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That nightmare about having a party where no one showsFollow

#1 Aug 18 2012 at 8:00 PM Rating: Good
It just happened to my room mate. Smiley: frown

Several dozen people invited on Facebook, a dozen agreed to come, and it's almost ten o clock and no one is here.

She's taking it well, and we've sent a few texts out to invitees with "where are you???" hoping to guilt them into showing, but frankly, the party's already flopped at this point.

This is why I don't have birthday parties and prefer to stick to birthday dinners. People will show up for lunch or dinner, because they can take off for whatever plans they have afterward.

If at least one person makes it tonight, we're breaking out Apples to Apples anyway. Smiley: mad
#2 Aug 18 2012 at 8:07 PM Rating: Excellent
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Tell her Happy Birthday, and that in dog years she'd be dead.
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#3 Aug 18 2012 at 11:42 PM Rating: Excellent
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I had a housewarming party once and managed to schedule it on the exact same day as someone else's party who also invited most of the same people (mutual aquaintance, neither of us would probably have thought to invite the other to a party), and no one had the guts to tell me. then half the remaining guests got PAXflu from seattle and couldn't make it. The best part was the 2 people that apperently thought saturday was actually sunday and showed up the next day. That was a pretty aqward conversation.
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#4 Aug 19 2012 at 8:38 AM Rating: Decent
I'm going to have a housewarming party in a month or so. Just going to invite my friends and perhaps the big guys from work. If I have 3-4 I'll be happy. I just had my birthday and a friend took me out to eat and she managed to get another friend to show up. It was a wonderful time. Large party's are fun but nightmares to make happen.
#5 Aug 19 2012 at 9:36 AM Rating: Good
In the end, one person did show, and he's loud and interesting enough that he counted for several people showing. So it wasn't a total waste of effort. Bigger pieces of cake for the rest of us, too.

I think what we're also learning is that since most of our friends are now married, many with or expecting children, that the days of the wild and crazy house parties are just over. Smiley: frown
#6 Aug 19 2012 at 11:28 AM Rating: Excellent
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Am I the only person who wouldn't trust Facebook as the sole method of inviting people? I mean, to get a basic idea of how many people are interested, sure, but I'd probably hit up those who RSVP on Facebook with at least a phone call or text message to confirm.
#7 Aug 20 2012 at 5:31 AM Rating: Good
Well, we did get verbal confirmations from people as we bumped into them. As a sole method, yeah it fails, but normally it's been a pretty reliable indicator to us of general interest for things that are smaller than the scale of a wedding but larger than the scale of "hey we rented a movie, wanna hang out?"
#8 Aug 20 2012 at 10:45 PM Rating: Good
I thought you were married. You have a roommate?
#9 Aug 21 2012 at 8:45 AM Rating: Good
@#%^
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Who cares if anyone shows, have your own party.
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#10 Aug 21 2012 at 10:40 AM Rating: Good
Belkira wrote:
I thought you were married. You have a roommate?


A live in gigolo, presumably.
#11 Aug 21 2012 at 11:14 AM Rating: Excellent
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Less people, less pants, better party.

Also works with more people, less pants.

Really, just less pants for better party.
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#12 Aug 21 2012 at 1:14 PM Rating: Good
catwho wrote:
I think what we're also learning is that since most of our friends are now married, many with or expecting children, that the days of the wild and crazy house parties are just over. Smiley: frown
Solution: make sure nobody in your group of friends ever has kids.
#13 Aug 21 2012 at 2:32 PM Rating: Good
Belkira wrote:
I thought you were married. You have a roommate?


Two boarders. We have a mortgage to pay for, and my job is a half-again-as-much-as-minimum-wage glorified internship while I finish up my master's degree. My husband's salary is just enough to cover living expenses normally, but not to deal with graduate school tuition costs on top of it. Filling up the empty two rooms in the house seemed like a sensible idea - their rent makes up one semester's worth of tuition alone.

Although, we've decided to take on the vetting of our renters a bit more in the future. Neither of them had cars for a long time, and while there is a bus system in town, it's not that great and the nearest stop is a twenty minute walk away. We had to take them grocery shopping once a week until just recently. Smiley: bah
#14 Aug 22 2012 at 7:23 AM Rating: Good
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Daimakaicho, Eater of Souls wrote:
Solution: make sure nobody in your group of friends ever has kids.
A punch to the uterus or a kick to the vas deferens should solve all problems.
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#15 Aug 24 2012 at 1:13 PM Rating: Good
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The fiance had a birthday party once where we invited 60 people and 5 showed up. She became an adorable pile of drunken crying by the end of the night. Next year her sister and I figured it out. You have to carpet bomb invites and you have to chose a venue people would show up to regaurdless of the event.

We invited 250 people and chose a popular bar in up-town New Orleans. We got a solid turn out of 50 people.
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#16 Aug 24 2012 at 3:09 PM Rating: Good
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I only invite close friends. They love beer just as much as I do, so it's usually not a problem.

As for Facebook, I really, really hate how people treat events so casually there. You set up an event, a dozen people accept and only half show up. It's as if people think no one gets hurt if they're lying, because it's just Facebook. If you receive a written invitation and you call back to accept it, you don't just decide not to come. If you do, you at least call them back up and deliver some lame influenza excuse.

On Facebook there's even a "maybe" option, but people still choose to accept the invitation and then not show up. Why? Because declining makes you look like more of an ******* than accepting and not showing up? ******* hell, did we give up on the whole consequence concept without anyone telling me?

I don't set up Facebook events, because I know what's going to happen. A dozen people accept, 50-ish say "maybe" and then a handful of people show up, plus a couple of strays from the decline list who thought that declining wasn't final. When I set up parties, I tell people, face to face, or over the phone. If they accept and then don't show up, I bring down the righteous fury, man. And unless they've got one hell of a good excuse, they don't get invited next time. Maybe they don't care if they get invited next time, but at least then you know who's NOT coming.

Facebook... it's turned a world full of ******** into ********. God, I hate that curly-haired ******* who came up with the idea to create a global, perpetual high school experience.

Also, more beer! Need some pork to go with it, though. Be right back.
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#17 Aug 24 2012 at 10:37 PM Rating: Good
I've arranged maybe two or three get together's through FaceBook and had a decent turn out each time. Maybe my friends are better than anyone elses, I don't know.
#18 Aug 24 2012 at 10:45 PM Rating: Good
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I had a buddy who just separated from his wife, and it's official. He even went so far as to pack up a truck and move away to another State. Then last week, I get a facebook invite from his ex to a BBQ next weekend. While she's nice enough, I wouldn't consider her someone I would hang out with aside from the fact she was married to my buddy.

Awkward.
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#19 Aug 24 2012 at 10:54 PM Rating: Good
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My invitation must have gotten lost in the mail, eh? Smiley: mad
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#20 Aug 25 2012 at 2:09 AM Rating: Excellent
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Kakar wrote:
I had a buddy who just separated from his wife, and it's official. He even went so far as to pack up a truck and move away to another State. Then last week, I get a facebook invite from his ex to a BBQ next weekend. While she's nice enough, I wouldn't consider her someone I would hang out with aside from the fact she was married to my buddy.

Awkward.


She's letting you know that she's single.
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#21 Aug 25 2012 at 8:29 AM Rating: Good
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Mazra wrote:
As for Facebook, I really, really hate how people treat events so casually there. You set up an event, a dozen people accept and only half show up. It's as if people think no one gets hurt if they're lying, because it's just Facebook. If you receive a written invitation and you call back to accept it, you don't just decide not to come. If you do, you at least call them back up and deliver some lame influenza excuse.

On Facebook there's even a "maybe" option, but people still choose to accept the invitation and then not show up. Why? Because declining makes you look like more of an @#%^ than accepting and not showing up? @#%^ing hell, did we give up on the whole consequence concept without anyone telling me?
It probably has something to do with the relative ease of operation of Facebook. I mean, all you have to do is click a button; you don't have to actually have a conversation. I'd bet that many people accept with the intention of coming up with an excuse to not go, and just forget about the event completely. I'm not saying that it's right to do this, but Facebook invitations just don't have the same social pressure as a formal invitation, a phone call, or even a text message or e-mail. Anything that requires a real response rather than a simple mouse click will likely produce more accurate results as far as how many people are actually interested.

Anyway, I've found the best results come from phone calls. When someone calls me to invite me to a party or get-together or whatever, it shows that they value my presence enough to extend a personal invitation. I'm far more likely to attend something that I would be border-line on if I get a phone call than a mass Facebook invitation.

Edited, Aug 25th 2012 10:32am by Spoonless
#22 Aug 25 2012 at 12:57 PM Rating: Good
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I think its a sign of the times, really. People just aren't as willing to go out and socialize. The fact that everyone was invited through Facebook didn't help anything.
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