{"id":1035,"date":"2015-10-12T12:07:39","date_gmt":"2015-10-12T16:07:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/?p=1035"},"modified":"2015-10-12T16:08:24","modified_gmt":"2015-10-12T20:08:24","slug":"6-helpful-tips-surviving-party","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/6-helpful-tips-surviving-party\/","title":{"rendered":"6 Helpful Tips for Surviving a Party"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em><a href=\"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/SurvivingParty.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-1036 size-large\" title=\"6 Helpful Tips for Surviving a Party\" src=\"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/SurvivingParty-682x1024.jpg\" alt=\"Robin Botie of Ithaca, New York, photographs an apple cider pressing party.\" width=\"625\" height=\"938\" srcset=\"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/SurvivingParty-682x1024.jpg 682w, https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/SurvivingParty-768x1153.jpg 768w, https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/SurvivingParty-200x300.jpg 200w, https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/SurvivingParty-624x937.jpg 624w, https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/SurvivingParty.jpg 1066w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 625px) 100vw, 625px\" \/><\/a><\/em>My best friend\u2019s annual cider party was taking place on Sunday afternoon. All week she\u2019d been cooking and preparing for it. There would be five fabulous <a href=\"http:\/\/www.fingerlakesfeasting.com\" target=\"_blank\">Finger Lakes Feasting<\/a> soups. There would be cheeses, homemade cookies, and lots of apples to hand- press into cider. This was an event my children and I always looked forward to each October. Indeed, my grown son would be showing up for it this year. So a part of me really wanted to be there.<\/p>\n<p>But I hate parties. I\u2019m not good at small talk. Going alone to a party takes more courage than I can usually muster. And I never know who or what I\u2019ll meet up with that could trigger an unattractive emotional meltdown. A thousand reasons have stopped me from attending joyous events in the past. <em>I\u2019ll go for a short while, just to make an appearance<\/em>, I told myself this time.<\/p>\n<p>So here are my 6 tips for how to survive a party when you\u2019re alone, shy, grieving, or simply a perpetual party pooper:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Pretend you\u2019re the maid. If you can\u2019t be sociable, be helpful. Serve food or wash dishes. A really brilliant idea is to bring something that needs to be cut up or prepared, so you can be there busy, with a purpose.<\/li>\n<li>Hang out by the food and reward yourself for showing up. Since it may be the last party you ever go to, you might as well enjoy the fixings.<\/li>\n<li>Walk around pretending you\u2019re looking for someone. Find another shy, solo guest and ask if he\u2019s got any pets.<\/li>\n<li>Take the resident dog for a walk around the block.<\/li>\n<li>Check the messages on your cellphone and then, in a not-too-inconspicuous corner, in a posture that conveys cool indifference to the surrounding scene, make your weekly call to your mother.<\/li>\n<li>Pretend you\u2019ve been hired to take photographs.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>At the party on Sunday, by the time I did everything on this list, I\u2019d overeaten, used up the battery on my camera, and hit my head on the cider press in the process of being helpful. But I ended up staying for the after-party, which is really the best part of any party anyway, when only the family and closest friends sit back with full bellies around a campfire, gaze at the stars, and tell stories about animal encounters and food.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em>Got any other ideas? Please share.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>My best friend&rsquo;s annual cider party was taking place on Sunday afternoon. All week she&rsquo;d been cooking and preparing for it. There would be five fabulous Finger Lakes Feasting soups. There would be cheeses, homemade cookies, and lots of apples to hand- press into cider. This was an event my children and I always looked [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[374],"tags":[638,637,635,633,634,636],"class_list":["post-1035","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-374","tag-6-helpful-tips-for-surviving-a-party","tag-after-party","tag-anxious-about-attending-a-party","tag-apple-cider-pressing","tag-how-to-survive-a-party-alone","tag-i-hate-parties"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1035","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1035"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1035\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}