Search Engine - Why doesn’t anybody come to my parties?

Episode Date: June 15, 2026

Claire Haber-Harris has a question. When she sends out an invitation, why does she get a tidal wave of excuses and no's? How could someone claim to have had the same stomach virus three times in a row? Search Engine investigates why a random American mom might be annoying people in her community. Cartoons Hate Her on SubstackBecome a premium member!

This is search engine. I'm PJ Vote. No question too big, no question too small. This week, a question that is very small. Not a question of mine, someone else's, but a question I related to very deeply. A question from an internet personality, an anonymous one who writes a substack I enjoy.

I know you prefer to write online under the name cartoons hate her. Is there like a first name that we can use for the purposes of this story? Yes. So I go by C-H in like my comment section, my Discord and stuff. But then if legacy media wants me to write for them, and, you know, sometimes they do, to quote Trump, they were begging like dogs. They were saying, please write for a wonderful publication.

But I said, you can't do it without the beautiful pseudonym. I don't want to do the real name. There's a lot of weird people out there. You've got to use the beautiful pseudonym. So basically, I go by Claire Haber Harris, which is C.H.H. for short. This was minute two of my interview with Claire. Talking to her, for me,

I experienced her like a fireworks factory that someone had accidentally dropped a lit match in, a stunning show that's also a lot, where I found myself entertained, but not totally sure where to sit. So, how do you describe what it is you do? I run the number one humor account on Substack, at least as of this day.

I don't know if someone's going to overtake me by the time this comes out. I write about social dynamics, anything from friendship, parenting, relationships, dating, marriage. And then also just some, like, random, like, internet, pop culture, that kind of stuff. I'll cover a little fashion here and there. I wrote an article about Encel Gorillas who start their own all-male societies. So you never know what you're doing yet with my stuff.

You really don't. And recently Claire wrote about this question she had that captivated me. A blog post called A Full Investigation of Why Nobody Comes to My Parties. The question was simple. In the real world, Claire lives by her description an incredibly normie life as a mom somewhere, two kids, a husband. But with this funny problem, she wants to throw these big parties, nothing debauchess, just a classy party with dressed up adults and their children.

Except when she tries to do it, people don't want to come. A different person would just throw smaller parties or no parties. Claire is not that kind of person. Like, why is throwing parties important to you? Why do you want to throw parties? Why do you want people to come to those parties? I think it has so much to do with memories I have as a kid. You know, my parents would throw this really big Christmas party every year, and it was dressy.

It was formal. People would come in fancy clothes. They would bring their kids. The kids would be dressed fancy. The kids would, like, make little innocent mischief around the house, and there would be all this food. And it was, like, the highlight of my year. My parties are much more low-key. But I do like the idea of, like, people reasonably putting in the effort to dress up a little bit and go to a party.

I will put in the effort. I cook for my parties. I go to so much effort. I make cakes. I make roast duck. I want to do the work. And I love doing the work. I love doing that.

All I ask is that people come and that they wear something better than sweatpants. And so what has happened so far? Like you have this vision in your head, which is like a party where you cook something where people dress like above airport grade clothing. Yeah, exactly. Maybe there's a theme. you, what happens when you try to do this? Every single time it was the same thing

where I'd invite a lot of people and a lot of people would say that they were out of town, they couldn't make it, a lot of people wouldn't respond at all. I would be like, okay, I need to follow up, but I don't want to be annoying. I would follow up like three times

no one would respond. And then a week before the party, I'd always be like, I think I got to cancel this because no one's coming. And this is really humiliating and I don't think I have any friends. And if I continue with this party,

what's going to happen is people are going to show up, see that no one else is there, and they'll be like, this girl's a loser. I don't want to go to her parties again. And then I'm going to have an even smaller group of people next time. And I'm just going to circle the drain time and time again. How many, when you send out an invitation, like how many people are you inviting typically? It's gotten smaller. So it used to be that I would invite a lot of my coworkers and I would invite a lot of people that I've met once or twice. And I would set this really, really wide nuts, 30, 40 people and like maybe eight people would show up. So now I'll invite like 10 couples, 10. 10 families. And I'm lucky if three show up. That is a low yield. I have to say, like, that is a low yield.

It's a very low yield. One thing, though, is I have to avoid holiday weekends because I'm from an area where apparently no one stays home for any holiday weekend ever, like everyone's always out of town. And that's the most common response I get is I'm out of town. So I have be very careful. And you take I'm out of town. Like, when you get that as a common response, you're both thinking a lot of people are traveling a lot and some people might be using it.

as a very convenient social out. Oh, completely. I see it as like every individual person who says it in the moment I believe them. And I'm like, okay, sure. But then I look at my invite list and I'm like, okay, I invited 10 people, seven are out of town on a random weekend in October. What are the odds, you know? And it's like some of them are lying.

I don't know who it is. What I sometimes do is I calculate, oh, this person has been out of town every single time I've invited them. I don't believe. There was one woman that claimed to have a stomach virus three times in a row. She didn't even change the virus. She couldn't even have the decency to get COVID or something.

I was like, I don't believe you. Some important context. When Claire moved to the place where she currently lives, she was hoping to make a ton of new friends there. Instead, COVID struck, and she and her husband had a baby, then another. And the triple whammy, new home, pandemic, kids, has just made finding people harder

than she would have liked. She's got some mom friends from the park, went through a Facebook group, a few wins. But there's something about the conversion from a good first meeting to friendship that is malfunctioning. Claire's not a closer. Like, here's a great example.

Yeah. I met this woman. She came over to her house with her kids. We had a really nice time. And she was like, I definitely want to hang out with you again. This was so fun. We have so much in common.

And we did have so much in common. And then I invited this. them to my son's birthday party. And I met her husband at this party. And I said to him, like, oh, I've gotten really close with your wife. She seems so nice. We have so much of common. I don't know if you've gotten to meet my husband at all, but like, it would be great. We could all go out, do something together, even with the kids if you wanted to bring them. And he very coldly said, well, we have a lot going on this summer. Like, we're going to be out of town a lot. And I was like, oh, yeah, that's fine. We are too, actually. But like, when we get back, let's all work something

out. And he was like, well, you know, work is pretty crazy. And, like, I have a lot going on. And I was like, why does this guy not want, like, he was clearly making excuses. And I was like stupidly taking them at face value. Like, I was like, oh, yeah, don't worry about it. Like, we can come to you. And then I was like, no, no, no, it's deliberate. He doesn't want to hang out with me. I don't know why. Like, maybe it was because I was talking to the husband and not the wife. Like, maybe he thought I was hitting on him. Like, I was like, I don't know. But he did not want to hang out with me. And then I never heard from the wife again. And to this day, I still have no idea what it was, it could have been like my kid or it could have been me or it could have been

my husband. Like, I don't know. It could have been anything. But I've had so many interactions like that, that after a while, like, something's going on. And how much do you worry that it is just like something about you? Like, how much does your brain say like, this is a personal thing? Oh, it always comes back to that. I think that's a likely culprit. Some of my earliest memories from preschool even, because I have a pretty good memory, is like, something is wrong with me. I don't know what it is. Other people are in on this code. I'm not in on it.

I don't get it. A lot of people have speculated that I have autism. I've been tested a lot of times, and I don't. I'm not even remotely on the spectrum. So I don't know what it is. Talking to Claire, reading Claire, it's very obvious you are encountering an unusual person. Not autistic, but has been tested a lot of times, sort of its own category. She's also been diagnosed with OCD, ADHD, ADHD.

she's a person with a brain that works really well in some ways, less well in others, where the part that sees clearly is constantly trying to describe things to the part that sees fuzzly. You say, like, you have early, early memories of this feeling of, like, whatever, the social rhythm that some people find easily you only found with difficulty. I was the kid not invited to other kids' birthday parties, and then no one would ever come to mind. So this is a deep wound from, like, childhood. And I have a summer birthday, so I'm going to blame some of it on, like, people actually traveling. But there was a little girl. I still remember her name. It was Megan. If you're listening

now, Megan, yes, I am still angry at you. But she had a birthday party. We were six, and she invited the whole class except for me. And I don't know what kind of mother. Now, as a mother, looking back on that, I'm like, what sicko would allow their kid to invite their whole first grade class except this one six-year-old girl? Like, what a horrible person. So, I mean, it's not her fault because she was a child, but like her mother needs to answer for her crimes. And at that age, your parents tell you that you're perfect and amazing. I mean, if you have loving parents, and my parents always told me,

oh, you're so likable. I love you so much. You're so funny. You're so kind. And so there's this thing where I'm like, well, why doesn't anyone else like me? I think it's fair to say that some version of this question exists in most people's minds, at least sometimes.

Who among us has not had the feeling that they're being off-putting but don't know why, that their personality has a big green chunk of something in its teeth that everybody else is reacting to, but won't just describe for you. Well, nobody will do it except a podcaster. That's why we're devoting a full episode to documenting one person's potential flaws and faux pauses, an unusually thick-skinned extrovert who has invited us explicitly to do so.

Claire assured me she was prepared to sit with whatever it was we found. I think I'm at the point in life for like I'm a big girl, I can handle it. What I want this to be, not that it's up to me, but like I just want it to be funny and relatable. I'm like, oh, you know, she's a little awkward. Like, I think that's fine. I'm okay to be roasted a little bit. I'm okay. If someone says her parties fucking suck ass and I've hated every single one, I will laugh at that.

But if someone's like she's a horrible mother and I suspect that she is a serial killer, I will be very upset. Totally. Totally understand. Like, you are, this is like a very, like, human, human, human set of concerns. And so would the next step be for me to send you some friends? people that you should talk to? Yes, that would be the best thing. Okay, I will do that. Awesome. All right. Thank you. All right. Touch you soon. After the break, we go get answers. Welcome back to the show. Like everybody else, I like things that are good, a good meal, a good movie.

But I can get about as much pleasure out as something that just totally sucks. An AI written song, someone's generated, that they are now playing for me off their phone speaker, convinced it's completely brilliant. If something is bad enough, trying to just explain to myself what makes it bad is its own pleasure. Autopsy of a stink. How many times in my life driving home from an open mic night or a play had I already been mentally running through a kind of true crime story? Who or what killed the fun that could have existed in this place? I'd done it actually for about a million parties I'd attended. I just never done it like this over the phone for a series of parties.

I hadn't. Claire had sent me a long list of people who'd agreed to talk. Intimates like her husband and brother, old friends from her pre-mom life in San Francisco, also new people in her new home. I decided to start there. How long have you known Claire? Okay, so I've known Claire about five years. We met as a mom meet up during the pandemic. This is Liz, a friend who Claire met through an event organized on the local Facebook moms group. There was a third mom that was there, and she was kind of boring, but I could tell Claire was interesting and funny and, like, neurotic and witty. And I'm like, I shall become her friend.

And so have you been to any of Clarenix parties? So we have kids. So my only experience with her parties has been kids' birthday parties. And what are they like? So, like, basically they have a great backyard space. They're a shoe-free household, so you take off your shoes, but then you put them back on to go through the back, or your kids have wet feet in their socks, which also happens to.

to my kids on occasion. But I'm like kind of a laissez-faire parent, so I don't care as much about that. Yeah. But you get to the back. Normally her husband has like a cocktail situation going on, which is sometimes non-alcoholic, sometimes alcohol, depending on where they are

in their alcohol journey. And then there's normally like a kid's beverage of some sort that's on the healthier side. And then there's like a birthday cake of some sort. The last time she made like a really beautiful cake herself, it was delicious. Clues. Already. Scattered clues. Dots in search of line. Alcohol journey. I filed that in my head in case meant something. But also, actually, the delicious cake.

It meant the food probably wasn't the problem, unless I wondered if Claire could be over-studying people's reactions to her cooking. A party failure mode I've both encountered and definitely created. Liz continued. And then, like normally the kids are just hanging out for a while. They play on the swing set. They mess around at like two parties ago. She gave away these really beautiful hand crocheted stuffed animals because she didn't like the waste of like a lot of goodie bags and they were like very precious and sweet. So very thoughtful, very nice. But yeah, like it's a kid's birthday party. I mean, it sounds nice though. It doesn't sound. It is. And it's not super structured. No, it's super chill. Like, especially given that it's Clarenic, it is significantly more chill than other

things in their lives. And what do you mean by way more chill than some of the other things in their lives? You know, like, the tidiness of the house is really important to Nick. Claire gets distracted sometimes because she is really focused on her kids. And, like, she really, she's a good mom. She really cares about her kids and, like, really tries to stay attuned to everything that's going on with them, much more so than I do. We went out for sushi once, and it was like an all-you-can-eat sushi place, and the kids

were playing on a field. And, like, she spent, like, a significant amount of our time, like, trying to make sure she could always see her son and that he would be. come closer, whereas my kids were just running around like crazy animals, and I was just like whatever. So, yeah, stuff like that. Hmm, stuff like that. I put that in my notebook. So it's funny. It's like you're describing people who are like anxious, maybe like verging on uptight, which is totally fine. But you're not having, what confuses me is like the experience she's having is like there's something about the party she's

throwing or the way she's throwing them or something that is, you're, you know, that is, putting off some people. There are people who go and never come back or people who see the invitation and decide not to come. But it's hard because what you're describing sounds very normal and fine. It's super normal. And you've never been, I'm not trying to, I guess I am trying to lead the witness. I'm trying to resist my own temptation to lead the witness. But you've never been at a party of Claire's where you've thought, this party's kind of weird. It should be different. No, never like it was weird. Like it's always a small gathering, but it's always pleasant. Huh. Okay. I'd say like maybe if there was more food.

Like, that would be my one piece of feedback. Like, more food would be great. Is it just, is it not many snacks? There aren't that many snacks. But I don't, I would never say that that was like a turnoff to the party. People would appreciate tracutory, crudite, tiny pigs and tiny blankets. You might even show up for good enough snacks. But their scarcity wasn't a reason for a 70% decline rate.

I made my next call. How far back do you go with Claire? So we met. the summer of 2023, I want to say. So it's been a few years. This is Meredith, another fellow mom, but less a friend or an acquaintance. Meredith had had some different experiences at Claire's parties,

although not at the first one. The first one was fine. It was lovely. They invited maybe the entire class of families, like not just kids, but whole families to their place for a get-together. It was like a beautiful late May or June day. They have this wonderful backyard where they had like a swing set

and they had a bouncy castle water feature type thing set up. Oh, wow. Had they rented the bouncy castle or did they have a full-time? Oh, no, they owned it. Yes, they owned it. I've never been to anyone's house who owned a bouncy castle. I know. Yeah. The bouncy castle.

There'd been this kid I'd known in junior high. I remember being somewhat ostracized, not because anything was wrong with him, except how badly he was trying to be liked. The decadence and opulence of his seventh-grade birthday party. He would have had a bouncy castle. Could the problem here just be the visible sweatiness of it all? But I looked into it.

This bouncy castle was actually modest, one you can get on Amazon for about $150. And besides, the Bounty Castle had charmed Meredith. I was like, wow, okay. The kids were, like, thrilled, you know. If I had been hosting the party, I would have been like, that was a great success. Have you ever been to a party at their house that felt unusual or awkward or weird or not fun? So the third party, and the final party that I was invited to at their house was different.

It was a joint party for Claire and her daughter. It was more indoor, and it was a totally different vibe. She had invited, there were some family there, there were coworkers there, there were some of her husband's friends were there, and a tiny smattering of the same preschool parent group was there. And were they not mushing in a coherent way? No. No. I mean, because the co-workers kind of stuck together and then like the ones of us that had kids, like we were in and out of their basement because that's where like the kids were mostly hanging out. And they weren't able to reach across the gap because sometimes it's fine. Like sometimes it's fine. Sometimes people mix, but they were not mixing.

Yeah, I mean, yeah. I don't think they were mixing that well. I don't think I was mixing that well either. And Claire was being pulled in a bunch of different directions herself. What do you mean? Can you describe what that was like? She and her daughter had these very cute matching outfits. They were trying to get photos. She was trying to like get drinks and stuff. I don't know. She was like hosting in very normal expected ways. But I don't remember feeling like she was sort of doing the connecting work.

She wasn't doing like, oh, you should talk to this person. And you guys need to talk about Pittsburgh. Because you guys both went to Pittsburgh one time. Right, right, right, right. maybe one of the more common forms of bad party in this world. The one where you're an ingredient placed into a mix in which you're never going to belong. Your mustard squirted into the batter of a cake. It was one of those things where, you know, I didn't know how long to stay.

It was a very open-ended party. And I definitely felt, like, relieved, you know, I don't know, that it was, like, coming to. Like, you know, we're going to be here for the amount of time we need to be here. And when you go, you get in the car and you're like, let's go home. Yeah, we're like, okay, I did that. But it's, like, so hard because, like, I do really appreciate people who are willing to host. And I think it's amazing that she is. So it's, I feel like awful, honestly, being, like, negative about it in any new way.

It was just, like, it did not feel like a party I wanted to stay at. I filed these stories away and began to reach out to a new list of people. the San Franciscans, people who'd known Claire longer, even before she was mom. I sent my emails. I waited for responses. Why do parties matter? I hesitate to say this next bit, because I believe it so earnestly, it makes me cringe. But I do think parties matter, in a deep, serious way. Parties summon the thing we actually care about.

Community. Not community, meaning fans of an influencer. or not community, meaning consumers of a product, actual community. When people who know each other a lot or a little come together to risk something. Risk being embarrassed or embarrassing. Bored or boring. Nobody has time for a party. We all work too much.

It's shameful to care about them, certainly as much as I do, certainly as much as Claire does. But I think they've reached us somewhere that's deeper than modern. Two inches beneath the service of our brain were cave people, scared, alone, afraid that when we wake up, the tribe will have moved on, and we'll have to fend for ourselves against all these bears. Claire doesn't know what it is about her that drives people away. That woman, she tried to befriend, the woman's husband, her group of friends in middle school,

who one day out of nowhere just permanently voted her off the lunch table. You don't get to do exit interviews with the people who decline your friendship. But a party, it's a way at least to test her current phone book, to see if the people whose numbers she knows will actually show up if she calls them. That's why she'd asked about the parties. That's why I was here. So my name is Alyssa, and I've known Claire,

I don't know how many years, since she very first moved to San Francisco, so maybe 14 or 15 years ago. Alyssa's a long-distance friend today, but back in SF, she and Claire were extremely close, which means she attended many of Claire and her husband next parties, and what she had to tell me was informative. For starters, even way back then, these were low-yield parties.

I would say a handful of people would show up, often the same characters, often random characters, who were like people she was trying to, like, befriend that week. I don't have a problem with these, like, smaller group gatherings, but I think in her mind she always wanted more of a rager. So I guess she interpreted them as being, you know, disappointments. But as an attendee, I never did. So more evidence that Claire kind of just hodgepages people together.

Some people mind. Others don't. But Alyssa, hopefully, had also done a little reporting of her own. I asked my own husband for his perspective. I was like, do you remember those parties? And he's like, well, I remember that their place was really small. and we would just sort of all be crowded around a TV watching music videos. Wait, really?

Yeah. She wanted this upscale martini drinking vibe in her apartment. But then when you get there, it was definitely like an apartment that was very decorated by Nick. Kind of like look like a guy's place. It's not as polished compared to where they live now. Help me see it. How did Nick decorate an apartment back then? It was dark.

Dark. There was sports paraphernalia, like on the walls. there was a license plate that said ass man on it, on the wall, which I always loved. And that's what my husband brought up to. He's like, ass man. I'm like, yeah, I know. That was so good.

We have so many photos of it. The ass man license plate, of course, a Seinfeld reference, Kramer's license plate in one episode. And under the ass man plate, they would participate in some strange party rituals, led by Claire's husband. So we'd get to his apartment,

and the TV was always on, and he always wanted to show, like, music videos. Music videos? Like, do you remember the genre? I'm going to mispronounce it, but David Guetta. He really liked him. The, like, I, like, dance music.

Like, I think they've done as EDM. I never watch music videos. Outside of their apartment, I don't think I would ever intentionally look up on music video. But it's very core to, like, the party scene there, the second genre of events that would happen at these parties would be Claire's impressions. where she would like, I think she did like an Iggy Ozelia one. She's always been into doing impressions.

Nick would sort of like, you know, get everyone quiet. I'd be like, hold on, hold on. Like Claire's going to do an impression now. It was a little forest, baby. And, you know, he was always her biggest cheerleader, like, laughing it up and thinking it was so great. But I think it was never, well, my husband's sense of humor

or something like he was entertained by. Like, I, she is not everyone's cup of tea. And her size of humor is absolutely not everyone's flavor. Listening to this, I got the feeling I imagine defense attorneys get when they learn something about their client that might not play so well in court. An upscale martini drinking party in a man cave where the hosts go kind of Michael Scott on you, the husband demanding you sit quietly and be an audience for his wife's humorous impressions, while meanwhile, you're also subject to unsolicited David Getta tracks on YouTube. This did not sound like my idea of a good party at all.

I don't like David Getta. I would remember that party, but I don't think I would come back for another. What kind of monster would do this to people? My name is Nick. I'm her husband. We've been together since she was 19, so 17 years. We've been married almost 12 years. Yeah, we've been together.

I know her pretty well if you have any questions. Nick, not his real name. As Alyssa had alleged, Nick was responsible for those David Gatta tracks, and by his admission, he'd also been egging Claire on when it came to her comedic impersonations. She was incredible impersonated.

She can, like, sing and just do, like, all these different artists. So I, like, hijacked a party and, like, make her do, like, a show for people because she's so, everyone would be laughing and laughing. But I always think, like, if she put, like, her talents more in display, I always say you get more friends that way. That's always my philosophy, and she always goes like the complete opposite, like not wanting to like be the center of attention anymore, never wanting to like talk about her work or anything like that.

It's hard not to appreciate Nick's profound love for his wife, his conviction that she's the funniest person he knows, his desire to show her off. It was sweet. I was even willing to give him a pass on the David Getta stuff. And so the problem that she is, that she's identifying, that the invitation yield is bad. Is this a problem that you also perceive to be real?

It's definitely a problem, yes, yes. It is. It's been a problem. So we lived in San Francisco for a while, and back then, we never had bait turnouts, but we always had a good group of people. And since we moved, we've just never had consistent turnouts. And she really likes throwing parties.

She grew up, and her family always through a party, these big extravagant party. So she's always trying to do this. It just never comes to fruition. And what do you suspect is going on? Well, I think there's probably like a pie of a lot of different reasons. I'm sure I'm part of the problem.

Like, I also have OCD. I can definitely get like hyper-fixated with people like scratching a table or leaving a glass of water on a table without a coaster. So that's a little piece of the pie. I think like she can definitely get very anxious when their kids aren't in sight. And I think, like, at a party,

that probably can make people feel a little bit uncomfortable. Or, like, I mean, I don't think she, you know, a lot of the moms typically were, like, even to, like, a party would wear, like, maybe just, like, nice sweatpants. I mean, not very dressed, but she comes, like, fully dressed up, right? I think that could also make people feel a little bit uncomfortable. The thing about the clothes, I'd actually wondered about this, too.

One recurring theme on Claire Substack, on cartoons hate her, is the outfit she wears. She often makes her own clothes. She posts photos with her face blocked out. Internet commenters have remarked on her fashion. Someone called her clothes indecent, a modest. They're being prudes. But anyone who dresses remarkably risks annoying some people.

Nick and Claire had both noted that sometimes women in particular react badly to Claire. Like the women at the office where she used to work. People she worked with, like the cool girls from work that would come. and they would be, like, very mean to her. They'd be mean at the party? They would just not, like, pay attention to her, really engage with her. I remember, like, we were getting the party ready,

and we were on the roof deck, and we saw someone, like, waiting at the bottom. They had a huge bottle of rosé. I was like, you can, you know, you can come in. It was, like, starting to rain. Like, you can come in. Like, no, no, no, I don't want to come in till the other girls are here.

Oh, my God. So she was, like, waiting outside with the bottom. She didn't want to be just, like, in there with Claire, until all the other girls from work that she was friends with were there, too. That just really painful. She's had a lot of really painful experiences. I tell her to just stop.

I just like do not care that much. I just don't see what it's the effort or the stress. It puts you through so much stress, I don't get why she keeps doing this to herself. Nick would prefer to not see his wife get hurt like this over and over again. He wishes they could just stick to dinner with friends. The big parties aren't even fun. Nick's brain doesn't have the feature Claire's does.

A deep curiosity to know why some people don't like him, which is the same position. Because all of us are annoying and boring some of the time, in ways we'll never detect. How many times have I been at a party telling what I think is a hilarious anecdote when I noticed that the person I've been talking at, their phone has the Uber screen on it.

Because while I was enjoying how funny I think I am, they were summoning an escape pod. It's just a fact of being a person. And unless you're a politician or a celebrity, the world will never tell you the specifics of your unfavorables. But for Claire, the unfavorables were impossible to ignore because her whole life she found herself bumping into them. Months had passed now.

I'd mostly worked through the list, Claire had sent. Everybody had grasped a part of the elephant. It wasn't even that mysterious. For one, Claire's very anxious. It's not uncommon for her to have a freak out because she's convinced something terrible has happened to her husband or her kids. Another part of the elephant is Claire's sense of humor. A distinct flavor.

Not for everyone. Big performer. The kind of person who once so thoroughly hijacked a party with her Lana Del Rey impression that no one could hear anything else. A ham like that is never going to be for everyone. Although Claire says she's purposely, over the years, taught herself to dial that down.

To spend less time trying to be funny. More time trying to just ask people questions about themselves. But still, the RSVPs were coming back knows. And at such a higher rate than any of this would have predicted. The last person I talked to probably should have been the first, a person who could see every part of the elephant, Claire's brother. He knew he'd always known why nobody goes to his sister's parties. It was like he'd been waiting for my call. I guess, first of all, is your perception that this is a real thing? Like, do you feel like people don't go go to the sisters' parties? Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, so like, my sister and I are like really, really, really best friends. And by the way, this is not background. Like you could print this. She's just like a very difficult and annoying person. But like she's my absolute best friend. So like, for example, today she's like texted me like over a hundred times about Hanta virus and like whether she's going to like die from Hanta virus.

When you say over a hundred times, are you speaking rhetorically or? No, no, no. I think that the number of times texts about Haanta virus are probably about close to 100, and they were probably over 100 yesterday. Oh, that's a lot. And, like, that's, like, I ignore her, like, when I don't want to, like, respond to it. But she's, like, a genius and genuinely one of the most originally funny and, like, amazing people ever. But, like, she does a lot of things that would make her being, like,

a really popular party host difficult. Claire's brother would paint me a picture of Claire at a party that was clearer than anyone before had. But before he did that, he needed me to see what I'd been missing in Claire's story, the skeleton key to all of those. So, like, she's, like, never been popular, like, at all. Like, she's always been, like, quite widely disliked because she has a very polarizing set of traits. For one, she has a very narrow series of interests, and the people who do have those interests are almost never women. So, like, groups of women, like, usually, like, hate her because she's constantly violating conformity.

being different in a way that's very unsettling and uncomfortable. And what is she trying to engage them in conversation? When you say she has a narrowest interest. For example, like, she's really into, like, social taboo conceptually, which is very funny because she doesn't have very good social skills, but she's very interested in other people's bad. So, like, anything that's, like, cringe, like, she really loves cringe. Oh, okay.

And so, like, she has, like, kind of the sense of humor and the disposition of, like, a Mountain Dude drinking Reddeter, like Reddit pro. But obviously, like, if you talk to her, like, she doesn't give off that impression right away. She's like... She looks like a very normal person. Yeah. So, like, people, like, see her and they think, like, oh, like, I know this kind of, like, woman. And then they, like, talk to her.

And if she's, like, being completely authentic, they're, like, very immediately bothered by her. And she, like, has never known why. Because just to see... I just want to make sure I have a clear picture of this. It's like, she looks like a person who, like, maybe, like... Normal girl. Yeah, wants to talk about how great the opposite. was or something, or like Parks and Rec.

Yeah. And then instead, it's like she's reading really off-putting, like, she wants to spend her time online looking at, like, weird subcultures that are behaving in to every way and talk about it with you. So she was, like, really into, not into as in being a supporter of, but, like, really into in terms of, like, being a lurker of, like, red pill and insult blogs, like, years before that was, like, a thing. Like, in, like, 2013, she was, like, reading, like, red pill blogs.

Because she's just, like, what are these sickos thinking? Yeah, yeah, she was really into it. To his mind, terminally online cringe merchant is the realist version of his sister, what she actually cares about, what she can actually connect with other people over in a real way. He thinks the solution to all this is clear. Claire should stop trying to fit in with normal people.

She's not normal. Find a scene of weirdos where she can be herself. But what he's seen instead is a person who's taken the wrong lesson from being shunned so much, who now just keeps trying harder and harder to fit in, particularly after leaving San Francisco. When she moved, she was like, okay, this time is going to be different. So now what she does is she like performs the role a lot.

So I, in short, I don't think her parties are well attended because I don't think they're fun. I've been to them. I don't think they're fun. And the reason why I don't think they're fun is that she's like pretending to be someone who throws like well-liked normie parties. Yeah. For the normal person, it's a kind of like off-putting bizarre performance.

And to me, it's like a hilariously inadequate performance. I want to put VR goggles over my eyes right now. I've walked into one of her parties. Yes. What happens? So, like, at these kinds of parties, I feel like I'm going to a movie with my favorite comedic actor. But it's a drama, and their performance is bad and boring. And so it's like she is performing.

her idea of what a mom should be and what a woman in her 30s should be. And it's like, it's just very boring. Because the thing about it is that she doesn't have that many things to talk about. She has a couple of things to talk about endlessly, but those are not appropriate topics usually. So it's like, if I meet someone who's a civil engineer designing bridges, I like pretend to care about bridges for 20 minutes

and like try to learn as much as I can about like bridges. Yeah. And then her eyes just, like, blaze over. Not because she's mean, but because something in her brain, like, does not fire properly. Yeah. And she just, like, can't care. So she'll be like, oh, how is that? And they'll be like, it's pretty good.

And she'd be like, okay, like, do you work in office? She really hates working in office because she's just, like, always bullied when she's in office. Like, her main way of relating to other people's jobs is like, do you have to be in an office? Because, like, they're all like, yep, you know, I have to be in office. And she's like, oh, sorry about that, you know. Claire's brother sees his sister as a closeted person who isn't really passing, except not in a tragic way, in a slapstick way, like if Bigfoot put on a suit and tried to ride the subway unnoticed.

He thinks for Claire to have an actually fun party, she'd have to fill it with the kinds of people who appreciate her as her, instead of these normies who are not quite falling for her regular person impression. When I host house parties, which are well attended, by the way, I talk about her all the time, but all just the freak flag stuff, all the, like, all the, like, whizany stuff that she does. And, like, the people who are my friends,

who, like, don't know her are all, like, this sounds like the coolest, funniest person ever. But she, like, is so scarred from being bullied for being that person that she just can't do it anymore. So she came to visit me, and I literally organized on Partyful, like, Claire Meet and Greet to have all my friends come meet,

her in person. And she was being so boring. And I took her aside and I was like, what are you doing? And she's like, I'm just like, I'm being polite with your friends. And I was like, no, no, no, no. Like, that's not what they're here for. Do your thing. Like, do whatever you want.

Like, that's what they want. And she was like, oh, are you sure? Like, isn't that going to be like rude? And I was like, no, no, no, like, you're allowed to. And then five minutes later, she's like doing her like whole song and dance. Like, people are loving it. And this is like why, rather than asking like, why don't people come to her party is like the more interesting thing is, like, why do people on the internet like her?

I... This is what I've been thinking about the whole time you've been talking. Yeah. The story of me knowing her is that no one likes her. And then, like, suddenly now everyone likes her. Online. Online, but not in person. It's funny, the internet is a party, sort of, kind of,

that she's throwing in her subsect, and she's like... People love it. Top of the leaderboard. People love it. Yes. I called Claire to tell her everything I learned. She laughed. She laughed a lot as I listed off everything people had said they thought

might be off-putting about her. For every negative trait, she had a story, often a funny one, about times when she exhibited it. But when it came to her brother's advice to remove her mask, find rooms where she could do that easily, stop trying to fit in in Normie Town,

she rejected that. I think my brother's off base there because I think he's viewing it through his eyes where he thinks who I am is great, that I have to break it to him, like, most people don't like who I am. Most people find me really insufferable when I am filterless and talk a lot.

and perform constantly and I'm very focused on myself, most people find that very tiring. The lesson she's learned over the years is more like, be yourself but carefully, not all at once. And she had an update for me. She's still not throwing successful parties, but she said something seems to be shifting. Her social calendar feels less anemic.

She said just that week, on three separate occasions, it was her making the excuses for why she couldn't find time. My kid got a cold, and I had to be the person Oh, my kid got sick. Like, I can't. And it was true. Like, I wasn't making it up. But it's like, I never thought I would be the person canceling.

Like, I used to be the person where it's like, unless it was a medical emergency, I will do anything to get someone to hang out with me because I just have so few opportunities. And this week, I was like, you know what? I actually can postpone things, which did give me some insight into why people sudden's cancel on me. Like, maybe it isn't always me. Like, maybe they actually are busy. And people are just busier than I am. And this new social success Claire is having, she attributes it to the strategy she's followed.

toning down the louder parts of her personality. I can't be that person with people I'm just meeting. I can't go up to a mom at the park and be like, want to hear my Trump impression. Like, one percent chance she wants to hear it, you know? So that's just, you know, how it is. And so even though it is a little phony, it's a temporary stage where eventually I do slowly sort of drop the mask

and, like, people get to know me. And, you know, I get them nice and comfortable. And then I'm like, I'm doing Trump impressions. Actually, this one couple had us over for dinner, and I did the Trump impression. We have not heard from them since. Listening and learning,

they say that they are very busy with travel sports, which I'm told is a real thing, so I don't want to discount it. But the travel sports appeared to have begun after your favorite president. So it is. Claire Haber Harris. to come to the party she throws every week on the internet. You can find her at cartoons

hate her. I say this with all admiration. It's a super weird hang. Not for everyone. Search Engine is a presentation of Odyssey. It was created by me, PJ Vote, and Shruthy Pinnaminani. Garrett Graham is our senior producer. Emily Maltaire is our associate producer. Our production intern is Piper Dumont. Theme, original composition, and mixing by Armin Vizarian, fact-checking this week by Natsumi Ajasaka. Our executive producer is Leah Reese Dennis. Thanks to the rest of the team at Odyssey. Rob Morandi, Craig Cox, Eric Donnelly, Colin Gaynor, Mora Curran, Josephina Francis, Kurt Courtney, and Hilary Schuff.

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