Is It "Mortifying" To Show Up On Time To A Party?

Just last night at NYLON HQ, the team rolled out the proverbial glass whiteboard to help one of us decide when to show up at a party. You’ve likely done the high-level calculus yourself: Is it at someone’s home? Who’s hosting? Is it seated? Is there a cocktail hour (woefully unclear in most invites nowadays)? Who else is going? If I have another, more entertaining offer but also a sense of duty, how can I make both while factoring in the capriciousness of the MTA?

This seemingly fundamental aspect of modern etiquette continues to rear its head in the discourse, most recently when Selena Gomez revealed that she was once “mortified” that she and Benny Blanco arrived at a Taylor Swift afterparty right on the dot. “I don’t know, it was kind of cute,” she said. “Apparently, cool people don’t show up to parties on time.”

When I shared this with the class, the consensus was that coming in late-ish is less about coolness and more about manners — I’m of the mind that one should almost always observe le quart d’heure de politesse, or the 15-minute rule, so you likely won’t be the first guest there (despy) nor intruding on the party-giver panic-cleaning the inside of their oven (rude to observe another’s desperation). I’m glad to report that 100% of Team NYLON are in agreement, with some caveats depending on the size and formality of the occasion, the closeness of your relationship to the organizer, and cultural practices. (“If it’s your best friend [hosting], you’re showing up 5 minutes past,” says Editor-in-Chief Lauren McCarthy.)

Certainly, there are levels to it, as Style Editor Kevin LeBlanc says. In the asylum we were raised in (fashion), for example, you could easily stroll into a weekday cocktail 30 minutes after the proposed start time or even upwards of an hour for a large gathering without anyone noticing except for the publicist checking you off on the iPad outside. The main point is thoughtfulness: Am I getting myself there at a time that’s respectful to the host and in observance of the social norms surrounding this event? And while Gomez doesn’t need to stop turning up when someone’s mother would, as her fiancé put it, it doesn’t hurt to adapt. That why it’s taken habitually punctual people like LeBlanc and me a minute to get used to fashion’s rules — we both know what it’s like to enter a function 10 minutes “late” only to find the dahlias still being arranged and place cards being shuffled. We listen and we don’t judge, but we do learn.