Dinner Party Etiquette 101

Dinner guests from left: Birthday Boy, Meatball, Innocent bystander, sexter, frazzled hostess, horrible storyteller, over-powered in the element of surprise, head chef, and birthday boy's best friend.

Last night I threw my first dinner party, and it's safe to say we all learned a little something. First and foremost, I'm never throwing another dinner party until everyone is of legal drinking age. Also, gender balance is important, and I'm never throwing another "surprise" party again.

The gender imbalance played a crucial role in the failure of the surprise element of the night. The one female who wasn't in the kitchen at the time of birthday boy's entrance was overpowered by the idea of six males who thought the most surprising surprise would be no surprise at all.

Let me paint a picture for you: five boys (minus the best friend of the surprisee who was 20 minutes late) and one girl are hiding behind my deck. When I sent the surprisee outside to "get something" from the dinner table set for nine, they were supposed to jump out and surprise him. This moment did not occur. Since the party missed this cue, the consensus was that instead, they should all quietly sneak to their places at the table and wait until he saw them through the sliding-glass door. This moment of discovery was so anti-climactic I actually yelled "surprise" myself. Not very exciting at that point, I'm sure.

As for the first lesson, people are awkward at dinner parties. Especially people who all view themselves as somewhat witty. When words are flying around, some people (i.e. me) are easily offended. Dinner guests (i.e. high school boys) who are yet to understand the rules about talking trash about their hosts clearly do not belong at a table. This would have been fine if we weren't all so on edge. And so it goes...

Back to the importance of gender balance. Only 33% of those at the table were female, and this caused some interesting monopolization of conversation. For instance, the dinner guest to my left told a "joke" with a 15 minute set-up, and no punch line. Unacceptable.

Also during this "joke", the birthday boy took to playing a competitive game of Scrabble on his iPhone with someone not even at the table. The man to the right of me simultaneously started sexting, while the rest of us fought over the assortment of cupcakes. (Next time, all one flavor).

I responded to all of this by noticing that this dinner turned out worse than "that one episode of Real Housewives of Beverly Hills". What...an observation.

On that note, it is of utmost importance to recognize my own failures as hostess. Case in point, the following conversation:

Me: Yeah, that other meatball on Jersey Shore. The one who isn't Snooki. Who is that?

JPK: Deena.

Me: Haha. Takes one to know one.

What was going through my mind, I'm not sure. The choking aroma of failed wit and successful insult in the air briefly cut the cord between my brain and mouth. To be clear, I am very fond of the man I inadvertently called a meatball, and we discussed my affection towards him while he graciously helped me clean up. I still feel awful, though, which is no note to end a dinner party on.

Hopefully my pitfalls will be a fair warning to anyone who chooses to throw a dinner party in the future. And in my opinion, nothing should be a surprise, ever. Turns out I hate making them happen as much as I hate them happening to me.

On a side note: make sure your head chef likes to read the directions before three people simultaneously attempt to prepare a meal. I have no idea why there were onions in the macaroni and cheese, but the chicken was referred to as "90% water" once the word moist was voted out of dinner conversation.