Let’s say you’re invited to a party by Person A. Person B knows both you and Person A, but is not invited. Talking about the party in front of Person B would seem to be rubbing the lack of invitation in. But is it impolite/wrong to do so, and where would you draw the line?
As someone who just had this happen, I say yes, it is impolite. In my case it was someone saying to me “oh, Glory’s party was so fun” and I wasn’t invited to Glory’s party. Yes, I know Glory about as well as the other person. There is no line–you just don’t talk about it.
I say yes, it is impolite. It isn’t your fault that you were invited and they weren’t, but talking about it in front of them does seem like rubbing their nose in their lack of invitation. It’s exclusionary.
It is always impolite to talk about an event in front of a person when they were not invited. I consider it the first rule of party-throwing.
I don’t think it would be rude if Person B wasn’t expecting to be invited. If Person A and you are best friends and Person B is juat an acquaitaince of your friend, then you talking about his wedding isn’t rude or inappropriate.
But if Person B was expecting to be invited, then yes, it is probably not a good idea to bring it up. Even if their expectation isn’t reasonable.
This probably happens a lot in workplace friendships. All the coworkers may consider themselves “friends” of each other, but some may be more “friend” than others. I think it’s important to avoid ruffling feathers by talking about private invitations too much. But it’s also important for coworkers to realize that just because you may work closely with someone, that doesn’t make you their friend.
I think it’s rude, yes, if like monstro said that person B had a reasonable expectation of being invited.
I think maybe if it’s a wedding, it’s slightly different. There’s a cutoff point for weddings and not everyone can be invited. A grown up should not have a reasonable expectation of being invited to a wedding.
I vote that it’s impolite.
Weren’t we told this as early as kindergarten, when kids started hosting birthday parties?
I agree with everyone else, it’s impolite. Definitely don’t bring up the party if possible. Sometimes the party might come up in conversation, whether it’s them asking what you did on Friday night and you were at the other friend’s party, or maybe you bring up the party not realizing the other person wasn’t invited. In that case, it’s best to change the topic of conversation. The only times it’s not impolite is when the person shouldn’t have any expectation of being invited, like for some weddings, or something like a bachelorette if it’s a guy, or some other specific things like that.
I’ll give you an answer after I get back from the Annual Charter Member Beer Bash and Bacchanal.
Cat, Zip, let us be off. Remember your lanyards. They won’t let you in the spa without one.
Yes. I’d draw the line in not mentioning it at all. If I’m person A, I don’t bring it up to person B. I don’t say “Will I see you at Megan’s on Friday” I don’t say “I didn’t see you at Megan’s” I don’t say “We had a great time at Megan’s!”
If person B says “are you going to Megan’s on Friday?” I can say yes, are you? And if they didn’t get invited, then I don’t talk about it anymore unless they do. If they say “I hear Megan had a dinner party last week? How was it?” I can respond - but not in gushing detail unless prodded to do so.
Yes, it’s impolite. I have a coworker/friend and a coworker/enemy in the same office. My friend will openly talk about the times we’re going to hang out outside of work, just to rub it in to our enemy (who of course isn’t invited). I don’t like the enemy at all, but it makes me feel uncomfortable. I’m not good at playing Mean Girls.
If the uninvited person was someone who could have been invited then it is impolite. If the uninvited person lives somewhere else, doesn’t know the host of the social event, or is otherwise disconnected from the event then there’s nothing wrong with talking about it.
It’s impolite, but if it’s a very close friend who’s not been invited then I will go out of my way to talk about it as much as possible in front of them, bringing it up at every available opportunity even when it seems an out of place subject.
“I’m just going to the shop, do you want anything?”
“Maybe some biscuits? I saw some great biscuits at Rachel’s party the other night. You know that party? The one you weren’t invited to? Hang on, I may have taken a picture of the biscuits, let me get my phone out. No, no. Wait here, I’m sure I may have photographed them. Here’s a picture of a beautiful woman I was talking to, nope don’t see the biscuits there. Here’s me drinking the free punch which was so good. No biscuits there. This is the cheese selection she put out. Hmm, you’d have thought that might feature the biscuits. Not sure why I took a photo of the cheese to be honest - maybe I was thinking of you and how much you love that brie that didn’t even get finished.”
That sort of thing.
It’s definitely impolite, although there are exceptions and gradients - I mean, if I got invited to the Oscars because I won a ticket or I’ve just started dating some movie star or something, it’s totally okay for people to be all “So how were the Oscars?!” And if we are all Suzy’s coworkers and only you and I were invited to her birthday party and not Mandy, it is totally not okay to talk about it in front of Mandy. At ALL. Because the most embarrassing thing is if you said to Mandy “So are you going to Suzy’s party?” and Mandy wasn’t invited.
Weddings, eh. I mean, if we were all equal level coworkers and thought we were all equal friends with Suzy and she only invited some of us, do NOT talk about it. (Kind of rude on Suzy’s part though.) But if I’m a lot closer to Suzy, or only I am in her department, or I’m her sister in law, and she invited me and not you, that’s not surprising to anybody and I think it’s okay to talk about the wedding then.
While it is impolite if you knew the person would have wanted to be invited, I don’t think it would be otherwise.
Let us consider another scenario, suppose it was an event you did by yourself. You went fishing, shopping at a department store, whatever. Do you talk about these kind of events? Or do you refrain because the other person’s mental reaction might be: “I love to fish, why didn’t you invite me?”. “I would have had fun shopping at the Mall with you, I’m hurt you didn’t invite me.”
I don’t think being polite means that a person should worry about causing offense to everyone, no matter how overly sensitive or insane they are. A person who expects to tag-along with their friend all the time is insane.
I agree with Monstro, on all accounts, especially the bit about “even if the expectation isn’t reasonable.” That’s what makes it hard to draw the line, making the safe play to simply not discuss it.
But there are pretty clear cases. I’m in a soul band along with one of the guys at work. If we both go to a party related to the crowd of people associated with the band and talk about that at work, no feathers are ruffled. But if one of us has a party and invites some folks from work and not others, nobody discusses it at work in front of anyone who wasn’t there (and we don’t assume we know who was invited or not.)
I think it depends on the event.
When I came into work on Monday morning and my best work buddy regaled me with stories of the great party that her next door neighbor gave I wasn’t offended in the least. I don’t know her next door neighbor and would have no expectation of being invited to such a party. I’m sure when my yoga studio has their 10th anniversary bash next weekend I’ll come in with some stories of my own and since my friend has no relationship with my yoga studio or any of the other members she would have no expectation of being invited.
These situations happen all the time. We need something to talk about on Mondays and “What did you do this weekend” is a good start.
But if the party had been given by another worker in our office it would be a totally different situation.
Weddings still depend. I don’t actually expect to be invited to anyone’s wedding- after all, the happy couple is free to elope. I absolutely expect to be invited to my nephew’s wedding if his other aunts and uncles are.
But I would only worry if the expectations are reasonable- there’s no reason my sister should have to keep quiet about her son’s upcoming wedding at a family reunion just because a fairly distant cousin might be unreasonably upset about the lack of an invitation.
Thanks for the answers. I was wondering where honesty and openness come into it, which is what made me ask about the “line”. It would seem impolite to me, but the idea of deliberately hiding your own invitation and your friend’s potentially-mildly-offensive lack of invitation seems unfair, too. I don’t appreciate hearing all about things I’m not invited to but would have liked to have attended, but I wouldn’t appreciate finding out a week later that it happened and it was a “secret”, either.