On the performative abundance of dinner parties
And an alternative vision for true abundance at the table
I’ve started watching The Good Place—a very me thing to do, as my prerequisite for watching any modern TV show is that it must be out for at least four years before I start. (Other recent chaotic television habits include watching all two and a half seasons of Bridgerton in four days—a truly terrible show, but I can’t look away—and carefully rationing episodes of Girls5Eva, which is delightfully reminiscent of my beloved Crazy Ex-Girlfriend).
I’m only a handful of episodes into the first season of The Good Place, but I was immediately drawn to the so-perfect-she’s-annoying Tahani Al Jamil, brilliantly played by Jameela Jamil. We’re slowly beginning to learn that Tahani’s disconcertingly altruistic veneer is masking a trove of insecurity, low self-esteem, and a deep-seated need to prove herself as we learn about her past growing up in the shadow of her overachieving older sister. (Lol is it any wonder I was drawn to her?)
The spectacle that is Tahani makes me think about how I used to entertain and host dinner parties throughout my twenties and early thirties. I had these very specific, learned ideas of what it looked like to give and show abundance to people in my life, and they all seemed to involve spending money and time I didn’t really have (the story of my relationship with debt is for another time). I would buy multiple $30 bottles of natural wine and fancy flowers and the “good” candles and farmers market everything, convincing myself this was all necessary because this was the “right” way to do it. When people would ask what they could bring, it gave me a thrill to be able to airily brush them off. “Just bring yourself!” I’d say, not recognizing intense control issues disguised as generosity. I would be wary of letting someone even bring a bottle of wine out of fear that it wouldn’t fit in with “my vision” (what if it had *gasp* sulfites??). This is what we were dealing with, people!!!
I would never give myself enough time to prepare these soirées because, hello, I was trying to pull off the equivalent of a small wedding in the span of a single, chaotic afternoon (not to mention multiple days of advance shopping and prepping). And then because I wouldn’t give myself the time I needed to emotionally regulate, take a beat, take a shower, and change into something that made me feel good, when guests arrived I would answer the door in my ratty house clothes, frazzled and profusely sweating in-between mixing this and searing that.