I have some great friends who think quite deeply about interesting topics. It felt like a stretch to have guest authors on my site, and so an interview felt like a more accessible way of dipping my toes into those waters – I want to show my thinkers and doers (that’s you!) the things that go on in my friends’ minds! Today, we have with us Dr. Taylor Hibel. 

Edited for brevity and clarity.

AUGUST: We are here for the first ever Becoming Whatever interview. My name is August. I am here interviewing someone, and we’re going to talk about something, and I don’t want to get too deep into it, because I want to let her kind of lead the conversation and the topics a bit. Can you introduce yourself and tell me about who I’m sitting here with today?

TAYLOR: Sure. Well, I’m Taylor. I deeply value building community, and I really love my friends. Professionally, my work is centered around community engagement, faculty partnerships, leadership development, and program design. Personally, I am an avid reader, gatherer, and crafter. I also love to bake and cook. I’m somebody who’s always planning adventures and thinking about a trip to visit my people, and I really appreciate any opportunity to plan time together that is intentional and joyful and meaningful.

AUGUST: Great — and a natural segue, because what I’m here to talk to you about today is hosting social gatherings. Why do you think I’m talking to you specifically about this topic?

TAYLOR: Well, I think probably because I’ve hosted you a few times, and we’ve also talked about the time and care and intention that goes into hosting — both for gatherings you’ve attended of mine, and for future gatherings you’re planning. I think we also both deeply value stories and a chance to reflect and learn from other people.

AUGUST: Could you tell me about some of the gatherings you’ve hosted? Let’s start with the first gathering you remember — where you put in that level of intentionality and thought.

TAYLOR: I’ve really been thinking about this, because I was thinking about how often we host — especially at our current home, it’s two or three times a week, sometimes more. And so then I was thinking further back to gatherings I hosted professionally, things I hosted in college, high school. But really, when I think back about the first one — it took me a long time to place it. It was a gathering I used to host with my mom. My mom and I were a part of a mother-daughter book club. I mentioned I’m an avid reader — that comes from my parents. My mom set the standard for me of what it meant to be a good host. I come from a family of people who like to host, and that’s a skill set we’ve developed as a family.

“You can create magic for a gathering.”

For the book club, it was with a bunch of moms and daughters. We’d read the book before the gathering, and usually my mom would pick a book that had a movie, and we’d watch the movie. It was really intentional — great community for the girls, but especially for my mom. She had a separate gathering for the moms. We had a house with a porch, and the moms would go outside for drinks and conversation. My mom set it up so that I could run the inside bit, since I was a year or two older than a lot of the other girls.

Everything was intentional — the decor, the activities, the food. My mom helped me understand that you can create magic for a gathering. My friends from that time still talk about it: “Remember when we would come to mother-daughter book club at your house?” My mom was always intentional. It wasn’t just, “people are coming over.” It was a production. But not everything has to be a production — I hope we touch on that later.

AUGUST: Let’s get into that a little bit now, because a lot of what you just talked about was the preparation and the production — all the stuff that goes in beforehand. How do you view that process of pre-event planning versus the actual event itself? You didn’t talk too much about the events themselves — you talked about what you and your mom did to prepare.

TAYLOR: I think that is a shift I’ve had to really learn over time — to separate the preparation from the actual presence at the event. With preparing for an event, I really like to think about Priya Parker’s The Art of Gathering. She talks a lot about the purpose of an event — not thinking about it as a category, like “we’re hosting a baby shower, therefore it has to be X, Y, and Z,” but what is the actual purpose? What are the values guiding this gathering? That shift happened in college and my early professional life. I’m somebody who is a little naturally more anxious, and I didn’t know myself well enough until that point to know, “here’s what I need to do to feel good showing up in this space.” The more I was hosting, the better I was able to prepare and think through the pieces. It’s become more routine, so that when I’m actually at a gathering — whether as a host or a guest — I’m able to be more present. So much of the prep is so that I can be present at the gathering.

AUGUST: What was your favorite gathering you’ve hosted?

TAYLOR: After Ben and I eloped, our housewarming party — lots of wonderful colleagues and friends who had really supported us. You were there. Our main goal with buying the house was to have a space for our friends and family. A lot of people were questioning why we chose to buy where we did, or how many bedrooms. But I always wanted extra space — for former students, for family, for friends, if somebody needed a place to crash. Ben and I are really aligned there. The main selling point of our house was actually our living room — we thought a lot about the types of gatherings we wanted to host, because we weren’t able to host a lot in our previous spaces.

AUGUST: Were those also your most memorable gatherings?

TAYLOR: For most memorable — that would actually be my doctorate party. After getting my doctorate, I wanted to celebrate and thank friends who had really supported me throughout that process. I was also sensitive to the fact that I had already hosted a housewarming party, already gotten married, my birthday had passed that year — and women are not often celebrated outside of major milestones, and I don’t plan to have kids. I recognized this was a really intentional opportunity to celebrate a career and professional milestone, and to model for some of the friends there that, hey, there are other things outside of relationship milestones to celebrate. Several friends said afterward, “I wish I would have had a graduation party for myself.”

AUGUST: I probably shouldn’t have been surprised by this, but I was surprised that you opened by talking about your career and your profession, and it’s come up multiple times — your doctorate, what you do for work, your history of professional gatherings. What is the connection for you between this practice of hosting social events and what you do professionally?

TAYLOR: I’m somebody who organizes my life around building community, both personally and professionally. I have a favorite quote I wanted to share that I think really answers your question. This comes from M. Scott Peck:

“Community is a group of individuals who have learned how to communicate honestly with each other, whose relationships go deeper than their masks of composure, and who have developed some significant commitment to rejoice together and mourn together and to delight in each other and make each other’s conditions their own.”

That’s my favorite quote because my professional career started in community engagement, and the types of trusting, transformational relationships that happen in community engagement really speak to that — “making each other’s conditions your own.” Professionally, that is where I really honed the craft of hosting, because it was written into my job description, and then it bled over into my personal life.

AUGUST: Once you’ve decided how many people you’re inviting, how do you decide who’s on the guest list?

TAYLOR: It’s a really important question,

AUGUST: And it’s taboo.

TAYLOR: and one I’m sensitive to, because I’ve often been the person excluded from things. My natural inclination is to include everyone — I never wanted somebody to hear about something and feel excluded. But I recognize that sometimes it’s important to exclude people, because it can change the vibe of the event. Not every event is for every single one of your friends.

A good example: one of the regular gatherings we host is a craft night for some friends from college. Those friends are part of larger mutual friend groups, but that gathering is for people who crafted together in college and wanted to continue that relationship. I know some of my other crafty friends would love to come to that space —

AUGUST: Hey wait, I don’t get invited to those events!

TAYLOR: — and that’s why I’m sensitive to it. But those other friends are in other gatherings that other people want to come to. You’ve got to think about the group cohesion, the trust, the relationships.

AUGUST: I’m not actually upset. I actually hate doing crafts with other people. I like doing crafts on my own, in silence. 

I want to ask more about your methodological approach. Readers of the blog won’t know this, but almost every event you host has a theme. There’s a lot of theming, and a lot of pre-planned activities. Can you tell me about your methodology?

TAYLOR: Quick clarification, because I mentioned that I’m learning not everything has to be a production. As much as I love a ritual, a tradition, a theme — not every gathering is themed. There are definitely more low-key gatherings, things without an invitation. But it’s the curriculum nerd in me — I absolutely love a theme. I also like giving people a lot of context about how they’re going to show up in a space. So yes, most of them are themed.

Something I start with is thinking about a need or just an idea. If I’m thinking about something as a need — our friends really haven’t gotten to see each other recently, people are stressed, they could use some good food. Okay, cool. What do people enjoy?

The planning piece is part of the fun — it’s fun to get creative with the invite, with the decor. That’s the crafting part I like. I really enjoy making homemade decor. I love baking, cooking something for a gathering. To be able to show up in an intentional way without being stressed, I need a lot of lead time. There are gatherings I’m planning months from now that are just living in the Notes app right now — maybe there’s an invite, but I also recognize I’m more excited about hosting our friends than most of them have the capacity to plan ahead. I’m not going to invite people right away. I know: I want to host this in September, I’ll invite people a month or two before.

But that didn’t really answer all of the methodology questions.

AUGUST: Go ahead.

TAYLOR: Once an invite has gone out, I’ve sent them details about when to come, what to bring, what to wear if the theme calls for it. Then it’s thinking about the space: seating, decor, food, music, lighting — I always want candles, warm light, lamps. I’m making a list of when things need to be done.

And sometimes it’s intentionally connecting people who are coming. Mentioning: you’ve got this going on personally or professionally, this person also is working through something similar, you two should chat. Or, I’m really excited to talk to you about X thing when you’re here Friday. I want to be using the authority that comes with hosting in what I view as the correct way — to make people feel included and seen and valued. Because it takes time, energy, and money to host, but it also takes those same things to attend as a guest.

“You are constantly thinking about how to make sure that people feel like their presence is a gift”

AUGUST: What’s the incorrect way to use that authority as a host?

TAYLOR: Anytime you are not engaging in acts of relentless welcome — not communicating to your guests that they are seen and cared for and valued, not trying to be present to do that for them. That’s the incorrect way to use the power that comes from hosting.

AUGUST: “Acts of relentless welcome.”

TAYLOR: Yeah — you are constantly thinking about how to make sure that people feel like their presence is a gift, that they are important to you, that you’re grateful for them, that your relationship matters, that they are somebody you truly care about. It comes from scholarship around belonging and higher ed — Peter Felton and Leo Lambert’s Relationship-Rich Education.

AUGUST: You mentioned earlier that you like to give people context about how they’re going to show up in a space — dress code, who else will be there, what you can talk to them about. Is there a feeling that people need this direction to show up?

TAYLOR: I appreciate you picking up on that. I don’t know how much of it is that we spend a lot of time with anxious folks or neurodivergent folks who want that level of detail and context, who want to know the rules for a gathering. I would wager yes — but you’ve been to gatherings I’ve hosted, you know the level of detail, so I’d be curious to hear your perception.

AUGUST: It is helpful going in to know what the expectation is. But I also wonder if something is being precluded by that, or what opportunities might arise without it. You mentioned earlier the idea of just running into people you know downtown — there aren’t many pre-given rules there, no cue cards that say “talk to me about this or not that.”

And I’m connecting this to scholarship I’ve read about people’s social muscles, and how much they exercise those muscles. So I’ll frame it as a question: do you get the impression that the people you’re inviting to your events — are their social muscles weak?

TAYLOR: I think it’s a really good question. And I’ll be curious to see what our friends who read your blog think of my answer to this.

AUGUST: No one reads my blog, so you don’t have to worry about that.

TAYLOR: I read every article!

AUGUST: Thank you. You’re one of three.

TAYLOR: I think some of it is an atrophy of social muscles — people weren’t attending as many gatherings during COVID. But I think more than that, people are just so exhausted by life. So many of the people coming to gatherings I’m hosting are in precarious financial situations or family situations where they’re just trying to survive, not always thriving. I don’t know that my friends and colleagues always have the energy to show up in intentional ways without some more of that context. I think they do have the muscle, but it’s one they aren’t always able to flex.

AUGUST: And you don’t think you’re in the same situation? Or — is what you’re saying that there might be some social muscle weakness, but it’s not a personal moral failing, it’s structurally produced?

TAYLOR: Yes. And I would also say it’s about what you prioritize. I’m somebody who really prioritizes my social health, because I’ve done a lot of research about it through the work I was doing to design community-based solutions. I host more often than most people, and I’m really lucky to have a vibrant community — both friends and family — where I have a lot of deep, intimate relationships, and gatherings are really central to that. That is a muscle I’m using all the time, so it doesn’t require as much energy or effort as I think it does for other people. Hosting a gathering might require a lot of energy for someone else, but, because I’ve put in my ten thousand hours, it has become — you’re just like, okay, I know how to do this.

AUGUST: At the beginning you spoke about how your hosting was inculcated within your family — how your mom and your family set the standard. Can you talk about your connection to the larger history of organizing and event hosting, and whether there’s a connection to the history of women specifically organizing social life?

TAYLOR: The gender piece of it all is really interesting and we could go a lot of different directions here.

AUGUST: Take all the directions you want!

TAYLOR: When I first think about it, I want to come back to the family piece, but the gender piece — there’s an experience that’s really fresh in my mind. I’ve been talking about this with Ben — my husband. At work recently, I was planning a gathering to celebrate some grandmas-to-be. I’d created activities, invites, all the things we’ve been talking about. I was slicing cake, and a male leader at work came up to me and said, “Wow, look at you putting your doctorate to work.”

I think that experience is not unique to me — at work or personally. People don’t always recognize the labor that goes into gathering, regardless of gender. But that emotional labor of prepping for the gathering, and the physical labor — it’s so often on the woman hosting. And it might look effortless, but there is so much time, care, and intention that goes into a gathering. That is a learned skill. It looks effortless because you do it so often.

And there is a history of women organizing these gatherings, both for political reasons and social ones. The work of gathering is sometimes devalued, just like care work — anytime a woman is doing a lot of that work, it’s not always respected or valued. And so that’s something that I am sensitive to. And I think that, just like in general, the work of building community is not always valued because people aren’t seeing an economic value to it. There’s also a piece of capitalism there — if you’re not monetizing a gathering, or if you’re thinking “I could be working instead,” the value isn’t always visible.

AUGUST: Can you connect that to your mom and your family?

TAYLOR: My mom was a teacher, and then was a stay-at-home mom for a portion of our lives. I think gathering was her main way of having community and having friends. 

Our friends’ moms were her friends, and by hosting for us, that was how she was able to have people to talk to, to have support from. I think that was a way for her to stay sane — all adults need adult friends. My parents were really intentional about developing their friendships and friendships for us. One way they did that was through repeated gatherings, and by having our house be the house that could host. My parents were strict and didn’t always let us go to sleepovers or playdates at friends’ houses. They always wanted our house to be the place people could come to — and given what some of my friends experienced elsewhere, I think they made good choices in making our house a kind of safe haven.

Beyond that, both of my grandmothers also host a lot. For every family holiday, they’re the ones who host. When I think about my favorite memories as a kid, I’m thinking about gatherings hosted by, usually, a woman in my family.

AUGUST: Would you say people show up socially less often now than, say, twenty or thirty years ago?

TAYLOR: Yes. There are enough thought leaders talking about this, and there’s a lot of data we could pull. People are showing up differently. There’s also less desire to build community — I see a lot of discourse online where people say they want a village, and then people counter: but you’re not a villager. What they’re saying is that people want a vibrant friend community, they want people who show up for them, but they’re not willing to show up for others. And again, that’s a structural problem.

Vivek Murthy, the former Surgeon General, who writes a lot about the loneliness epidemic, posted a great piece recently about the concept of inconveniencing yourself — building space in your schedule where you can be inconvenienced, where you’re not constantly rushing from thing to thing. That’s how we are. People are so booked and busy that they aren’t leaving space for the humanity of it all, for gathering to take place.

AUGUST: What are the stakes of that?

TAYLOR: There’s a lot of research on the connections between social health and physical and mental health. People absolutely have to recognize and prioritize their social health — there are real consequences when they don’t: it is easier to otherize people, to become isolated, to stop talking to people who have different identities and values, to stop caring about people, to start excusing things that you wouldn’t have before. The stakes are democracy, but also just your own health. The less often you’re spending time in community, the lonelier you are. We are wired for connection. We are wired to need to belong. There are some real and serious consequences there.

“You can only learn so much about yourself by yourself.”

AUGUST: I’ll read a quote, and you can react if you want. I think it captures what we’ve been talking about. This is Dr. Sarah Stein Lubrano, from The Perils of Social Atrophy: 

“We live better — both in relation to our obligations to other people and in terms of our own flourishing — when we are meaningfully social. Only with one another can we be thoughtful, self-aware, and self-developing. We are simply less when we are less together.“

TAYLOR: Yeah, totally. You can only learn so much about yourself by yourself. You learn about yourself in community with others. That’s true for academic knowledge, professional knowledge — you need other people for that. And there’s a lot of important stuff there about showing up for yourself and for others in those gatherings. I really like that quote.

AUGUST: Well, thank you so much for doing this. Last question — I’m giving you the floor. If there’s anything you want to say to readers of the blog, go ahead.

TAYLOR: I have some book recommendations —

AUGUST, editing in post: Taylor’s full reading list is at the bottom of the page.

TAYLOR: — buy some cool merch from Becoming Whatever. I got a really cool t-shirt for being interviewed for this blog and I’m very excited to wear it. And if folks want to host a gathering: do it. You do not have to plan or host a perfect gathering. In fact, I would argue there is no perfect gathering. Just go for it, try it. And also: say yes to people’s invites when they invite you to do things. You should try to show up for things. Read books. Buy merch.

AUGUST: Becoming Whatever hats available now.

TAYLOR: And commission leather products — you can use them at your gatherings. I now have coasters for tea parties and all sorts of things.

AUGUST: Exactly. Thank you so much!

TAYLOR: Thank you!

Taylor’s book recommendations:

• The Art of Gathering by Priya Parker. The book you’d need to read if you want to be a better host. Her Substack is also wonderful, and she posts great stuff on Instagram.
  
• The Power of Ritual: Turning Everyday Activities into Soulful Practices by Casper ter Kuile. The importance of rituals and taking a mindful lens to everyday moments. One takeaway was building in specific days of rest.
  
• Big Friendship: How We Keep Each Other Close by Aminatou Sow and Ann Friedman. I really value my friendships and see the soulmates you find in them. This book is incredibly validating about the kind of relationships you find in friendship and the effort it takes to keep and maintain them.
  
• The Art and Science of Connection: Why Social Health is the Missing Key to Living Longer, Healthier, and Happier by Kasley Killam. A direct connection to community and hosting, and talks about some of the larger systemic challenges for social health.
  
• Super Communicators by Charles Duhigg. A lot of gathering and friendship comes down to communication. This book helps you identify the types of conversations you’re having. One main takeaway: are you listening for facts versus feelings?
  
• The Art of Showing Up by Rachel Wilkerson Miller. This is helpful for thinking about showing up for yourself and for others. 
  
• The Greater Good Science Center’s newsletter. I get a lot of great ideas and book recommendations from it, and they do incredible work — a lot of their research focuses on themes we’ve chatted about today.