You issue an invitation to a group - family or friends or coworkers or whatever - to an event or a restaurant or whatever, your treat. You are so generous and such a cool friend!!
Not everyone accepts - might be a schedule conflict or the invite just doesn’t appeal. Face it, you can’t please everybody all the time.
Do you feel like you owe those who decline a similar invitation for another time to make up for the one they miss? Does your answer depend on the group you invited?
For example - you invite your family to dinner out, but your sister doesn’t like the restaurant you’ve chosen - would you take her out another time to a place she’d prefer? Would your answer be different for friends or coworkers? If you were invited but unable/uninterested in attending would you expect a consolation invite to something you’d like?
No, I don’t need answer fast. This was prompted by some musings over things I’ve observed.
I wouldn’t feel I “owed” anyone, but I would consider it a missed opportunity to see someone that I would like to make up later. So I would be likely to schedule something else for the people who declined.
I do think I’d be less likely to do that with an acquaintance or coworker. But with a family member or a close friend, yes I’d definitely reschedule something, not because I think there’s an obligation, but because I would just want to see them.
I’d approach it from the other end. From the invitee’s perspective I see 3 cases.
Somebody invites me to something and I can’t attend. Some other higher priority thing must be done instead. Gotta work, have COVID, etc. I feel bad declining, explain the same to the would-be host, and make it up to them by inviting them to something I’m hosting, whether it’s just us two for lunch or a bigger shindig. You tried, and the fact I couldn’t accept doesn’t leave it your turn to try again; it leaves it my turn to try again to make it happen. Me making amends for spurning your invitation is the primary goal. Even though I had a darn good reason to spurn.
Somebody invites me to something and I won’t attend due to something other than the host. Maybe I hate that restaurant or can’t eat that cuisine. Or I know Sally will be there and we can’t play nice together for even an hour. Much as the above, I feel bad declining. But maybe not as bad. Especially not if I expect the host already knew my limitations / redlines and made these choices anyhow. I might try to reciprocate, or might not. For sure if I do it becomes my responsibility to pick a mutually convivial place and mutually convivial company, if any.
Somebody invites me to something and I won’t attend due to the host or host-spouse. Frankly I’d rather you hadn’t invited me, and I hope you won’t invite me a second time to something else similar. And I’m sure not going to invite you to something.
My bottom line: You as would-be host tried. It’s now their turn for a counter-move. If they do, great. If they don’t, well now you know.
All the above is modulo what you as host already know about the declining invitee. Since you invited them, they aren’t a stranger to you. Maybe they’re the sort who declines most invites since they’re fussy eaters. Or painfully introspective / shy. Or horribly flatulent after eating at the Mexican place you chose. Or …
I’m with @LSLGuy here. I offered, they declined, and we move on to the next thing. An invitation to an event isn’t an open-ended voucher that obliges the host to treat an invitee at a time and place of their choosing later if they can’t or won’t go to the original event.
I think with a family member, I might extend another invite at another time, depending on circumstances - dinner another time, sure. Vacation trip? Probably not.
Non-family - so sorry, but you missed your chance. Keep that in mind when I hit the big lottery and offer to fly the whole Dope to Tahiti, and you can’t make it…
I wouldn’t feel I owed the person who declined a special invitation to make up for the one they missed. If I invite both my son and my daughter to dinner and my son declines for whatever reason, he’s not going to get an invitation for a dinner without my daughter to make up for the one he missed. Same if I invited my three siblings and one or two declined - the next invitation will be for all three again , not just the ones who declined.
I think it depends on the person and the situation. Somebody I really want to see, I’ll try to sort out what the difficulty is and see them in some fashion that difficulty doesn’t apply to. I would think of the responsibility to do that as being on both of us, not something that needs to be done strictly by turns.
And is what’s going on, say, that most of the group always eats at a steakhouse and the vegan sister or whatever just can’t stand it, so always politely declines? or always includes Uncle Must-Praise-[Politician}-In-A-Loud-Voice-All-Through-Dinner, though they don’t all agree with him? or something of that sort? After a while of that, Sister (or whatever) is going to start feeling deliberately excluded; which may in fact be happening. I’d go a bit out of my way to invite them to something they could attend.
