Why doesn’t anybody come to my parties?

**PJ Vogt** (0:25)
This is Search Engine, I'm PJ Vogt. No question too big, no question too small. This week, a question that is very small. Not a question of mine, someone else's, but a question I related to very deeply. A question from an internet personality, an anonymous one who writes a sub stack I enjoy.
I know you prefer to write online under the name cartoons hate her. Is there like a first name that we can use for the purposes of this story?

**Claire Haber-Harris** (0:53)
Yes. I go by CHH in my comment section, my Discord and stuff, but then if legacy media wants me to write for them, and sometimes they do, to quote Trump, they were begging like dogs. They were saying, please write for a wonderful publication. But I said, you can't do it without the beautiful pseudonym. I don't want to do the real name. There's a lot of weird people out there. You got to use the beautiful pseudonym.
Basically, I go by Claire Haber-Harris, which is CHH for short.

**PJ Vogt** (1:24)
This was minute two of my interview with Claire. Talking to her, for me, I experienced her like a fireworks factory that someone had accidentally dropped a lit match in. A stunning show that's also a lot, where I found myself entertained but not totally sure where to sit.
How do you describe what it is you do?

**Claire Haber-Harris** (1:44)
I run the number one humor account on Substack at least as of this day. I don't know if someone's going to overtake me by the time this comes out.
I write about social dynamics, anything from friendship, parenting, relationships, dating, marriage, and then also just some random internet, pop culture, that kind of stuff. I'll cover a little fashion here and there. I wrote an article about incel gorillas who start their own all-male societies. So you never know what you're going to get with my stuff.

**PJ Vogt** (2:13)
You really don't. And recently, Claire wrote about this question she had that captivated me. A blog post called A Full Investigation of Why Nobody Comes to My Parties. The question was simple. In the real world, Claire lives by her description, an incredibly normie life as a mom somewhere, two kids, a husband. But with this funny problem, she wants to throw these big parties, nothing debaucherous, just a classy party with dressed-up adults and their children.
Except when she tries to do it, people don't want to come.
A different person would just throw smaller parties or no parties. Claire is not that kind of person. Why is throwing parties important to you? Why do you want to throw parties? Why do you want people to come to those parties?

**Claire Haber-Harris** (2:57)
I think it has so much to do with memories I have as a kid. My parents would throw this really big Christmas party every year, and it was dressy, it was formal. People would come in fancy clothes, they would bring their kids, the kids would be dressed fancy, the kids would make little innocent mischief around the house, and there would be all this food. And it was the highlight of my year. My parties are much more low-key, but I do like the idea of people reasonably putting in the effort to dress up a little bit and go to a party. I don't put in the effort, I cook for my parties.
I go to so much effort, I make cakes, I make roast duck. I wanna do the work, and I love doing the work. I love doing that. All I ask is that people come and that they wear something better than sweatpants.

**PJ Vogt** (3:39)
And so what has happened so far? You have this vision in your head, which is like a party where you cook something, where people dress above airport grade clothing.

**Claire Haber-Harris** (3:52)
Yeah, exactly.

**PJ Vogt** (3:52)
Maybe there's a theme. What happens when you try to do this?

**Claire Haber-Harris** (3:58)
Every single time, it was the same thing, where I'd invite a lot of people, and a lot of people would say that they were out of town, it couldn't make it, a lot of people wouldn't respond at all. I would be like, okay, I need to follow up, but I don't want to be annoying. I would follow up like three times, no one would respond. And then a week before the party, I'd always be like, I think I got to cancel this because no one's coming, and this is really humiliating, and I don't think I have any friends. And if I continue with this party, what's going to happen is people are going to show up, see that no one else is there, and they'll be like, this girl's a loser, I don't want to go to her parties again. And then I'm going to have an even smaller group of people next time, and I'm just going to circle the drain time and time again.