Why does nobody RSVP any more?
You send out invitations, but no one bothers to reply even when they’re coming, rages this mum
AS Any parent will know, few events are more exciting for a young child than their birthday party. My daughter Sidonie began planning hers — her fourth — a whole year ago, the very moment her third birthday party finished.
She talked about it incessantly, musing upon what the cake would look like, what she should wear and, most importantly, which of her friends would come. naturally, Sidonie’s dad and I wanted to give her the best day we could.
A few weeks ago, having invited the children whose parents I am already in contact with, Sidonie gave me a list of ten names of her friends from daycare that she would like to invite.
The nursery wouldn’t give me their parents’ contact details because of data protection. Instead, I was told to write out invitations, which the nursery would then hand to the parents.
On each invitation I wrote: ‘Please RSVP.’ Then I waited for a response. Days passed but not a single parent replied. Weeks went by. Still silence. Sidonie told me that several of her nursery friends had assured her they were coming.
But as she does have 11 imaginary friends, two imaginary dogs and ‘another mother’, I decided her word couldn’t be entirely relied upon. By the day before the party, I had still not received an answer from anybody and I felt angry. It was just so . . . rude!
When Sidonie asked who was coming, I didn’t know what to tell her. I had no idea if they would show up unannounced, or just not turn up at all.
All I could do was buy excess food, prepare a few extra party bags for unexpected children and leave things to fate. And I prayed that if her nursery friends didn’t come, Sidonie wouldn’t be too disappointed.
When I mentioned my shock and annoyance to friends, I learned that I am far from alone. In fact, a failure to respond to invitations now appears to be the norm, rather than the exception.
Almost everybody I know with young children has a similar tale of birthday party invitation woes.
Onefriend believes that the problem is endemic. She recalled a party an acquaintance had thrown for her daughter: booking a hall, hiring a DJ and preparing food for 30 children. But on the day, only three children turned up.
‘I asked the mother how many people had said they were coming,’ my friend says. ‘She told me that the other children’s parents hadn’t replied so she just assumed they were all coming.
‘I felt mortified for the family, especially the child, and spent half the party outside calling mothers and pleading with them to send their kids along.
‘Then I joined in the party games just so it looked like there were more people there. There is no excuse for this rudeness.’
Organising a child’s birthday party is stressful, not to mention expensive. If, like me, you live in a flat and your home is too small to entertain in, you need to find a venue.
Then there’s the cake, entertainment, food and party bags. It’s not about making up the numbers; you need to know how many people are coming in order to be sure there will be enough to go round. If people don’t reply, it’s their children who will suffer.
This lack of courtesy is not just limited to children’s parties. It happens when people
organise weddings, barmitzvahs, anniversary parties and birthday celebrations, too.
One friend told me how she’d thrown a party for which she had to pre-order canapés and drinks. Several people accepted the invitation and then simply failed to show up.
no warning. no excuses. no apology. ‘It’s just rudeness,’ she says. ‘Or, shall I be generous and call it carelessness?’
Why do so many people now appear incapable of replying to an invitation? As it has never been easier to do so.
no longer do we have to pen a handwritten reply, then buy a stamp and remember to walk to the post box to post it.
no, today, we can simply bash out a quick ‘Thanks, I’d love to come’ or ‘Sorry, but I can’t make it’ via any number of apps on our tablets or mobile phones.
And yet, the surfeit of modern communication methods seems to have had a curiously contrary effect: rather than aiding communication, they impede it. It seems the easier it is to keep in touch, the less we do it. Sometimes people do mean to reply and then forget, or don’t get round to it. And of course, to forget is human.
But this collective amnesia suggests that the constant flow of messages that we’re all receiving makes them blur into one homogenous mess of information, requests and invitations, depersonalising everything and making prioritising impossible.
So it is with party invitations: people don’t want to commit themselves to one event when they might be invited to another event they fancy more.
So they either don’t bother responding at all, or say ‘I’ll try,’ which, as any party host knows is code for ‘I have no intention of coming, but I don’t have a good excuse.’ And how many times are you supposed to chase people up before it becomes harassment?
For me, it comes to the point where I think that if someone can’t be bothered to respond, I can’t really be bothered to have them at my event. If that sounds judgmental, that’s because it is meant to be.
Call me old-fashioned, but I see this as a character flaw, and not one I’d want in a friend.
Responding to invitations — like saying ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ — is a social nicety, and these are the things that build a civilised society in which people care about each other. What are parents who fail to respond to invitations teaching their children? As one friend said, ‘ If we lose politeness, society falls apart. It’s serious.’
When the day of Sidonie’s party finally arrived, last weekend, it was a beautiful, sunny day and she had a wonderful time with her friends. not one of the nursery children whose parents had received a paper invitation ever responded — or showed up. Fortunately, Sidonie was too busy playing to notice the absences.
I do feel sad for her toddler friends though, who had clearly talked about the party with Sidonie, and will hear all about it afterwards, but who were left out because of the forgetfulness, ignorance or sheer bad manners of their parents.