's a civil engineer designing bridges, I like pretend to care about bridges for 20 minutes and try to learn as much as I can about bridges.

44:07And then her eyes just glaze over. Not because she's mean, but because something in her brain does not fire properly. Yeah. And she just can't care. So she'll be like, oh, how is that? And they'll be like, it's pretty good. And she'll be like, okay, do you work in office? She really hates working in office because she's just always bullied when she's in office. Her main way of relating to other people's jobs is like, do you have to be in an office? Because like... So they're like, yep. You know, I have to be in office. And she's like, oh, sorry about that, you know.

44:40Claire's brother sees his sister as a closeted person who isn't really passing, except not in a tragic way, in a slapstick way. Like if Bigfoot put on a suit and tried to ride the subway unnoticed. He thinks for Claire to have an actually fun party, she'd have to fill it with the kinds of people who appreciate her as her, instead of these normies who are not quite falling for her regular person impression.

45:07When I host house parties, which are well-attended, by the way, I talk about her all the time. But, like, all just the freak flag stuff, like, all the, like, zany stuff that she does. And, like, the people who are my friends who, like, don't know her are all like, this sounds like the coolest, funniest person ever. But she, like, is so scarred from being bullied for being that person that she just can't do it anymore. So she came to visit me and I literally organized on party full a like Claire meet and greet to have all my friends come meet her in person. And she was being so boring. And I took her aside and I was like, what are you doing?

45:48And she's like, I'm just like, I'm being polite with your friends. And I was like, no, no, no, no, no. Like, that's not what they're here for. Do your thing. Like, do whatever you want. Like, that's what they want. And she was like, oh, are you sure? Like, isn't that going to be like rude? And I was like, no, no, no, like you're allowed to. And then five minutes later, she's, like, doing her, like, whole song and dance. Like, people are loving it. Huh. And this is, like, why, rather than asking, like, why don't people come to her parties, like, the more interesting thing is, like, why do people on the internet like her?

46:14I, this is what I've been thinking about the whole time you've been talking. The story of me knowing her is that no one likes her. And then, like, suddenly now everyone likes her. Online. Online. But not in person. It's funny. The internet is a party, sort of, kind of, that she's throwing in her subsec. And she's, like, top of the leaderboard. People love it. Yes.

46:36I called Claire to tell her everything I'd learned. She laughed. She laughed a lot as I listed off everything people had said they thought might be off-putting about her. For every negative trait, she had a story, often a funny one, about times when she exhibited it. But when it came to her brother's advice to remove her mask, find rooms where she could do that easily, stop trying to fit in in normie town, she rejected that. I think my brother's off base there because I think he's viewing it through his eyes where he thinks who I am is great. But I have to break it to him like most people don't like who I am.

47:12Most people find me really insufferable when I am filterless and talk a lot and perform constantly and I'm very focused on myself. Most people find that very tiring. The lesson she's learned over the years is more like be yourself, but carefully, not all at once. And she had an update for me. She's still not throwing successful parties, but she said something seems to be shifting. Her social calendar feels less anemic. She said just that week, on three separate occasions, it was her making the excuses for why she couldn't find time. My kid got a cold and I had to be the person, oh, my kid got sick, like I can't, and it was true, like I wasn't making it up, but it's like, I never thought I would be the person canceling.

47:50Like I used to be the person where it's like, unless there's a medical emergency, I will do anything to get someone to hang out with me because I just have so few opportunities. And this week I was like, you know what? I actually can postpone things, which did give me some insight into why people's setups cancel on me. Like, maybe it isn't always me. Like, maybe they actually are busy and people are just busier than I am. And this new social success Claire is having, she attributes it to the strategy she's followed, toning down the louder parts of her personality. I can't be that person with people I'm just meeting.

48:21I can't go up to a mom at the park and be like, want to hear my Trump impression. Like, 1 % chance she wants to hear it, you know? Um, so that's just, you know, how it is. And so even though it is a little phony, it's a temporary stage where eventually I do slowly sort of drop the mask and like people get to know me and, you know, I get them nice and comfortable. And then I'm like, oh, I'm doing Trump impressions.

48:49Actually, this one couple had us over for dinner and I did the Trump impression and we have not heard from them since. So listening and learning, they say that they are very busy with travel sports, which I'm told is a real thing. So I don't want to discount it. But the travel sports appeared to have begun after your favorite president made the... So it is.

49:20Claire Haber-Harris. If you'd like to come to the party she throws every week on the internet, you can find her at Cartoons Hate Her. I say this with all admiration, it's a super weird hang. Not for everyone.

49:45Thank you.

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53:25Search Engine is a presentation of Odyssey. It was created by me, PJ Vogt, and Shruthi Pinamineni. Garrett Graham is our senior producer. Emily Malterra is our associate producer. Our production intern is Piper Dumont. Theme, original composition, and mixing by Armin Vazarian. Fact-checking this week by Natsumi Ajisaka. Our executive producer is Leah Reese-Dennis. Thanks to the rest of the team at Odyssey. Rob Mirandy, Craig Cox, Eric Donnelly, Colin Gaynor, Maura Curran, Josephina Francis, Kurt Courtney, and Hilary Schaub. If you have a business and would like to advertise on Search Engine, please email us, pjvote85 at gmail.com, subject line, advertising.

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54:37Thank you.