The Rules of the RSVP, part 3

Writing about this topic has made me feel more self-conscious not only about how I invite people to events, but also how I respond (or don’t respond) to people’s invitations. Life is often more gray than black and white, and ultimately it’s impossible to apply one set of arbitrary rules to all circumstances.

In addition, the last thing I want is to make my friends feel guilty about not following my rules when I invite them to something. I fully recognize that there are often exigent circumstances that prevent people from committing one way or the other.

So, I’ve been working on this post for a few weeks already, but it’s especially relevant now since I recently broke my own rules (more on that later). It’s not the first time I’ve broken my own rules, and it won’t be the last. After all, aren’t rules made to be broken? Pablo Picasso once said, “Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.”

Let’s set aside the question of whether I’m comparing myself to Picasso, and focus on the criteria I use to determine when it’s okay to break the rules. The most important question I ask myself is, “will I be missed?”

A few years back I said yes to a friend’s kid’s birthday party, and then a coworker invited me to go on a bike ride with him at the same time as the party. Because I had already committed to my friend, I said no to my coworker even though I preferred to go biking. That was the wrong decision, because nobody would have missed me at the kid’s party with all the kids and parents running around. In fact, I ran into another friend who asked me, “What are you doing here if you don’t have kids? I have a kid and even I don’t like these things!”

I’m not saying I’ll always flake on kids’ birthday parties given the opportunity, but the reality is that time is a finite resource, so it’s good to know what’s important for you when making decisions on what events to commit to (or flake on). Personally, I prefer small gatherings (<10 adults) because I feel like that’s when relationships can actually grow, although I also enjoy larger group gatherings and getting to know new people. (As an aside, my coworker hasn’t invited me on a bike ride since.)

To be more specific about how I broke my own rules: a friend sent a group text on Friday night inviting people over for dinner the next day, and I didn’t RSVP, and didn’t show up. I actually really wanted to go and was trying to make the time work since I had a conflict, but in the end I didn’t RSVP because I didn’t think I would be missed (I didn’t even know most of the numbers on the group text).

I imagine that this probably happens all the time, but as I’ve mentioned in my previous post, I try to sidestep this by extending individual invitations. In the event that there is a group invitation and people haven’t responded, I follow-up with individual texts. Sometimes it can feel annoying to be bugging people for a response, but I still do it because I want to 1) set the expectation that they should respond to my invitations and 2) convey that it does matter to me if they attend.

In the end, though, some people still don’t respond, or flake last minute…and that’s okay, because life happens. Sometimes I just keep on inviting them (if I really value their friendship), and other times I just temporarily take them off my RSVP list (I don’t want to seem desperate)…it just depends on how I feel in the moment.

So, friends — relax…it’s okay to break the rules every once in a while. 🙂

Caption: A recent dinner/mochi workshop I organized and a friend hosted. A group e-mail was sent out but some people didn’t respond, so I texted each person individually to find out if they were coming for dinner or not.