You're Invited

A love letter to house parties.

To know me is to know I love a house party. I love hosting them, I love attending them, I love cleaning up after them. I love the endless possibilities that come with ringing the buzzer of the host, waiting on their stoop to be invited upstairs, and immersing yourself in their world for at least a few hours. The difference between a house party and a bar is that you will probably have the same experience at the bar each time you go, but no two house parties are the same. I mean really, if I went to—let’s say—Ray’s next week, I guarantee it would be the same experience as the last time I was there several months ago. What’s fun about that?

I think my love for the house party started in middle school—it was the time when “Party at a Rich Dude’s House” by Kesha and “Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F)” by Katy Perry were played on the radio. The time of paparazzi-splattered tabloids of Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton leaving parties, mascara smeared under their eyes, purses wide open, hair unkempt. Although I was not yet even thirteen, I dreamed of going to parties where I would meet cool, creative people and have my photo taken by the Cobrasnake. Ha.

This love for house parties continued into high school. If someone was having a party, I wanted to be there, and if no one was volunteering to drive my friends, I was. I recently realized that for most parties in high school, I was the designated driver—and I wouldn’t have it any other way. To be designated driver is somewhat valorous. To curate the perfect musical queue for the drive is ceremonial. To be the person who got your friends out of there once your friend’s parents’ dining room table collapsed is downright heroic. (Especially when you’re seventeen and your crush is sitting in the front seat.)

I was grateful to have gone to a college that thrived on house parties. From freshman to senior year, I created lasting memories of themed parties and date parties and formal parties and any-excuse-for-a-party parties. When the movie Birdbox starring Sandra Bullock came out, my housemates and I hosted a Birdbox-themed party in which we invited people through word-of-mouth and required everyone to show up wearing a blindfold. Who does that????

On Thursdays of my senior year, much of my grade was enthralled by the idea of a self-inflicted “30-for-30” challenge—going to the same bar near our campus, thirty Thursdays in a row, for all of senior year. I stayed home 27 out of those 30 Thursdays. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not above going to the bar, especially when there’s a competition involved; but when week 5 hit and everyone was jealous that I was staying in, I knew I had made the right decision. There’s nothing spectacular about paying $12 for a watered-down vodka soda every Thursday for 30 weeks, but there is an undeniable allure in the mystery that shrouds the events of a house party.

When COVID eventually hit, bars shut down. We all graduated without finishing the 30-for-30 challenge, and it was soon time to move to Big Cities With 25-Dollar Drink Menus In Loud Establishments That Have Dirty Bathrooms. I dreaded this, as I was never one who enjoyed going out and spending money like this, but I was excited by the possibility of moving into an apartment with my best friend Anne Jennings who thrives on house parties as much as I do. It was Summer 2020 and we were in her parents’ kitchen of their beach house, all dressed in old-fashioned, all-white croquet attire because Anne and I told everyone that was the theme for the evening. James Jennings, who only ever wears black, had no choice but to go along with this theme, and it was he who made me realize in that moment that something bigger was about to happen when Anne and I moved to the city. “Wait,” he said, “you guys are literally going to throw such good parties when you move to New York.”

Anne and I ended up moving to the city later that year, into a magic apartment on the corner of West 11th and Bleecker. Hundreds of people came through that apartment in the 1.5 years that we lived there, and anyone who did can tell you it was special.

In early 2021, the bars in New York still were under Covid restrictions and weren’t yet back to normal. Anne and I started inviting people over on Saturdays just to see who would show up. It started out as a few friends—maybe some family—coming to hang out in our living room, not staying too long, popping in and out as the night went on. Anne and I called this office hours, a fitting name.

As the months went on and the weather got warmer, going to bars became more common, but Anne and I continued hosting “office hours” on Saturdays. By the time it was Anne’s birthday in late April 2021, we had at least 70 people in our apartment during the peak of our party that week. You would’ve sworn the walls had expanded—West Village apartments in pre-war buildings aren’t that big, even when you have a Covid deal. We were starting to meet people and make friends at our own parties. It was special. In a way, it felt safe. I would have friends telling me how comfortable they felt meeting people at our parties as opposed to meeting people at bars. It was a time when we were getting reacquainted with social interaction, and having a weekly party was our way of easing into this.

Naturally, the cadence of the parties became more spread out once life returned to normal, but we continued to host any chance we got. We had to leave that apartment in May 2022 when they increased the rent by 43% (naturally), and we were still finding silver confetti from one of our parties in between the floorboards on the day we moved out.

Although Anne and I live separately now (we tell people we’ve expanded to two properties—Anne is the Jerry to my Elaine), I continue to have parties any chance I get. Most recently, I had an “October party” that was not a Halloween party. I received feedback last year that not everyone likes Halloween as much as I do (couldn’t believe it), and I listened to this feedback. I’m not going to force you to dress up for Halloween, but I am going to encourage you to wear all black for an October party.

The morning of the party, I considered canceling because I didn’t know if anyone was coming. One thing about me is that I’m against this “Partiful” invitation service we’ve all been using. Partiful allows you to see who else is attending the party once you’ve RSVPed, and I think that’s No Fun. Who wants to know that their enemy or their crush or their friend’s boyfriend that they hate is going to be there? It’s supposed to be a surprise! When friends ask me if I have any cute single friends coming to my party, my response is always “I don’t know” because I literally don’t know who’s coming. I’m anti-Partiful. (April 2024 Edit: That ended up being the best party I’ve had to date, according to my friends. And to think I almost canceled…)

I think I will love house parties forever. I think that’s totally acceptable. Last December, my friend JC Evans brought me as his plus-one to his boss’ annual holiday party at his apartment after his original plus-one canceled. I was immediately up for it—as I’ve said, I love a house party. JC explained that he would have to talk to a few people from work during the party, so he apologized in advance if I got lost in the shuffle. I think he was surprised to find that by the end of the party, I couldn’t be pulled away from the conversation I was having with a 40-something woman from the music industry about the attention span of many Gen Z consumers and their inability to listen to full songs compared to the generations before them. I think I offered to babysit that woman’s kids.

My point is, no matter how old you are, you’re never too old for a party. You might feel too old for a specific bar or club, but who you invite into your home is up to you (or it isn’t). That’s the magic of a house party!

Recently, after a Pilates class, someone approached me as I was putting my shoes on and said, “Are you Angelina? I met you at your birthday party!”

At a Halloween party last weekend, I introduced myself to a girl who replied, “Oh! I think I’ve been to one of your parties!”

Whenever someone asks me and my close friend Conor Gilroy how we met, he excitedly replies, “I met her at one of her parties!!!”

If you’re reading this, you’re invited.

Photo by me — my apartment, May 2023

Photo by the Cobrasnake — We Take Manhattan, June 2023. A party that feels like a house party.