The Little Arts are Where It's At: Five Ways to be a Good Host
It's the holiday season. You're probably gonna haffta host something. Here are five tips (yeah, I know I list six, but one of them is so stupid, I only include it because the source material does; plus, it provided me with the funniest parenthetical in the piece)
I’m an introvert, not a prick (probably).
Incessant small talk drains me like a deposed Nigerian prince drains your checking account after you click that link to help him in exchange for $500,000 that will be delivered to you five days after he lands in NYC. After my last dollar of energy is gone, I ghost, later texting my host an apology, saying I had to leave suddenly because my mom died again.
The righteous host tries to get in front of all that.
Righteous hosting is a small art: something worth doing for its own sake that requires the practitioner to shift focus from herself to the canvas in front of her: to the room, to her guests.
If you want to be a good host, here are tips:
- Plan Ahead–But Stay Flexible
Three facts: (1) the left hemisphere plans, (2) things never go according to plan, (3) the left hemisphere then gets really irritated. Keep the left hemisphere on a short leash: enough to do its job but not enough to strangle your soul.
This isn’t just a hosting tip, it’s a life lesson.
- Signal Small Ways to Tell the Guests They’re Welcomed
People are tactile. No one feels comfortable in a white box. Add decorations that fit the occasion, play appropriate background music (keep Frank Zappa in the cassette tape case). Even if you can’t understand how tactile additions enhance, they do.
- Welcome Each Person
Your “guests” are an abstraction. Each person is a reality. Focus on the reality. And if she’s super hot, don’t leer.
- Anticipate Needs Before They’re Voiced
Somewhere between the big box worker who assiduously avoids eye contact for fear you’ll ask where you can find the Cheerios and the neurotic host who pounces with an offer of assistance every time you adjust yourself, there’s Aristotle’s golden mean of helpfulness. Find it.
- Invite Guests to Join In
I’m including this tip because the linked article does, but I don’t get it. It suggests that the host give guests jobs to do, like “taste the sauce” (a request, to my sensory proclivities, that’s barely better than the pig frat boy sticking his hand in my face and saying, “Smell my fingers”). I don’t think it should be incumbent on the host to find work for you. As a decent guest, notice small things that need to be done and do them.
I move on.
- Guide the Flow–And Stay Present
The unhelpfulness of this tip ranks right up there with a coach’s advice to “go out there and win the game,” but it is a decent reminder: everything, including a simple party, is flow, and flow can only be appreciated in the present. A good host works the room like a coach makes big and small adjustments every minute of the game.
It’s All about Proper-Functioning Hemispheres
The first tip isn’t the only one that requires proper interaction between your brain’s hemispheres. All of them do. The left hemisphere channeling Martha; the right hemisphere, Mary. We can snicker at dogged Martha doing all the work, but without her, the guests walk into a lousy party.
And if Martha runs amok, the guests walk out of a lousy party.