Researchers who go out and count real conversation groups keep landing on the same number, and the pattern’s so consistent it’s earned a nickname: the dinner party problem. So if you seize up at a table of nine, you’re attempting something the evening itself can’t sustain. When MIT researchers measured how well groups solved a spread of problems, the top performers weren’t the ones stacked with the sharpest individuals. They were the groups where speaking time was spread more evenly, where members read each other well. Going twenty minutes without speaking builds a small private wall that gets harder to climb with every round of drinks.