I love about house parties that people show up looking all nice, like with one of their top five shirts (or equivalent; I think I'm one of the few that actually has ranked his shirts) or a snazzy dress and good shoes, or something. You know, tight jeans and what else. I think to a certain extent it's a gay and girl thing: getting ready with it in your head that, when you show up, everyone else will say "wow, look at you!" They might, but everyone has that in their heads, and not every single person at the party will receive or issue a wow look at you.

Anyway. Also, you've done your hair, and if it's a party with a few strangers or acquaintances you might want to impress, you've done it and redone it until it looks perfect. And you might even show up with a bottle of alcohol, and when you enter you smile and shrug expressively,
Kind of like what Ann Shoket is doing in this screenshot that I took a year ago for totally separate and obsolete purposes. Only instead of the papers she's holding for some reason, you have your bottle of alcohol, and you hold it to show it off but never higher than your face, which is much more important.

The point is, everyone wants to look nice and impress, I just like the thought of comparing people's appearances upon their arrival to those of their departure. Everyone thinks they look better than when they came, but hair is a mess, shirts are weirdly wet, someone is missing a bra for some reason and I don't want to put my shirt back on because someone else spilled beer all over it. Smiles are wild and weighed down by heavy bags under all eyes. I just think it's kind of interesting to think about something that started so composed, with everyone intent on things going exactly according to the plan they've set out in their head, and by the end no one has any control or awareness over anything.