There's a few problems, at least in the US:

1. Hyper-perfect social media / television setting "the best" expectations for an event.

2. Decreased knowledge of how to host a gathering. It's not rocket science, but throwing one the first time can seem daunting. And throwing one well does take skill. E.g. icebreakers, identifying and facilitating the right introductions by highlighting mutual interests, making sure wallflowers have a good time, defusing tensions, food, etc.

3. Decreased American tolerance for and ability to handle awkwardness, and there's always going to be some awkwardness in social interactions.

4. Decreased public/accessible American meeting places. There used to (< 2000) be a plethora of low-cost, broadly-accessible spaces that could serve as training wheels for events (handling food, furnishings, cleaning, etc). They've essentially all been privatized, commercialized, and optimized to turn seats -- think real coffee shops disappearing in favor of Starbucks.

This. My wife and I built our social life when we moved countries, and we had a group of friends that we'd meet every week or two. But only when we invited them. No-one else in the group ever organised anything. It got really tiring. We could not get anyone else to organise a meet, they always had reasons why they couldn't organise one (but could turn up to it fine). We tried a bunch of things, but nothing worked - if we didn't organise it, it didn't happen. We ended up moving away and the whole social group collapsed and stopped meeting.

You'll need to get over the idea of this being a shared load.

Every community has one or two people that are "the engine" and constantly keep people reconnecting. Has nothing to do with social media, or Covid - it's always been the case as far as I can think back (and that's the early 80's)

Yes, you can push and prod people to occasionally host, but that's also a ton of work.

Exactly why my parents stopped hosting dinner and cocktail parties. Nobody ever reciprocated, it was a lot of work, and eventually they just stopped.

The lack of reciprocation is a tough one. I think it also helps sometimes to understand that not everyone is good at being the mother goose or the facilitator, especially if someone else is already good at doing it, and it's not because they lack interest or don't care.

I have some friends who very easily lose themselves in their work and the stress around it and if I wasn't the one checking in and basically pulling them away, I'd miss out on what are easily my favourite days out and it has no impact on how much we enjoy each other's company. Maybe one day it changes but until then I'm there for them.

That said, there are of course times where it's better to just let go. But those people were probably never that important to you in the first place.

>In my experience, the problem is not a low success rate, but the burnout from being the only person that invites people to do things.

This is what mostly happened with me, I just got burned out from always having to be the one to organise everything or nothing would happen, which is what ended up happening after I stopped, we just stopped meeting up and eventually grew completely apart.

Now, I'm in a completely different country and I don't even have anyone's contacts anymore. But that's been life for me, people come and people go, never to stay.

I've accepted it by now, it can still hurt from time to time, but it is what it is, one should not force their will onto others, I believe.

It’s easy to find reasons to talk yourself out of action. Maybe you’ll get burned out, maybe you won’t. But if you never try you’ll never know. And you’ll definitely miss out on something special

try and build "the community" outside of the effort of one or a few people. This is hard. My example: we've built some quality dirt jumps for bike riders, and while there's a core group of ~10 people, you don't need all - or any - of them to come out for success. The location is the host and either a regularly scheduled or casual event keeps the community going. If people stop, the community will die and we'll move on.

I sometimes wonder about this, I have a friend who does most of the organizing for parties or whatever. My sense is that there are a few different kinds of people, among those are people who, if they didn't organize parties, there wouldn't really be much of a platform for hanging out for them and others like them, while others are completely isolated, don't organize and don't have any other third space, and others yet have many smaller interactions from many other parts of life that don't necessitate a larger meetup necessarily. If you're an "organizer" type, my guess is that the people you'd hope reciprocate fall into the latter camp; they're happy to show up and have a good time, but they probably have a bunch of other things to explore that for some reason they haven't felt you'd be into... or a bunch of other possible reasons. Asking them to host a party is asking them to fabricate a social setting from thin air, but maybe they just organically don't find that to be something they need to do.

For me, I'll host something for a small group if I get some inspiration, but on a week to week basis I'm often in extremely social third-spaces, supplemented by larger parties (probably bi-weekly). My effort is often best spent meeting people for deliberate, intimate, outdoor sports adventures or coffee hangouts, but the same person I know who tends to organize larger parties doesn't really feel like someone who'd be into these; they can't really hold a conversation 1 on 1 for very long, and they're not super curious or vulnerable or athletic in the way that's necessary to engage in those as much. He's a regimented, scheduled, impatient, person. They often need a sort of fabricated social vehicle (also likes to decorate and host), whereas I get nearly all of my socializing from incidentally being in social space.

I think it's fine to be either of course. It's ok that my organizer friend doesn't like heights, and so I won't invite him to climb mountains, he likes hosting parties, so I try to attend as many as I can.

Note that I don't mean the non-organizer (me) is just passively socializing, it's just that they have different catalysts built into the things they do that extend into socializing easily. I'm DMing 1 or 2 friends, multiple times a week, to do something we both enjoy or just chat while walking around the city. While parties and hosted things are neat, they're just not very good platforms for depth.

Just as well, I do try and be inviting to everyone who'd like to come out and do other things, in general it's important to reciprocate, but I'm not hosting a party just because someone else did.

> burnout from being the only person that invites people to do things

If you get burned out from being the nexus of your social circle, that sounds like a problem stemming from your success

I used to think that way. Then, divorce, custody battle and the dark abyss. No home, nobody to talk to; just silence, loneliness, general apathy of the world around you. It's the trap of the middle-aged man: to focus on work, invest in family, and hope these things will be a constant because you are doing the right thing. We don't have enough emotional bonds, don't know how to create them, and if the wife leaves and takes the kids, there's nothing left.

> socialization with my wife and kids

So you aren't one of the people that are lonely, because you have wife and kids

I’m also an introvert, I think, but I do feel I would be better off with more socialization than I’m getting.

Though, I’m also single, so, maybe I wouldn’t feel such a need if I were married? Idk.

Same lack of desire to go out and I don't even have wife and kids, or even friends for that matter; just one friend I see once a week. Whatever the appeal/reward of socialization is for most people, I don't get it.