Last night my sister hosted an Australia Day BBQ which, like any good party that involves teenagers, had it’s fair share of dramas. Aside from a few uninvited guests, two party-goers having it off in the downstairs bathroom, and a screaming match between my two younger siblings, there was also the problem of guests not bringing enough food or alcohol to go around. It got me thinking - with MySpace gate-crashers making the news, parental monitoring becoming increasingly lax, and the end of children being taught correct social behaviour at an early age, has the party etiquette of old been thrown out the door along with the please’s, thank-you’s and excuse-me’s?

Call me old-fashioned, but when you host a party, your guests should be expected to bring a dish (salad, starters, or dessert) and provide a significant portion of the alcohol they intend to drink. If you’re opening your home to a group of partying friends and have spent the day tidying up, setting up, and ensuring you have food for the main meal, the last thing you want is for everyone to arrive empty-handed and expecting to be waited on hand and foot. Unfortunately it appears that my old-fashioned belief is exactly that - old-fashioned. Going on last night’s showing, hosts are now expected to purchase and prepare 95% of the total food and alcohol that will be consumed (apparently if a guest turns up with a bag of M&Ms, this is a welcome and generous surprise). Although the food portion of this new rule seems to be firmly in place, the section on provisions of alcohol is currently in it’s infancy and is presently one of those unacknowledged guidelines. The host will say that the guests should B.Y.O. alcohol, but the host will also not be surprised when the guests turn up without any alcohol (pleading poverty). Of course the host will then be pushed into sharing out the alcohol they’ve bought for themselves, proving just what a ‘good friend’ they are.

Once the food and alcohol situation has been sorted out, you then move on to the new etiquette governing social behaviour. When your host prepares the food for you and sets it all out on the table, it is no longer a sign for everyone to sit down and eat - in fact, if you want, you can ignore the food (and the host) and instead have a discussion about calorie-counting with your four other friends who are also ignoring the food (and the host). After dinner, if one or two people offer to help clear up, that is a signal that the ‘offering-of-help’ quota has been reached and everyone else can sit back and relax. This period after dinner is also the opportune time to run off and make out behind the bushes - or as I learned last night, in the downstairs bathroom set aside for the use of guests. When your host asks you to re-join the rest of the partygoers, you don’t have to pay them any attention (even though you’re in their house). Basically, modern party etiquette states that you can now treat the host’s house and their hospitality in whichever way you choose.

The final rule within the modern party etiquette book of lore involves the after-party clean up process. No matter how many offers of help the host gets to tidy up, the host must act like a martyr and try to do the entire clean-up process themselves. If anyone cleans up without asking the host permission to lend a hand, this gives the host the right to get very dramatic and upset - after all, you would be taking away their opportunity to dine out on the statement: ‘I tidied up after you all came to my party single-handedly‘ - for months.

In fact, everything you were taught as a youngster about proper party behaviour has basically been turned on it’s head - what was polite is now considered an offense, what was unspeakably rude is now happily tolerated. I don’t know about you, but I think I’ll stick to my own territory of small dinner gatherings that end with minimal mess, minimal drama, and without anyone feeling the need to have sex in the downstairs bathroom.