Summer Gatherings. Let's break it down shall we.
Summer: The time of the year that is unbearably hot. The time of the year that those who go outside to have "fun" despite the sweltering heat needs to have their head examined. The time of the year that the best place to be is inside in front of the Air Conditioning with no one around so all that pleasant cool air is concentrated on you.
Gathering: People. People wanting to chat and socialize. People wanting to gossip about who broke up with who and who is seeing someone's ex-whatever. Not to mention all those questions of what you are doing with your life NOW even though it is the same as it was last time you spoke to the person. With people comes way too much drama.
So why on earth do people think it is a good idea to combine the two things? Not only do you need to deal with people but you need to do so in the hot misery that is summer when all you want to do is go back home into the AC. This is not my idea of fun. Please Avada Kedavra me if you ever see me at one of these 'parties'. It is far kinder than making me sit through the event and wanting to gouge out my eyes and ears and anything else I can reach.
There is no worse combination I can think of then needing to be social in the burning hot weather. That is pure torture. Whoever came up with the idea of summer gatherings is a master at torture. The only way that anything like this could be saved is if they hired an ice cream truck to stay there… as long as the ice cream truck didn't run out of good ice cream. At least that would cool you off so you don't want to melt like the wicked witch of the west. At least that is a good thing if you don't eat it so fast you get brain freeze. If you eat it too slow though it will melt all over you and attract bugs so it is a question of which is the lesser evil… meaning there still isn't a decent solution to summer gatherings
Save yourself some pain and stay home.