Hosting for Emerging Adults
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What is an Emerging Adult?
“Emerging Adulthood is a term used to describe a period of development spanning from about ages 18 to 29, experienced by most people in their twenties in Westernized cultures and perhaps in other parts of the world as well. It was initially defined by Jeffrey Jensen Arnett, PhD from Clark University in 2000.” (Source) To me it seems like a better formalization of the idea of your “20s”. It is a time where you are forging independence and your identity (hopefully) outside of institutions like school and family. There are so many possibilities for you, but that means that for each decision you make there is an associated potentially large opportunity cost.
A big theme of Emerging Adulthood, in my opinion, is about finding community and making new friends while also maintaining existing ones.
Why Host?
- You can foster connection between new people and mix friend groups
- You can see people and spend time with them at scale instead of hanging out individually
- You get to create and attend the kind of events that you like
You can read about some of these points more in depth in Personal Community Building Anthology that I wrote.
Hosting a skill that not everyone has natural aptitude for, but I think that it is still something that everyone can do to some degree of proficiency.
How to Host
As the host you should be facilitating a welcoming environment that enables people to meet new people and connect with them. Simply throwing people in a room will not always yield the results you want. Instead if you create structure or scaffolding like introductions, icebreakers, activities, or something of that nature, your guests will be able to better participate.
What Should I Host?
Each friend group/community is different, but I surveyed my own friends about what kind of events they would want to go to:
You can either work off of the survey that I ran or make your own! I think that generally I found that people are pretty open to all kinds of events as long as they seem fun and like they’ll be able to meet new people and experience new/different things.
Sources/Further Reading
How to be a Good Guest
Guest etiquette is something that is usually unspoken or at the very least something that was only taught to you by your parents. So if you didn’t have parents that hosted things/had lots of friends who were hosting, you probably didn’t get a lot of formal education on how to be a good guest at an event.
If the event is free because it is coming out of the host’s pockets, bring them a gift that they would appreciate that comes close to the value that they are providing.
If the event is free and truly free, I personally don’t think you have to bring a gift, but maybe bring something that could be shared among the guests.
Don’t just talk to the people you know, try to make small talk with new people. If you are scared, try to ask the host to make introductions to people they think you would particularly get along with.
Say thank you during and after the event. This is how you get invited back to things!