{"id":197,"date":"2026-05-31T12:46:31","date_gmt":"2026-05-31T12:46:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=197"},"modified":"2026-05-31T12:46:31","modified_gmt":"2026-05-31T12:46:31","slug":"have-people-over","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=197","title":{"rendered":"Have People Over!"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

The nation\u2019s welcome mats<\/span> have been doing a lot less welcoming lately. Although Americans have been spending much more time at home in recent years\u2014an hour and 39 minutes in 2022 than in 2003\u2014they aren\u2019t inviting other people in. The percentage of people who hosted or attended a social event on an average day has fallen by 50 percent over the past couple of decades. Socializing of any kind declined over that same period, and isolation rose. These days, it seems, home is where people go to be alone.<\/p>\n

Read more Los Angeles Voters Have No Good Option<\/a><\/p>\n

According to a report from the American Psychological Association, more than half of Americans often or sometimes feel isolated from others. Yet they have also been feeling more stressed in recent years, and when people are stressed, the APA report found, a common reaction is to cancel social plans.<\/p>\n

All of these stats paint a picture of a nation full of tense, isolated individuals hunkering down at home because the idea of, say, going to a party\u2014let alone throwing one\u2014seems too daunting. Cue the novelty T-shirts that say things like Sorry I\u2019m late, I didn\u2019t want to come<\/em>, or \u2026 And this is why I wanted to stay home. All this right here.<\/em> Also cue the John Mulaney line about how canceling plans is like heroin: \u201cIt is an amazing feeling.\u201d<\/p>\n

But when people trade social time for me time, they are sacrificing what research has found is the No. 1 predictor of a happy life: relationships. So what should you do when you\u2019re missing your friends but you\u2019re totally exhausted? You could force yourself to go out more. Or you could radically readjust your expectations. Just have people over! If you want to be at home anyway\u2014and apparently many people do\u2014why not invite some friends to pop by? Don\u2019t make it a big deal. They can just join in whatever you were going to do anyway: watch TV, play with the kids, eat a Trader Joe\u2019s frozen dinner. Fold clothes? Why not?<\/p>\n

Low-stakes visits make maintaining a social life much easier. But if the casual visit is going to really take off, a couple of attitudes will need to change. One is the widespread sense that homes are sanctuaries reserved for oneself and one\u2019s immediate family. The other is the pressure that many people feel, when they do <\/em>host, to be at their very best. Fix those instincts, and hanging out might yet make a comeback.<\/p>\n

Is a home<\/span> a retreat from the outside world or a gathering place that invites others in? Ideally, it would be both. But many Americans have come to treat their home as a private fortress. One turn toward the private happened in the mid-20th century, when the front porch, an essential part of 19th-century homes, fell out of favor, and homebuyers began to clamor instead for the more private spaces of patios and backyards. More recently, the desire for security features such as video doorbells and burglar alarms has helped make homes seem less welcoming to outsiders. And during the coronavirus pandemic, many people had no choice but to stay home\u2014a habit that has lingered like a pile of laundry you just can\u2019t bring yourself to put away.<\/p>\n

American houses certainly have room<\/em> for friends to drop by. The average home size in the United States is among the biggest in the world, comparable only to the size of homes in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. And a report from Realtor.com found that the number of empty bedrooms in U.S. homes was higher in 2023 than at any point since 1970\u2014plenty of space for an impromptu Scrabble round (and a sleepover if it goes late). Kate Fox, a librarian at the Rhode Island School of Design who worked on a traveling Smithsonian exhibit about the rise of backyards, told me she sees a \u201chuge gap\u201d between a home \u201cas this very aspirational social space, but then how it\u2019s actually used is really different than how it\u2019s designed.\u201d (Seemingly every person on House Hunters<\/em> yearns for an open-plan kitchen that\u2019s \u201cperfect for entertaining.\u201d)<\/p>\n

Not even the wealthiest people with the biggest houses appear to be immune to this disconnect. In 2021, Mark Ellwood wrote for the luxury lifestyle magazine Robb Report<\/em> about visitor-discouraging design choices the rich were making for their homes\u2014things such as installing long driveways and eliminating doorbells. Ellwood diagnosed them with \u201cBig House Small Welcome Syndrome.\u201d<\/p>\n

All of that space, so rarely shared. Further compounding the sense that homes are primarily places of refuge, many people in the media\u2014both social and traditional\u2014now celebrate staying home alone as a form of self-care. But socializing can be replenishing too\u2014especially the kind done in homey comfort. \u201cYes, the home can be a zone of privacy, and it can be a zone to recharge individually,\u201d Chelsea Fagan, the author of the hosting guide Having People Over<\/em>, told me. \u201cBut it is also, I don\u2019t think, in any way correct or superior to view the home as, first and foremost, a center for privacy and isolation.\u201d Doors are meant to be opened from time to time.<\/p>\n

Even those who want<\/span> to host may find themselves intimidated by the prospect. It can feel like just one more thing on their to-do list. Or many things: clean the kitchen, restock the toilet paper, email the invites, build a menu, send someone out to get ice at the last minute.<\/p>\n

Read more The Scariest Monster on Broadway<\/a><\/p>\n

It\u2019s true that just having people over requires a nonzero amount of effort. When I was a kid, if I wanted to invite my friends to my house, I had to clean it first. The belief that our home has to be \u201cpresentable\u201d for \u201ccompany\u201d seems to haunt many people. Whenever I\u2019m hosting a big party, it possesses me like a demon, and the demon makes me do things such as yell at my husband about how we don\u2019t own enough bowls, we never have, and soon everyone will know us for the bowl-less losers that we are.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t do this. In fact, don\u2019t make hosting complicated at all.<\/p>\n

Arranging everything just so<\/em> is ostensibly an act of service to your guests, to make them feel comfortable and cared for. But the pre-company cleaning frenzy is often mainly about the host, their own ego, and their own fears, Jack King, an Anglican priest, told me. \u201cIs this actually about me? So they can see our home looking well, and they come away saying, \u2018Oh, that was great, the Kings\u2019 home was so lovely\u2019?\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s not why we did this.\u201d More than 10 years ago, King wrote a blog post advocating for lowering the standard of preparation and embracing \u201cscruffy hospitality,\u201d a term that has since been taken up by many others. \u201cHospitality is not a house inspection, it\u2019s friendship,\u201d he wrote. The casual visit is scruffy hospitality par excellence. It makes socializing less of an event, and more just part of life.<\/p>\n

Fagan seems to be of two minds about this. Although her book is full of tips for hosting with more <\/em>care, not less, and keeping a tidy space ready for guests to drop by, it also argues for \u201csharing the intimate, beautiful tedium of your life.\u201d When we spoke, she told me that her \u201coptimal level of connection\u201d looks a lot like scruffy hospitality, where \u201cyou don\u2019t have to do anything in order to enjoy each other\u2019s company.\u201d But, she said, it takes a bit more formality and effort to become<\/em> intimate with new friends in the first place. I\u2019ve found that to be true: A gathering of acquaintances can still send me into a bowl-seeking spiral. But reaching the level of intimacy where I can just announce to my closest friends that I\u2019m not going to clean up for them brings a lot of relief.<\/p>\n

King told me that if he were to update his hospitality post for today, he would add the word spontaneous<\/em>. A barrier to socializing that he\u2019s noticed in the years since he first wrote it is \u201cthe congestion of the calendar.\u201d Many parents like him have lives that revolve around highly scheduled and organized kids\u2019 activities. And, kids or no kids, he\u2019s noticed that \u201cit\u2019s taboo to ask somebody on the spot to get together.\u201d The norm of planning a hangout is too often a long, soul-sucking scheduling thread.<\/p>\n

In his original post, King suggested that readers ask themselves the question: \u201cWhat does it look like to welcome people into my humility rather than my standard of excellence?\u201d<\/p>\n

For me, it looks like regularly asking friends whether they want to come over tonight, or tomorrow, and not minding if the answer is no\u2014because I didn\u2019t put much effort into planning anyway. It looks like dragging out whatever random snacks are already in the cupboard rather than feeling pressure to curate a menu. And, because fair is fair, it looks like sometimes going to my friends\u2019 houses to sit on their <\/em>couches in my sweatpants. Lowering expectations can feel vulnerable, but vulnerability builds closeness.<\/p>\n

Welcoming someone into the real, lived-in state of your home gives them permission to worry less about their own imperfections. The same goes for welcoming people into your life: Open the door, and don\u2019t mind the mess.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

When you buy a book using a link on this page, we receive a commission. Thank you for supporting<\/em> The Atlantic.<\/em><\/p>\n

Read more The Hardest Things to Say to One Another<\/a><\/p>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The case for a lower-stakes social life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":196,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-197","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-family"],"yoast_head":"\nHave People Over! - Commercial Relocation Pros<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=197\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Have People Over! - Commercial Relocation Pros\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The case for a lower-stakes social life.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=197\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Commercial Relocation Pros\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-05-31T12:46:31+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"8 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=197#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=197\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"admin\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/3a3374a445f1b5d4852b1d7c15b9fe3a\"},\"headline\":\"Have People Over!\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-05-31T12:46:31+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=197\"},\"wordCount\":1626,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=197#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/05\\\/ec1d106b6311f685fbd29da55b48fa22.avif\",\"articleSection\":[\"Family\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=197#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=197\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=197\",\"name\":\"Have People Over! 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