By “party”, I mean a physical social gathering of people for the purposes of having fun. It may be used in a sentence as “I am throwing a party!” or “Let’s party!”.
Basically what I am trying to say is the default “party”.
I’ve never been to any, and I have no idea how people spend their time on parties, so I am curious how you did.
Drink, talk, play games, share music. If I don’t know many people, it’s normal for your friends to be socialising with a bunch of other people they know. I usually grab a beer, look for two or three friendly people sitting down, have a sit, tell them my name, and tell them I know no one except that guy surrounded by a bunch of strangers. Almost always they’re friendly back, start asking questions about me, I ask question about them, and soon enough we’ve reached a common ground or some topic we can talk about.
If I’m ever stuck alone again, I can seek them out like, “Yup, it’s happened again so I’m just gonna hang around you guys so I don’t feel weird.” And that’s always quite a laugh.
Extroverts are your best friends in these situations. Most love leading the conversation and appreciate you seek them out. They’ll take care of you. It’s not awkward at all.