How to Invite Someone Over for Dinner

I know exactly how I sound: A boomer shaking her fist at the sky. A tin-foil hat conspiracist. That one It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia meme. But I get pushed ever so slightly closer to the proverbial edge each time I receive a link with lava lamp–esque moving graphics, an “RSVP to see location” banner, and a Text Blast every hour in the lead-up to a casual hang. We have got to stop using Partiful. 

My disdain for Partiful is twofold. The first being all the reasons that I extend my general suspicion onto this generation of VC-backed, millennial/Gen-Z-geared apps as a cohort, and what has already been well-documented: There is, of course, the icky Palantir adjacency. There’s the dubious data collection. Then there’s the god-awful UX (especially if you’re like me and stubbornly refuse to download the app as they so desperately want you to do) that’s reason enough to swear off Partiful. Like so many of its kind, it’s a company with so much audacity, so desperate to make itself cool and fun and the inevitable home of all parties everywhere, they’ve forgotten that they could be replaced with something as low-tech as a paper and pencil.