otherpeoplescreativity:

alltheladiesyouhate:

i’m thinking abt that scene in pride and prejudice (2005) where catherine de bourgh tells collins he can’t sit next to his wife at dinner and now i’m imagining married lizzy and darcy at a dinner party and the host is like “oh mr darcy!!! you can’t sit with your wife!” and he’s just like “please… she’s my only friend”

oh but! 

the point of inviting a bunch of your buddies to a dinner party used to be “I totes think all y’all would enjoy getting to know each other”

to the point that being at a big dinner party meant, in a lot of cases, you did not have to wait for someone to actually introduce you to someone else; being under the same roof counted as introduction enough. So yeah, in theory your host/hostess would make a point of introducing strangers to each other in person when they arrive, but in practice everyone got busy real fast with the “let’s hang” part. 

And then, once everyone has arrived and mingled a little, it’s time to go to table. The hostess has spent some serious emotional labor on matching up who sits where so everybody will have a chance at interesting conversations on your left and right (and maybe, if it’s a skinny table, with the person seated directly opposite). 

This does not work, this leads to bored and miserable people, if you seat spouses/partners/best friends next to each other. They talk to each other all the time already! They can talk to each other on the way home! 

So, for the two or three hours of being at the table, let’s get Darcy sitting next to Mrs. Morticia Addams on his left and Ms. Hua Mulan on his right, let’s have Lizzie sit between Colonel Jim Rhodes and Mr. August Fenwick, let us for all that is healthy and reasonable please seat Messrs. Tulio and Miguel not only away from each other but also nowhere near Ms. Carmen Sandiego, oh drat someone get me another sheet of paper because I have to start this seating chart all over again.