A while back, like a year ago or so, Matt and I won tickets for a private box at a Sundance film at a charity auction.
Sundance finally happened this year. So we asked quite a few people and I put it up on facebook and twitter that we had free tickets, enough for 15 people to go. And in the end, we had 13 people, including us, committed to come. Only seven (yay us!) showed up.
While this wouldn’t bother me if only five people told me they could come, five people didn’t tell me they could come. Eleven people told me they could come. One girl emailed me the next day saying she’d thought it was the next week. A friend’s date woke up at 5 p.m. Two guys never said anything about why they were absent. One guy just texted a few hours beforehand saying he didn’t feel like coming.
And dammit, it’s just rude.
I see this happen all the time, and maybe it’s a lack of organization on their part with not knowing the day or not setting an alarm, but I think a lot of it stems from not having to interact with the person you’re letting down. You can just send a quick text or shoot off an email or rsvp maybe to a facebook event and just never show up. You don’t have to call someone and hear the disappointment.
A friend had a pole party a month or so ago. She invited almost 40 people, most of whom were close friends. Few wanted to commit to it. I saw plenty of “I hope I can make it!” and “I’ll totally be there if it’s not snowing.” and “Sounds fun! I’ll try to be there.” Plenty of people maybed* into coming. But I know how it goes. It’s 6:45 p.m. on Saturday night and you’re still unshowered, in pajamas and there’s all these unwatched episodes of Ghost Hunters and Toddlers and Tiaras and Parenthood on On Demand. So you remember the party, but you only rsvped maybe, and everyone else will go, right?, so it’s okay to text that something came up and you won’t be there, even though in reality the only thing that came up is your blood sugar as you cram another Oreo in your gaping maw. I’ve been there. I totally know how that goes. Because god knows I’ve put away a pack of Oreos in my greasy-haired, draw-stringed pants glory before.
But you know who else I’ve been? That person getting text after text two hours before something is supposed to start. That person whose heart sinks knowing all these people she thought were good friends coming to hang out are actually kind of flaky assholes**. After a couple times of that happening, I stopped rsvping maybe and giving in to laziness at the last minute. I give a yes or a no. And if I give a yes, I will be there, no matter how tempting flannel bralessness and cookies can seem. I’ve also rediscovered something pretty amazing. Once I force myself to overcome my inherent hermitude, I have fun.
So back to the party. I was the only person that showed up to my friend’s party. I got there 45 minutes late after running errands all day. Every single person had canceled on her and she was stuck with a kitchen full of junk food that she never eats otherwise. She’d just gotten in a fight with her husband after he asked, oblivious, one too many times, “I thought you were having a party tonight?” Then she started crying. I know how she feels.
I’m not asking everyone to always go to everything. Don’t feel bad about saying no if you don’t have the time or money. I know people need to veg out alone sometimes. Just please go to what you say you will, unless you have a really good reason not to. Don’t weasel out of things thinking it’s somehow better to say maybe.
Please? Because it sucks when nobody’s there. I just want life to suck less.
*For someone who hates the new verbs gift and thrift being in the lexicon, I sure don’t mind making up my own versions do I? Oh contradiction, thy name is Di.
**Flaky asshole bad mental image aside, I fully acknowledge that life happens and that most of those people aren’t really assholes, they just seem like it at the time.
I used to throw random parties, like retro video game night or whatever, but I stopped doing it because nobody ever came. That’s a sure way to rip your self esteem, host a party! haha So I totally get what you are saying.
I rarely ever do that to people though. With the exception of Jesus’ party last week, which I went on a last minute skiing trip and couldn’t come. So I am guilty of being a complete asshole.
“That’s a sure way to rip your self esteem, host a party!”
Sooo true.
I agree. I also have a compulsion to show up places I say I’ll be exactly on time (which drives anybody else going with me crazy). Even if I know I’m the only one who will be there exactly on time, if I said I would be there then, I will be. I think this is mostly because it bugs me when people are late to stuff with me, because they never really know what other stuff I have to do or whether it makes a difference to me if I’m late or on time. Sometimes they really mess things up by being late, and since I don’t want to accidentally do that, I’m usually the first one to show up.
I love this post. I completely agree Dianne. I can’t say I am not guilty of doing this a time or two in my past, but I now try to make every effort to go somewhere, AND to be on time, if I say that I will. Or, if I don’t want to go, to simply say, No thank-you. Something which your post points out, in an indirect way, and is also something I find very frustrating and very sad, is that no one wants to get together anymore! Everyone wants to stay home and watch TV, play video games, or obsess over their facebook. What happened to people being EXCITED about getting together for fun with a group of friends? It’s so sad to me.
I love this post. Seriously. It says all the things that need to be said and make people (me) aware of our actions. Maybe, more importantly, it made me realize I have an impact. I’m not a no one, I’m a someone, and someone is waiting on this someone and that makes me feel wanted, needed, and like I SHOULD be there. I’m am first class flake. My friends are too. The reason we get along is because we’ve sync’d up our flaking so we always cancel on each other and the love still exists as we veg out together, alone and separate. but flake no more, I do declare. I’ve been getting better at not flaking anyway, since it’s harder to make friends when you do. But motivation, you fickle beast, you came in disguise as a Di blog post.
I love this post! Very well put. I’ve been on both sides of the equation and it definitely sucks to a) feel rude and b) be the one people are being rude to.
YES! Can’t agree with this enough. I have been on both sides of the party, and neither are a great place to be.
Thank you for putting it out there.
Yeah, I know the feeling. That’s why when I throw parties, I’ve gotten very aggressive in saying “WHEN you show up AT THIS TIME, bring X.” Amazing how well it works.
These are the lessons of life yet when people like me make statements like “I count more on people’s ability to not do things” or “I expect nothing from other people” we are viewed as being negative rather than realists… it’s my own rant that I add your post but then again I was one of the peopel nearly late though fast driving quick parking and a sprint to the theater made me barly ontime I was one person short of what I said I would be, only so because I was running late myself and hadnt the time to make the rounds to find another friend to accompany me
That’s what you get for not calling me. I dont flake. We should still plan something soon though
I hate flakes, I just do. And with FB and the Internet, things really get me going.
I got VIP tix to go to Lillith Fair through BlogHer and I invited a friend who I didn’t know too well, but I wanted to get to know better, and she had wanted to get into blogging so I thought I was helping. She said shed come and I made plans.
She canceled with less than 24 hours notice. I scrambled to find someone. It was stressful!
On her blog the next week, she posted how much fun she’d had at the zoo on that very day. I was so mad.
I’m so glad you linked me to this post. I loved reading it! Does it seem to you that our ability to be so overly involved in so many people’s lives makes people feel that committing to one thing means opting out of everything else? I get that feeling sometimes – like people are so sure that something better is out there that they can’t be okay with saying yes to any one thing. I have a friend who does this, and more often than not, she ends up doing NOTHING.
People in my book club do this, too, which is so frustrating. I RSVPed one month last year and showed up to the house of a book clubber who had made a wonderful dinner for 7 people – because only a few people had said yes or no, so she wasn’t sure if the others would just show up – and it turned out to just be three of us. I felt terrible for her – and if it had been my night to host, I would have been so upset.
I think that’s the case for most people around big holiday things, but on a more day-to-day basis, being an introvert is my problem. It helps when I know about something in advance to mentally keep my energy up, but if someone invites me to something that night and/or I have to go home for more than a few minutes before going out again, then I really have to fight the urge to just stay home. But then when I’ve done that in the past I do nothing that I don’t do every day anyway. Hence the commitment to committing.
And that actually happened to me with the book club! I was hosting in the early days of it starting and we were originally on goodreads, which hardly anyone checked. So one time only one person showed up. We ended up having an awesome conversation, but it was the catalyst to move our planning on facebook where people were more easily reminded of the event. Doesn’t stop a couple “yes” RSVPs from being no-shows every month anyway though.