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I don't understand... Why are people acting like cooking for your friends and family is a super formal thing?

• dagw 9y ago
  Cooking for your friends and family obviously isn't formal thing at all, but hosting a dinner party is something else. A "Dinner Party" is a specific type of event expected to have a certain theme and structure that makes it different and more formal from just having some people over for dinner. Of course it doesn't have to be super formal, but certainly more formal than having a few mates over for some food and a few beers.
  • Tenhundfeld 9y ago
    I'm curious what you consider the specific attributes that are required to turn "cooking for your friends and family" into "hosting a dinner party." IMO, they're both variations on communal in-home dining, but I can see how they fall at different ends of a spectrum. Cooking for a large family gathering doesn't feel like a "dinner party;" that's just family dinner. Whereas inviting 10 (relative) strangers to dinner feels like a dinner party. But then there's a whole gray area in the middle where I'm not sure. For example, I cook family dinner on Sunday for 4-8 family members in the area, and I sometimes invite a neighbor family or a few friends over to join that meal. Does inviting the non-family people turn it into a dinner party? I don't know. It kind of feels like one. A lot of people who don't know each other well (or at all) and don't normally eat together are sharing a meal, some drinks, some stories. If that's not a "dinner party", what other attributes would need to be present to turn it into a dinner party?
    • goialoq 9y ago
      A dinner party requires a heaping helping of pretension.