the.com/plus one
The guest whose only job is to exist and laugh at your jokes.
means A guest invited as someone else's companion to an event, admitted on the strength of their date's invitation rather than their own.
from Straight out of event-planning arithmetic — RSVP cards that read '___ + 1' to let a single invitee bring a companion. The term jumped from the tally sheet into speech sometime in the 20th century, and by the end of it 'plus one' had stopped being math and started being a social category, a role you could be invited into and introduced as.
- origin
- wedding invites popularized the term, not Hollywood
- social contract
- you vouch for their behavior, legally and emotionally
- risk
- can outshine the actual invitee at any event
- upgrade path
- sometimes becomes plus zero, aka spouse