Saturday, July 02, 2011

Analogy for why potlucks suck

Think of a group of people ordering pizza. Everyone contributes an equal share of money. That's how it works. Barring certain exceptional circumstances, it is inethical to not contribute as much money as everyone else but still eat pizza.

At a potluck, the coin of the realm is food. Specifically, it's quality, quantity, interestingness, yumminess, and awesomeness of food. So if the food you bring is somehow not up to the standard of compared to what everyone else brings (it only feeds 2 people when everyone else brought enough for 12, it isn't very good and therefore not worth eating compared with everything else, it's something everyone can have at home or buy in any store when all the other contributions are interesting things that you hardly ever get to try, etc.), your behaviour is just as inethical as not contributing your fair share for the pizza.

The first problem with this is you don't know what other people will be contributing, so you have no way of knowing in advance what your fair share is. It would be like if we lived in a world where it's impossible to find out the price of pizza before it's delivered, and the price fluctuates wildly from day to day. You couldn't pay your fair share of the pizza in advance then, could you?

The second problem is that once you discover your contribution isn't up to par, there's no way to bring it up to par. Apart the fact that different people have different abilities and resources (in other words, all the hard work humanly possible within a reasonable period of time isn't going to bring my contribution up to par with my mother's, because she has 3 extra decades of practice and acquired equipment, and a kitchen twice the size of mine), it's very difficult to vastly improve a potluck dish at the last minute. If everyone else brought cake and I brought supermarket cookies, there is nothing I can do to bring them up to par with a cake (other than running out and getting a cake, which isn't always feasible either.) If you don't contribute enough for pizza, you can always give the person who covered you a few extra bucks later. There's no way to do this with potluck, so even if your inethical behaviour was accidental, there's no way to fix it and you're stuck being inethical all day. And, given people's annoying habit of attempting to strike up a conversation by saying "So what did you bring?" you're stuck with the humiliation of having to constantly admit to everyone that your contribution isn't good enough.

I have never in my life encountered any social event that's worth all this trouble and stress and angst and humiliation.

9 comments:

laura k said...

I wish you could be a fly on the wall at a wmtc potluck, so you could see a different potluck ethic at work - one in which no one tracks, tabulates, judges, or compares - in which everyone simply shares and enjoys.

People who bring enough for two eat and enjoy equally with people who bring enough for 12, and everyone shares and enjoys, regardless of whether they bought prepared food or expended energy cooking their own.

I guess you could call it a socialist potluck.

But given your feelings on this, I hope you can successfully get out of every potluck you're invited to.

impudent strumpet said...

I question whether the host would have a true view of how much potluck anxiety is being felt, because people who are feeling potluck anxiety aren't likely to express it at the potluck - both because it draws attention to the insufficiency of their contribution, and because it reads as fishing for reassurances. Conventional social conduct in this situation is to keep a stiff upper lip and pretend that everything is fine. It's like if you end up dressed at a different level of formality than everyone at the event, you don't start every conversation with "I'm so embarrassed, I thought everyone would be wearing jeans, I just want to curl up in a ball somewhere and cry."

And bringing inadequate potluck is way worse than wearing the wrong clothes - especially if you're socialist - because it affects everyone's experience.

Anonymous said...

Had many - always too much food, and what always disappeared first? The lime flavoured Nacho chips...

Go figure...

Most of the time, people are too busy enjoying themselves on the gorge to keep tabs on who brought what.

impudent strumpet said...

I don't know about you, but I still remember what I brought and can see with my own eyes how inadequate it is.

laura k said...

I question whether the host would have a true view of how much potluck anxiety is being felt, because people who are feeling potluck anxiety aren't likely to express it at the potluck - both because it draws attention to the insufficiency of their contribution, and because it reads as fishing for reassurances.

I agree, but I'm using other metrics to judge people's levels of happiness or anxiety, especially willingsness to return the following year and willingness to encourage others to do so.

Another dynamic that helps is that people arrive at all different times, place their offerings on a table inside, then join the party outside - walking in the front/side door and out the back. Because of this, it's almost impossible for anyone to know what anyone else brought. It's possible that people discuss it, but I doubt it.

laura k said...

I don't know about you, but I still remember what I brought and can see with my own eyes how inadequate it is.

Well, this is you.

I don't mean that as a good or bad thing, just that it is you, and I think atypical.

I don't even care if I show up wearing the supposedly wrong clothes. I'm unlikely to notice, I always look the same unless it's a wedding.

Further to my comments above, thinking about the last potlucks I attended when I wasn't the host, I had no idea who brought what, never asked, never knew, never cared, and I didn't hear anyone else talking about it, either. This was peace activism related and a very lefty crowd.

impudent strumpet said...

If it is atypical, it's a good thing I blogged this, so people who are under the impression that a potluck is stress-free can google upon it.

laura k said...

No gathering of human beings is ever stress free.

But I agree, always good to write about these things, for yourself and others.

Jessica Miller said...

I hate potlucks. See my post on why I hate them http://thecoincidentalcook.blogspot.com/2011/12/heart-attack-hash-brown-casserole.html
Oh, and it has a good recipe to make if you have to come up with something that will feed a department of people.