I went to a Parisian dinner party yesterday. Here's what I noticed.

another unscientific study

• Nobody - and I really mean nobody - arrived on time. Also, no one acknowledged arriving late. Both things were treated as completely normal, and they were.

• The apartment was beautiful and almost looked accidental, even tho I know it wasn’t. One perfect vintage tiffany lamp. Books that have been open, read, annotated, shared. Nothing that look liked it had ben bought as a set.

• Someone’s very hot boyfriend sat slightly outside the group in a way that suggests he’d been brought way too soon. He was very hot but it didn’t help.

• Someone brought a really really good bottle of wine and mentioned it was really really good exactly once. Those who got it got it and the people who didn’t were not informed.

• The host cooked something that looked so simple yet wasn’t. When the girl next to me asked for the recipe, he gave it to her but you could tell left one thing out.

• At least three conversations happened simultaneously at a table of ten. Nobody found it rude. I think it was more intimate than if we’d all talked together.

• The wine was opened without ceremony and discussed without pretension. Nobody performed their knowledge, and I fear this is rarer than it sounds.

• There were also two people who clearly used to date. Everyone knew and nobody said anything.

• A woman arrived later in an outfit that should have been too much for a Tuesday dinner and immediately made us feel underdressed. She ate the most and spoke the least. Most interesting person there.

• There was a point in the evening where everyone’s real opinions came out. Not about politics, but about people; mutual acquaintances, who had changed, who hadn’t and who was making a mistake they couldn’t be told about yet.

• Another girl spent at least 20 min in the kitchen with the host helping him with nothing in particular. I think they had the most important and interesting conversation of the evening and everything happened entirely out of earshot.

• Cheese was served at the PERFECT moment. You may think this sounds small but it really isn’t.

• Someone left early with an excuse that was technically plausible but we all knew wasn’t true. Nobody pushed back and we all respected it. This is a social skill I’m still developing.

• A woman laughed at almost everything but revealed nothing in substance about her. It was charming in a way that felt faintly like a security system.

• By midnight, the table looked like a still life. Empty glasses, a candle that had burned all the way down with a new one stuck on top of her, bread that nobody finished but nobody threw away. The kind of mess that only happened when an evening has actually worked.

• Two people who’d just met decided they were now best friends by the second glass of wine. By the fourth they were making plans. I don’t know if the plans will happen but the feeling was real.

• Another girl who’d clearly had a difficult weekend and has decided, somewhere between leaving work and arriving here, that tonight she was fine. She was very committed to the bit and by midnight it was almost true.

• Almost nobody looked at their phone at the table (except one guy who got an important work call but that’s fine). I don’t think it was because we’d agreed not to, just because the evening didn’t allow for it. This is by far the highest compliment a dinner party can receive.

• I left knowing more about these people than I had three hours earlier and somehow also feeling like I’d only scratched the surface. That specific feeling is exactly why I keep going to dinner parties even when i’m tired or if I got an early morning the next day.

The best dinner parties always end with you wanting one more hour. I’m so curious did you have one recently that felt like that??

I walked home thinking I should say yes to these invitations more. Then remembered I’d been saying that after every dinner party for the last three years.

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