This was a recent topic but I just need to vent!

Worknprogress

Worknprogress

Cathlete
I sent out invitations for my son's 6th birthday party that we are having tomorrow. I only had ONE person RSVP!!

What has happened to common courtesy?? You ask people to RSVP for a reason!! I don't know how much food to prepare!! Because I do not have an exact count - I could have anywhere from 10 to 40 people - that's a huge difference in food!!! Plus I do loot bags and games for the kids and I don't know how many I should prepare!!!!!

I just think it is so rude!

GRRRRRRR!!!!!!!
 
Yup, it is darn-tootin' is rude. To give the benefit of the doubt, they may have just forgotten..it's easy to let things like that pass you by, especially during the Christmas season when so much is going on.

The only thing to do is sit down with a list today (and maybe a glass of wine ;) ?) and start making phone calls to see how many people you can confirm. Then, just let go of the anger, take a deep breath, and enjoy your son's party! :eek:
 
Just wanted to say that I understand your frustration, as I was the one who started the previous thread on this issue! I try not to be a negative person, but I really think people in general seem less considerate than in the past. Not everyone, of course, but too many, it seems. I used my "lack of R.S.V.P.s situation" to explain to my daughters why it is important to be condierate of others, even with respect to simple things, such as throwing a party. Hopefully my girls won't contribute to the decline in manners when they grow up! I'll keep my fingers crossed that your party still goes well.

Have a great day!

Deborah
 
Sorry - a bit more venting. I just called my best friend (whose 2 children relative in age to mine I have had overnight NUMEROUS times but she never reciprocated even though she said next time was her house) and she is not coming to the party tomorrow!!!!!!

She said she has "date" night with her husband tomorrow. Uh - my party is 2 pm. She said her kids are really disappointed but she doesn't know when her and her husband will be able to go out again.

She knows I have NO family in the area and she is the closest friend I have in my life. She has told me before she just doesn't like parties because she doesn't like making small talk with people because she has learned that they are just idiots.

Well....these people are my husband's family and some other close friends of ours. I never really wanted to believe she hated my parties that much but I guess the proof is in the pudding. I am insulted and am really wondering if I need to reevaluate this friendship.

Thoughts...advice?
 
Debbie-

I'm sorry your friend has hurt your feelings by not coming to your son's party, but I wanted to encourage you not to be too hasty in re-evaluating the friendship. I had a best friend all through high school. We grew apart a little in college, but still stayed good friends, we were each others' honor attendants in our weddings, and we kept in touch even though we moved to different states.

Then she invited me to her daughter's baptism. For reasons I won't go into here, (but that my friend was well aware of) I was very conflicted about going, and had a bit of pressure from my husband not to go. I ended up waiting till the last minute to rsvp and gave a pretty lame excuse. She retaliated with a very nasty e-mail. It turned out that her mother-in-law had been very adamant about having only family at the baptism and my friend had worked very hard to get me on the guest list at all. She was also hurt that I "didn't even send a card." In my defense, I didn't realize that people usually send cards and give gifts at Catholic baptisms. I also didn't realize the importance of the party and guests, etc. Still, I was thoughtless in how I responded to the initial invitation.

I responded to her e-mail in a way that I thought was conciliatory and thoughtful- apologized for not sending a card and explained about not realizing that was appropriate- but, I suppose because her feelings were hurt she misinterpreted almost everything I said and wrote back a really long, nasty, hurtful e-mail ending with the statement that she was no longer interested in being friends. A couple of years later, she reached out and said she had been evaluating her priorities and did want to have me as a friend. We now exchange occasional e-mails, but I haven't seen her since that fateful invitation, and I know the friendship will never be the same.

My reason for telling this long story is that you never know everyone's full reasons for the things they do, and it's possible that your friend may not realize how important it is to you to have her there. After all, it is your son's birthday, not yours... maybe she just doesn't realize. I never meant to hurt my friend's feelings the way I did, and her over-reaction destroyed the friendship. I wasn't blameless, but she let her hurt feelings attach malice to everything I said and did after that. I would suggest you talk to her about it in person (e-mails are much too easy to mis-interpret) If she is really a good friend, I'd be there is just a misunderstanding somewhere.
 
I confess that I am one of "those" people. If I don't RSVP right away, it doesn't get done. Sorry!

As for your friend, she told you before she doesn't like parties. I gathered from that, that she doesn't like parties in general, not necessarily *your* parties. Knowing this, if attending your parties is a condition of her friendship with you, then perhaps you should re-evaluate, and instead befriend someone who really likes parties.
 
GreenEyedLefty said:
I confess that I am one of "those" people. If I don't RSVP right away, it doesn't get done. Sorry!

As for your friend, she told you before she doesn't like parties. I gathered from that, that she doesn't like parties in general, not necessarily *your* parties. Knowing this, if attending your parties is a condition of her friendship with you, then perhaps you should re-evaluate, and instead befriend someone who really likes parties.
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I'm like this too I never RSVP, . . and I also don't like parties. I don't like social events at all. For my family birthdays are only celebrated within the family. We'll go on a trip or I'll cook something nice. I'll decorate the house, . . but I never ever throw a party for my kids and they are 7 and 9. I hate when invites don't specify "drop offs" and I personally would hate the pressure of having to run around with my head cut off trying to play hostess and entertain parents and kids, . .I esp hate the thought of having to be responsible for another persons kid.
 
Whether or not a person enjoys attending parties has nothing to do with good manners and RSVPing is a display of common courtesy.

I'm wondering why your friend says that the reason she does not like going to parties is because the other people attending are idiots. That doesn't seem like a very nice thing to say.
 
My wedding was in October and I was *astounded* by how many people didn't respond, especially since we also had the dinner selections on the response card! I almost felt funny calling for a response but what else are you supposed to do?

I made it a practice here to always respond when I get the card. That way, I never forget or get tied up in something else before I can respond.
 
I agree that anyone who recieves an invitation should RSVP, and I make it a point to do just that for all invitations I recieve.

Having said that, I think that many families don't have the time, energy, desire or $$ to send their children to /or attend themselves, parties of people they don't know very well (or even people they do sometimes).

When families have parents that both work, plus all of the scheduled activities for their own kids, they may just not feel like another party is a priority for them. It doesn't excuse the rudeness of the lack of RSVPing, but it might explain why more people don't attend.

Also, many people aren't comfortable saying, "No, I just don't want to come", or "Sorry, it's just not a priority for us this weekend", or even more embarrassing, "Sorry, we just don't have the $$ for a present".

That discomfort might explain the lack of RSVPs recieved.

Just thinking out loud here....I hope I didn't offend.:)
 
joejack said:
"Sorry, we just don't have the $$ for a present".
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We were quite poor when I was growing up. I had a best friend who I absolutely adored. I was invited to her birthday party. My mom wouldn't let me go because we didn't have money for a gift for her. I was devastated. On the day of her party, I took all my favourite books (I loved books) and put them on her back porch. No card or anything, just my books on her porch. I gave her the best I had, because I loved her.

When it came time for my birthday party, another friend of mine, a little boy who I was close friends with, couldn't come because he didn't have enough money for a gift; his mom wouldn't let him. I told him that I didn't care, I just wanted my friend to come to my party, but his mom said no.

These are incidents from when I was 7 years old, and I remember them very clearly, 32 years later. Moms should let their damned kids come to the birthday parties of friends and stop putting their own ego ahead of their kids' needs.
 
"These are incidents from when I was 7 years old, and I remember them very clearly, 32 years later. Moms should let their damned kids come to the birthday parties of friends and stop putting their own ego ahead of their kids' needs."

Yes! I could not agree more!!! When my DD receives an invitation the decision of whether or not to attend the party is hers. (Then I RSPV. )
 
I'll also add that if someone is having a party for their child and inviting the "entire class" vs just the child's true friends, they might be better off collecting cans of food from guests and donating it to a food bank in lieu of a gift.

A friend did this and it was a great success and all of the kids learned a lesson from the "birthday girl" whose emphasis on her birthday was the guests at the party, and the people she was collecting food for. (This was a 10 yr old child BTW).

I think it's a lot to expect from someone you hardly know to bring their young child to a party and buy a gift for them. But that's JMHO, I always limited my kids parties to only their closest friends. (Also, I know very few children that really need and know how to be grateful for every gift they recieve if they end up with 20 of them all at once). Again, I hope I'm not offending.:)
 
I'm resurrecting this topic because I'm sooooo infuriated!! I sent out evites on Facebook as well as emails for my birthday celebration 2 weeks ago; the party is tonight. 90% of the people I sent them to still did not respond!! Not that it's an excuse but I can see if you need to send something in the mail or call for an RSVP, people might put it off and eventually forget, but in this case all you have to do is open the damn evite (which everyone did because you can check) and just click yes or no!!!!!!! Ugh it makes me so angry. My best friend isn't coming because she said she is doing a date night w/ her husband...really nice. Other people I flat-out asked just totally avoided the question! I don't get it. This is why I hate doing anything party-wise; it's more aggravating than anything else.
 
Worknprogress said:
I sent out invitations for my son's 6th birthday party that we are having tomorrow. I only had ONE person RSVP!!

What has happened to common courtesy?? You ask people to RSVP for a reason!! I don't know how much food to prepare!! Because I do not have an exact count - I could have anywhere from 10 to 40 people - that's a huge difference in food!!! Plus I do loot bags and games for the kids and I don't know how many I should prepare!!!!!

I just think it is so rude!

GRRRRRRR!!!!!!!
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I can totally relate to this. We just threw my mother-in-law a 60th suprise b-day party. We sent out inventations 3 months before the party. There was something like 60 sent out. I total of 15 people RSVP. WTF! I thought it was sooooo rude! So we just decided to order the amount of food for 60 people. We ended up with 45 so we had a lot of extra food that went to waste and a lot of money thrown down the drain. RSVPing is a pet peeve of mine. I would never disregard an invite. I mean, how hard is it to say yes i'm going or no i'm not.
 
I know! I can't believe how incredibly inconsiderate people can be. We host our annual Leg Lamp Party from the movie A Christmas Story- we own one and our party kicks off the Christmas Season. One year we had a total of about 65 people who had RSVP'd and only about 28 showed up!! Frick!! Then this past year we had about 30 people RSVP and over 40 showed! I'm not complaining because we love our neighbors but it's frustrating to have either too much food or wose, run out of food! I always plan for more than enough wine which kept the natives at bay after the food runs out! hahaha!
 
morningstar said:
We were quite poor when I was growing up. I had a best friend who I absolutely adored. I was invited to her birthday party. My mom wouldn't let me go because we didn't have money for a gift for her. I was devastated. On the day of her party, I took all my favourite books (I loved books) and put them on her back porch. No card or anything, just my books on her porch. I gave her the best I had, because I loved her.

When it came time for my birthday party, another friend of mine, a little boy who I was close friends with, couldn't come because he didn't have enough money for a gift; his mom wouldn't let him. I told him that I didn't care, I just wanted my friend to come to my party, but his mom said no.

These are incidents from when I was 7 years old, and I remember them very clearly, 32 years later. Moms should let their damned kids come to the birthday parties of friends and stop putting their own ego ahead of their kids' needs.
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Bless your dear 7 year old heart. That brought tears to my eyes. Cherish that little girl inside you Morningstar. People like you make this world a better place.
 
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