From picking your guests (always add a random) and your outfit, to coping with drunks and nudity, this is what you need to know
When I was young, I thought the worst thing you could do, as a host, was to run out of booze. Then, when I was less young, I thought it was to not have enough food, and now I am perfectly wise, I know that those things don’t matter at all, because you can always go to the shop. The important thing is not to look harried, and to not look that way, you need to not be that way.
It’s a psychodynamically interesting thing, to invite people into your home: intimate and familial; generous – your friends will want to repay that by making you happy, and if you’re stressed instead, they’ll leave with an inchoate sense of guilt and discomfort. Every catering decision, guest list and to-do list should be made with this at the front of your mind: am I the kind of person who can put the finishing touches on a croquembouche and chat about Dolly Parton at the same time? Am I going to spend the whole night man-marking that friend who goes back a long way but now has some dicey views about 5G and Albanians? Do I absolutely need to clean the skirting boards?
Some absolute basics: you can be a bad guest even if you don’t go, by texting 20 minutes ahead and saying you can’t make it. Never do this. Cancel a week ahead, or apologise the next day. I read once that you should never arrive with flowers; send them earlier in the day. That sounds like the kind of thing posh people do, but iIt’s good not to arrive with something that immediately creates a task. Only bring flowers to someone you know well enough that you can find a vase and sort it yourself. I have a friend who arrives everywhere with a big bag of ice, which is weirdly useful and also, an icebreaker. You just go, “Look, ice!”
