Everyone's Invited

How to help people feel included

Hi cutiepie! What’s shakin’?

It was my birthday last week, and I have been feasting for days. Just look at this cake Davin made!

every year i ask for the same thing: a cake with aggressive amounts of coconut extract in both batter and frosting

On Saturday night, we went out with some friends to a fancy restaurant in Minneapolis. And while we feasted, I got an unexpected and awkward dinner show.

I was facing the entrance to the restaurant’s private room, and I saw a big group of people arrive. They were noisy and dressed up, and they all knew each other, squealing and hugging when new members of the group came in. Everyone looked like an adult, but there were much-older adults and much-younger ones; my guess was that the night was a special occasion, and that this group was maybe a large family, plus several good friends.

One person, though, was new—she looked young and extra dressed up, and a little apprehensive. She was on the arm of a guy who clearly belonged to the group. As the guy talked and laughed, ignoring her, she smiled hesitantly at members of the group, but didn’t say anything. Watching her, I realized she didn’t know these people at all—this night out was her first time meeting any of them.

They were all standing around, waiting for the host to seat them in the private room. And the new woman’s date was not helping her out at all. He wasn’t introducing her; he wasn’t bringing her into conversations. For maybe five real-time minutes, the members of this group lined the hallway, and not one person spoke directly to the new woman. Not one. With her back pressed up against the wall, her body physically excluded from the cluster of chattering friends and family, I watched this woman try to smile and look pleasant and like she was not dying for five full minutes.

It was rough.

Eventually, the group trooped into their private room together, and I was finally able to relax. I know that sounds ridiculous—no one was making me watch them—but I couldn’t look away, ya know?

That scene was hard to watch because I’ve been there. Of course I’ve been there—everyone has been there! At some point in our lives, we have all been the excluded person, and we have all tried to pretend to be OK in the moment. HORRIBLE.

This week, I’m hard at work on a project I can’t talk about just yet (maybe soon!!!), but I thought today would be a great time to run a revamped-for-non-teenagers version of an article I once wrote for Rookie magazine.

It’s about being the woman in the hallway at the restaurant. More importantly, it’s about helping the woman in the hallway at the restaurant.

I hope you like!

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Everyone’s Invited

How to Make People Feel Included

For one of our sixth-grade Fun Fridays (a once-a-month reward for good behavior and zero missed assignments), my middle school teachers took us to Wheels N Motion. Back then, Wheels N Motion was the only roller rink in Green Bay, Wisconsin, and the kids in town loved it. We had all grown up spending Saturday afternoons there, going to birthday parties there, going to Open Skate nights. Wheels N Motion had blue lacquered floors, a disco ball, and unbelievably cheap candy behind the counter where you rented skates. Full-sized Laffy Taffy sticks! Sour Punch Straws! Ring Pops! Everything was 25 cents! There was a live DJ who took requests, and the walls around the rink were thickly carpeted, which took the fear out of showing everyone how well you could “skate backward.” (You could not skate backward.)

On that particular Fun Friday trip, I was having a great time at Wheels N Motion, skating it up, when Kate*, a very popular girl, pulled me into the bathroom with Annie, another popular girl, and urgently whispered to us that when she hugged Aaron after their couple-skate, she had “felt his boner,” and it was, she pronounced, wide-eyed, “really hard.” Annie gasped. I tried to look appropriately impressed. I had no idea what she was talking about.

“Don’t tell anyone, OK?’” Kate pleaded, and I nodded solemnly, basking in the warm glow of a popular girl talking to me. As we were leaving the bathroom, a slow song started playing. The lights dimmed. The disco ball turned on, spinning light flecks onto the darkened rink floor.

Across the carpeted off-rink area, a boy named Jared made his way towards me, clumsy in his slightly-too-large rented skates. He asked me to couple-skate with him.

Jared was a boy in our grade everyone was mean to, for no particular reason that I can now recall. He was just universally agreed to be “gross,” and that meant he was banished from all social groups. I knew Jared was actually a nice guy; we had been partners in science several times, and I found him a little geeky but nothing major—he’d just never learned the right things to say to other kids. And here Jared was, asking me to couple-skate with him in front of Kate and Annie, two of the most popular girls in school. They were right there, watching me. I knew I should say yes to Jared, because I had spent my entire life being trained by my parents and my church to handle this exact type of situation.

Instead, I looked to Kate and Annie for a clue on what they thought I should do. Their expressions were blank. Then I laughed, tossed my hair, and said in this INCREDIBLY NASTY VOICE, “Um, no thanks.”

Jared’s ears turned red. He turned to look at Kate and Annie, then turned back to me. “Oh, OK,” he said. His cheeks were flaming. He turned around and skated away, stumbling a little in his skates. Kate rolled her eyes at me. “Gross!” she said, giggling. “Why is it always the gross ones?” She grabbed my hand and pulled me into a group of “cool” girls to tell them what had just happened. Everyone laughed as she re-created the scene, exaggerating Jared’s awkwardness with her talent for spot-on mimicking. I was popular for a minute. It felt… gross.

I’m not trying to be dramatic, but this incident haunts me to this day. I remember everything vividly: Jared’s face, his red ears, his too-big skates. And I remember how it felt to do something really shitty to another person. Later, I went home and prayed to god (!!!yes, I was a child-soldier of the lord) for forgiveness for a long time, kneeling in front of my bed. I knew what I had done to Jared was wrong, and I was sorry. I was so sorry.

What I had done was not only nasty, it was in direct violation of almost every lesson I had ever learned, growing up. If you don’t already know this about me, I was raised a strict Mormon, a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and, from the moment Mormon children can walk and speak, they are taught to be thoughtful to others and include people. YOU ALWAYS INCLUDE EVERYONE. You are nice and kind to everyone; you do not leave anyone out, ever, for any reason, or make fun of someone more vulnerable than you. We had clear, explicit lessons about this subject constantly. Because of this training, I knew that if someone asks you to dance, you say yes, no matter who it is, because (1) it’s just one dance, and (2) it took a lot of courage for them to ask you. (And because I was a literal child, I did not realize at the time that I was also being trained to be compliant and submissive¯\_(ツ)_/¯. ) The idea, socially speaking, was simple: If you’re having a party, everyone’s invited.

Mormons go hard on inclusion. Does someone look lonely? Invite them along. Is someone new? Go sit next to them. Is someone in your group not talking much? Bring them into the conversation. A popular Mormon youth magazine called The New Era even published posters that instructed readers on how to zero in on someone who’s out of the loop and pull them in.

this one was before my time but i’m desperate to know how the the long-haired blond got her hair so fluffy

At the time I was mean to Jared, I had five of these posters taped to the walls in my room. So I can’t say I didn’t know any better. And after seeing with my own eyes the social damage I was capable of, I never did something like that again. (Btw, I apologized to Jared at school the next Monday. He said he didn’t care and wouldn’t look at me. I am still so sorry.)

I left the Mormon church when I was 18 years old, and I realize now that the heavy emphasis on including people was most likely a tactic designed to teach Mormon youth how to recruit new members into the church, but I will say this: The extreme focus that was placed on helping others feel welcome has served me well in my life. Because those lessons were drilled into my head pretty much constantly for as long as I can remember, I usually notice the odd person out, the person who feels uncomfortable or awkward in a social setting, the person who wants, very much, to be included but doesn’t know how. And because of all that compulsory training, I also know how easy it is to include people who feel left out, and how great it feels to do so.

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I saw that woman at the restaurant on Saturday. I felt what was happening. And lots of us, too, have felt that familiar heartstring-tug when we see someone who is clearly feeling out of it at a party where we know lots of people. We feel that tug because, woof, we’ve been there.

But not everybody knows what to do with this feeling, especially if you’re already comfortably ensconced in your own social group. How exactly do you include other people without making things weird? Well:

First, you spot the signs. We know this, but many people (not all!) feel left out when they’re in or somehow involved with a group of people in a clear social setting and no one is interacting with them. Like the woman in the restaurant—she was with a group of people who were all talking to one another, but she had no one to talk to. Could she have broken in and introduced herself? Sure. But as the newest person there, and someone else’s date, she was in the most vulnerable position.

At a party or gathering where you already know a lot of people, body language is a big deal. It’s easy to be caught up in your own social life, talking with your friends and having a good time in a tight little cluster, and that’s not a bad thing! But every now and again, consider looking around at the people outside your happy group. Is there someone nearby, kind of hovering on the periphery of you and your friends? Maybe shifting from foot to foot, making brief eye contact with the people who are talking, then quickly looking at the floor or scanning the room? That’s most likely a person who wants to be included, but does not know how to go about including themselves. This is where you come in, with your socially smooth moves. Such as:

Make some subtle changes. To help the person hovering around your group at the party, shift your body a little bit to open the circle, making room for them to join you.

Or, go big. You could leave your group momentarily to introduce yourself to a new person you’ve spotted, or you could try the technique my friend Jorie swears by in this situation. (You don’t have to be friends with the person for this to work, but you do have to know their name and at least one fact about them.) I asked her to explain it to me:

JORIE: I think a great way to welcome someone into your circle is to shoot them a quick compliment. Like, you go, “Shelby, come here!” and then say to the group: “Shelby just adopted the most adorable dog.” When Shelby comes into the circle, lured by your command, you say to both Shelby and the group, “Shelby, how’s your new puppy doing?” And, BOOM, you have a new person making conversation in the group.

Isn’t that so good? You can adapt this technique for use on total strangers, too, by talking to or (sincerely!) complimenting them and then asking their name, like this: “Hey! Those are cool earrings. I haven’t met you yet. What’s your name?” It’s so easy!

Including people does not have to be this big, obvious gesture, and it doesn’t have to be—and it really shouldn’t be—charity or pity-work. It can be little things: People’s faces light up when you catch them up quickly on what your group is talking about, so they don’t have to stand there, clueless, until the story is over. People feel warm and included when you shove over and make room for them in tight-knit circle.

If you want, you can show a new person at work the secret bathroom. Yes! You can introduce yourself to someone pretending to study the books in the bookcase at a party, or ask an out-of-the-ordinary person at your job if they want to grab a coffee and talk shit in the break room. If you’re getting truly wild, you can ask the person in your two-step class who always has to be partners with the teacher to dance! It’s not some big thing—it’s all just tiny moves, helping others to feel noticed, like they are not invisible.

But why am I talking about this stuff, anyway? Why bother making an effort to include other people?

Because that’s what most of us would like someone to do for us. Post-Covid-lockdown era, I feel like a few ~social graces~ are slipping away, and I don’t think they should get tossed out just yet. I mean, I am a grown-ass adult, and I see other grown-ass adults want to join conversations all the time and maybe even start to make friends, and not know how to do it. And I know I’m pathetically grateful when someone helps me out in a social setting where I feel awkward. I want to live in a society where people can be reliably counted on to make a little space for newcomers.

You have social power when you’re an established member of any group, because you already know the people there. You have social power when you already have a core group of friends. You have power just by being yourself: a confident person! Use your power for good. Most people will be very, very grateful for this kindness, and they will not forget it. And it’s a rare occasion that you’ll be sorry you included someone.

Loneliness epidemic this, isolation crisis that: We end it by interacting kindly with one another, face-to-face. You can be the person you’ve wished would come talk to you when you’ve felt awkward at a party.

You can rescue the woman at the restaurant. If you choose. You can be the person who is good to the Jared in your life. I wish I’d been good to Jared, that day at the roller rink. I’ve been working to be better at all of this ever since.