Leaving Early with Sarah Wood

plus recreating the united nations at your dinner party

RS: Hello Harry! Though NMJC reader Faiq might be upset, I for one am very excited that our guest had a heavy sports weekend.

Faiq pleads with Harry to stop talking about sports

You could say I had a big sports week. Besides my usual shred sessions, I hit San Francisco’s rival swim clubs and the third space energy was off the charts. Everybody saying hi to each other, lots of idle intergenerational chatter, meeting friends of friends. A woman named Beth told us it was her 65th birthday, so she swam in her birthday suit. YKTV.

I always thought those people who hit the bay raw no wetsuit were crazy but it was actually pretty nice. Also you can go in the sauna right after. And Beth even invited us to their monthly BBQ which she claims gets pretty crazy. What’s not to like?

HK: Can I say something crazy about the manosphere that has always bugged me?

RS: Like Andrew Tate? Sure…

HK: Why don’t these YouTube alpha guys care about being good at sports. Manosphere guys are sooo obsessed about weird gender trad stuff but never are they like…it’s manly to have a nice handle or a balanced and athletic jump shot. They’re like “Men use to go to war” and i’m like dude…why don’t you try pickup basketball before you try WAR!!

The reason why, obviously, is that online alpha-male guys are bad at sports. Going to the gym is not a sport!!

In any case…I love sports…i’m happy our guest loves sports. This is also an excuse to share one of my favorite pieces of digital ephemera I have, which is a message board for a gym in Boston I used to play at debating if I was a good pick in their men’s league

RS: Idk man Andrew Tate was a pro athlete…

HK: I would destroy him in basketball

RS: I’m gonna introduce our guest…

Sarah Wood is a fellow newsletter writer, newly minted pillowcase entrepreneur, and former member of the sorority where NMJC’s very own Harry washed dishes! She’s also very good at interior design and was recently on Apartment Therapy. Helllooooo Sarah!

NMJC: Sarah, please share 3-6 photos that represent your weekend

NMJC: How did you hang out this weekend?

SW: This was a big activity weekend. Also it might be helpful for readers to know that I moved to Scotland four months ago.  

On Friday, I went to a birthday party for a girl I met at my run club that was Sports Day themed, which is the UK-version of elementary school Field Day. We did a three-legged race, an egg & spoon race, and a sack race with trash bags, and then I Irish-exited halfway through because I get overly competitive in these sorts of low stakes competitions and didn’t want to alienate my new friends of friends by taking it too seriously. 

On Saturday morning, my boyfriend Gustavo and I went to social tennis at our neighborhood tennis club, which sounds a lot more posh than it actually is, but I think maybe that’s just most things in the UK generally. Social tennis is the highlight of my week. It’s peak neighborhood vibes. The same twenty people rock up every weekend and it’s all ages, so there’s a mix between eighty years old and eight years old. Everyone knows each others’ names and we make idle chatter about the week. I just started learning tennis four weeks ago and I’m too bad at it to be competitive so that also helps. 

Gustavo and I got gelato after and then we chilled. 

On Sunday, we went to a bunch of charity shops to look for cheap squash rackets, because I’m trying to budget better and not buy expensive gear for things I’ve never done before/might never do again. (See the unused triathlon kit and swim cap in my underwear drawer) 

At night I went to a comedy show with my friend Alex because it’s Fringe in Edinburgh, which is a month-long festival with like 1,000 acts (I think? Need to confirm that number) with anything from comedy to cabaret. I got picked out of the crowd, which always happens to me, I think because I give off a “Pick on me” vibe and also make a lot of eye contact. 

RS: Sarah not to go Tangent Mode but I am very curious about these dinners you have been hosting. FAAS-y vibes but maybe intimate enough to avoid the pitfalls. What I need to know: what were the vibes of the people applying? And when 30 people apply for a 6-person dinner, what are your selection criteria? 

SW: Okay that’s a great question and also a question my boyfriend (and roommate) had because I was like hey babe I’m going to have literal strangers over for dinner every night for a month because I need to make friends. 

So one of the reasons why I think these dinners work (work loosely defined as have been fun and no serial killers have come over unknowingly) is because they are not meant to scale. I love that they are capped at six people, because its hyper intimacy means it filters out people who aren’t fully into it. If you apply, pay, and show up to a stranger’s house for a three hour dinner, you’re not going to half-do it. You’re there to play ball. 

In terms of filtering, it was pretty easy and I tried not to over-engineer it. First, I looked at the answers that people submitted. As background, to go to the dinners, you have a bunch of questions to fill out on the & The Table website so that was an easy first pass of narrowing people down. If you didn’t fill out the questions, I’m not going to have you over for dinner. Then I tried to have a mix of people from different countries. Not that I was trying to recreate the United Nations at dinner, but I also wasn’t not trying to do that. I wanted to have a mix of people from different ages and places because I think it makes the conversations more interesting. 

Thirty people applied for the first dinner, which was themed around “newness,” and then the other ones which were around “creativity,” “writing,” and the Fringe festival drew a much smaller but more pumped demographic so for those I just accepted everyone.

NMJC: Randa and Harry are some hanging experts…do you have any hanging out related questions for us?

SW: Of course. I have so many questions, but I will limit myself to the most pressing. While I’m an aspirational second bar person, I know that I’m not. I have a very limited energy tank for big group hangouts, which leads me to my current hang predicament: Is it better to hang for a short time or not hang at all? I’m an introvert so sometimes mid-big group hang I go sit in the bathroom to try to feel alive again. I’ve taken to going to parties and things for a short time and leaving after an hour or so, which I think offends the host. But I also think not showing up ever is also not cool. Which is worse? Hanging for a short time or not hanging at all? 

HK: There are lots of reasons that the proliferation of The Juul was BAD. Big picture, e-cigs are ugly and perverted and tiny and square and weird. There was nothing more unbecoming I can remember asking if anyone had a “juul charger”. Obviously, the health stuff and kids getting addicted to nicotine at 11 was also bad… but I think the worst consequence of the Juul Era is that nobody takes cigarette breaks anymore. 

I’ve never really smoked cigarettes, but I’ve always been insanely jealous of cigarette addicts at a party. It's the perfect reset. 

I was once at one of those date parties in college and I was so overwhelmed with the interpersonal dynamics at play with my date that I pretended to be addicted to cigarettes so I’d have something to do every 30 minutes. I’d step outside and mime cig smoking. I honestly stand by this type of thing. I’ve totally hit the bathroom for a fake-pee-chakra-check. I’m gonna do it this weekend… 

As a rule, it's better to go to the party than to not go. And sure, going for 20 minutes is better than not going at all– but I won't sugar coat it…going for an hour is also better than going for 20 minutes!! So if there is anything actually actionable advice, I'd say lean into the cig breaks, bathroom check ins, mid party walks…whatever gets you back to a comfortable homeostatic vibe because much like everything good in the world and everything bad and also everything ever the urge to leave the function will pass…..

RS: I am curious what you hope to get out of a big group hang. For me, socializing (and maybe life in general) is about having Fun. If I feel confident that a party isn’t gonna be fun, I skip it. If somebody gets mad at me about that… good riddance.

That said, if you genuinely enjoy MAAP (Make An Appearance) style seshing, I think it’s cool to do it on some KYL (Know Your Limits) shit.

If this is your opportunity to hang with the host who you don’t see very often, you could offer to arrive early and help set up, and then bounce when more people arrive.

If your urge to leave is anxiety-related and you would otherwise enjoy yourself, then I agree with Harry. Take breaks and stuff. I tend to use the fake-pee-chakra-check if I’m bored or tired or being held hostage in a central american nightclub by a bunch of blacked out surf instructors. But that’s just me.

In a word or two (or more)…

Song of the weekend? 

Hayami Hana by Rauw Alejandro 

Gustavo translated the words to me and I cried real tears

OR whatever song the guy on the bagpipes was playing because it slapped. 

Craziest feeling? 

The anxious paranoid feeling in a comedy show when you’re like “she’s going to ask me a question,” and then they do. But you don’t freeze or glitch and instead answer in a normal way like you haven’t been dreading this for the forty minutes before. Even better when the whole audience laughs with you. There is no greater high. 

Confession? 

My team cheated in the egg & spoon race. 

Most romantic moment?

Gustavo watched all my tennis games and told me I did a good job even though I had to serve underhand

Who was the Most Valuable Stranger of the weekend? 

The guy next to me at the comedy show who had more interesting answers and diverted the comedian’s attention for the rest of the show