Congratulations. You have just created exactly the sort of stern demand that you claim to abhor.
If you really feel that it is too much to ask that you respond to an invitation, then you have done well by narrowing your horizons to only those who never would think of issuing one. But to those of us who are shopping, and cooking, and possibly borrowing chairs, it really does help to have a count of the guests.
I socialize very little now, but there was a time when answering formal invitations was a weekly sit-down chore for me. Keeping my social calendar carefully updated mattered greatly. Most of these were embassy parties, full of fascinating people, and stunning cuisine. I greatly enjoyed them. Having a reputation as a “good guest” would garner more and more invitations. I loved it, and had a wonderful time.
But yeah, it required me to sit down for 30 minutes a week and track where I would be when, what I needed to wear, and what I might have worn to that venue already.
Compared to the effort and expense my hosts were going to on my behalf, this was an absolute pittance.
We always try to be welcoming to Thanksgiving guests who have nowhere else to celebrate the holiday but we have one guest who every year adds at least one person after our RSVP deadline.* Last year, she tried to do it on Thanksgiving morning, after the table and placecards were set, and while we were in the middle of cooking dinner. We were already worried about running low on certain dishes because three people RSVP’ed after we had already picked out the turkey and bought the other food. Mrs. Charming and Rested put her foot down and said we couldn’t accommodate anyone else.
We never actually stick to the deadline but when we haven’t heard from regular guests by then, we call and ask whether they got the invitations and whether they plan to come. Surprise! They often say yes but they forgot to respond or aren’t yet sure how many people are coming.
Because even though our friends and family are imperfect, we love them enough to want to share holidays with them. Is that really so hard to understand? Besides, it gives us something to bitch about when we’re stirring the cranberry sauce.
Well perhaps it is something outside of my own experience so perhaps I don’t understand, as much as I love my own brothers and sister I can’t imagine wanting to spend the holidays with them.
They didn’t just say family, they said “friends and family”. If you’re excluding both friends and family from your get-togethers, I can presume you’re only inviting enemies, and are your enemies really any better at respecting RSVPs?
I don’t have any sort of a get-together other than an informal drink or meal, perhaps an ad-hoc “stay for dinner” if there’s some on offer. Certainly nothing that would ever require a formal written invite to be issued (and the thought of sending a formal invite to any of my close family is baffling to me and would be laughable to them) and nothing that would ever be at risk by the known inconsiderate behaviour of others. We are a very low-maintenance bunch, drama-averse.
My family doesn’t do formal written invites either, but it’s still helpful to know if somebody’s going to show up. The idea of letting somebody know you’re not going to show is not incomprehensible to me - far from it, in fact.
Let me give you an example. Sometimes my brother and niece come over on friday evenings to watch a movie on my nifty 120" projection screen. It a pretty informal affair; they call when they’ve finished their dinner and whatever else they needed to get done first. Sometimes, though, they have something else going on and don’t come over at all. But if they don’t come, and don’t call letting me know, I can’t exactly start doing something else, now, can I? Supposing I got halfway through a movie and they did call; what should I do then? Abort my movie midstream? Tell them sorry suckers, I decided to cancel the appointment without telling them? What? I’d rather not have to call and interrupt them when they might be in the middle of something; that would be rude!
So what happens is, I wait until it’s positively too late to come over - half of my evening wasted. Unless of course they call and tell me they’re not coming - that’s always appreciated.
Small thing - the response is supposed to be the same level of formality as the invitation. So for a texted “you guys coming over?” you don’t need to send a formal decline. But you should send at least a “:)” or “:(” depending.
Your approach is unfathomable to me. If it was important to my planning I’d just take 30 seconds to call them. “are you coming over?” It is by far the best way to get a clear answer. I wouldn’t let my life be dictated by the inaction of others. And why would it be rude for you to call them about it when they are doing something else? And if there is clearly the option of “doing something else” then wouldn’t it be equally rude of them to disturb you when you are doing something else? Anyway, they aren’t obliged to answer. Leave a message telling them if you don’t hear back by XXXX then you are doing something else.
As for saying you can’t start doing something else if they don’t tell you…that’s crazy. Of course you can and of course you should.
Why can’t you say “sorry guys, didn’t hear from you so I’m doing something else.”?
But you call it an “appointment”. This is something agreed to in advance by two parties (even if fairly informally) and so in this case whoever fails to keep the appointment without letting the other party know is in the wrong.
If you decided spontaneously to host such a one-off viewing, sent an invite and then sat twiddling your thumbs waiting for them arrive even when they’ve not accepted…well more fool you.
I think a failure to respond to an agreed appointment is very different to a failure to respond to a speculative invite.
It’s great that you don’t put yourself in the position of needing to know whether people you have invited are showing up, a and that if you did, you’d speak to people directly to get a “yes” or “no”. I wonder if you are acknowledging that you are limited in the invitations you can issue with those restrictions. Not putting yourself in the position of needing a response means you can’t have anything where you you would need to buy food/drink depending on the number of people. I don’t know about you, but there’s a limit to how many extra people I can stretch a dinner for and also a limit for how long I am willing to eat leftovers, so I do need to know if 10 or 20 people are coming to Thanksgiving dinner. Also, most of the people I know can’t just immediately say “yes” or a"no" to an invitation - they have to check with a spouse, check the kid’s schedule, whatever. Which means they will have to call me back - which is an RSVP.
Now i mean, maybe it’s fine with you to be limited in the invitations you can issue. Maybe you have a tiny family, or don’t like them. But surely you can understand that not everyone wants those limitations, and that when I invite my siblings/kids/spouses for Thanksgiving, I need to whether 10 or 20 are coming. And the same when I invite 100 people to my daughter’s wedding or 40 my July BBQ. And that means they need to tell me “yes” or “no”, not just yes ( for reasons explained earlier). The only time I don’t need an idea of how many is if I’m not really feeding people. It’s hard for me to imagine an event like that, but I have heard of “cake and punch receptions” . I guess those might be inexpensive enough to have cake/punch for everyone you invite even if only half show.
Oh yes, I purposefully restrict myself. I’ve never hosted guests or a barbecue or any get-together where any of that matters. I don’t do any entertaining in any formal manner at home.
The most I’ve ever done is mention to friends that we’ll be at home on day X and if they want to come over and bring some food and booze we’ll have the barby and the hot-tub on, but only ever a handful and if they don’t choose to come it makes no difference either way.
I’d never formally organise anything more than that so your scenarios are totally foreign to me, it is quite possible that I don’t appreciate the hassle of it (or more possibly I kind of do and that’s why I’d never do it)
The other bit I struggle with is putting myself in the shoes of a person who fails to accept an invite but turns up anyway. That seems unforgivably rude to me (but then I can’t understand chronically late people either)
It is, but in my experience the problem is not so much those who don’t accept and show up anyway - it’s those who believe they have accepted but I didn’t receive it. And from the host side, I can’t tell if I didn’t hear from you because you aren’t coming or because you and your spouse each thought the other responded or because something went wrong with the response- you sent the text/email to the wrong number/address or the card got lost in the mail or misdelivered. If you sent a response and I didn’t receive it, there’s nothing rude about you showing up - but I that’s why I have to make follow up calls to those who don’t respond. Which is why it’s inconsiderate to just not respond - those who don’t respond think it’s too much trouble to call/text/email me that they aren’t coming but couldn’t care less that they are adding to the list of people I have to call. (which is why one of my cousins doesn’t get invited to much anymore)
I think that my ignorance and lack of experience of such things is perhaps colouring my opinion here.
I also find the hoops you have to jump through to manage your guests somewhat exhausting and clearly we have different degrees of comfort with such things but as long those shindigs make you happy then more power to you. In future, should the opportunity arise, and even if it is not from you, I will make sure that I do go out of my way to RSVP an invite and at least I can reduce the organisational burden on some other fretting host out there.
There are several different ‘levels’ of ‘appointment’, and several different kinds of relationships, and you seem to be unaware of some of them.
The level of appointment in this case is this one:
Him) I’d like to hang out Friday, but I’m not sure when exactly I’ll be ready to come, and I’m not sure if I’ll even be able to make it at all. Are you interested?
My response to this is: “Sure! I’d like to hang out. Give me a call when you know how it’s going and when you’ll be here.”
The other option of course is to say, “Fuck off, fucker! With a rusty salad fork!”
If I don’t choose to tell him to fuck off, that means I’ve made a promise to him: that I’ll be ready for him whenever he shows, if he shows. That’s a promise I’ve made. Now, I’m a reasonably honest guy, so I try to keep my promises. Which ties me down until I hear from him one way or the other - no impromptu shopping trips allowed until I hear one way or the other!
Instead of “Fuck Off!” why not “Let’s play it by ear, then. Send me a text on Friday and let me know what you’re up to.” Then do what you want. If you’re home and the friend texts you and you want to meet him you can say “Yeah come on over.” If you’re out you say “Shoot, left home. Maybe next Friday?”