In line with Ilya's comments, some parties support my goals as they regularly put me in contact with the type of person I want in my life and facilitate positive interactions with them, so I look forward to such gatherings. The main ones I've gone to over the past few years have centered around two spiritually oriented student groups, one having a hippy slant, the other being more hardcore with a financial slant (lately I haven't been as involved with the latter). As a result when the hippy group throws a party (one is coming up this Saturday) I can look forward to lots of shared affection, and with the other group I can expect to hang out with very intense self made multimillionaires and other intense students. Parties with little meaningful interaction are of little interest to me. I'd rather take a nap
