R.S.V.P., dammit!

I have to admit that I’ve had it.  Too many people fail to respond to invitations.

In the past we’ve used the standard R.S.V.P., French for “respond please.”  That didn’t work, and we received somewhat better results with R.S.V.P. or else.  A few more people let us know that they would or would not be coming with the added or else.

A few years ago, Shannon gave us a birthday party and used “R.S.V.P to [her phone number].”  The purpose, of course, was to get people to respond and then tell them where the party was.  But we got complaints.  People couldn’t come unless they knew where the party was going to be because they couldn’t drive more than three miles for goodness’ sake!

I tried evites, but they weren’t successful either.  People didn’t want to respond publicly or on line for some reason - or were to lazy to bother to respond at all.  A few told us they were coming but when I printed up the evite list the weren’t on it and it resulted in a lot more paper work.  Arrrrrgggggghhhhh.

We hand delivered the last invitation we sent,  so we could be sure the mails wouldn’t screw us up like they did in December.  (Our mail arrives after 6 p.m. usually, and occasionally ends up scattered across the neighborhood. When we get mail addressed to other people locally or as far away as Maryland I always write where and when received and re-mail it.  Complaints to the local postmaster don't seem to help.)

We're having a coffee tonight for the Homewood School Committee, which will make a presentation and answer questions about next month’s referendum for the elementary school district.  We wrote on it, “Please let us know if you’re able to attend or not.”  I think that was pretty clear.  One person told me he’d be there last week.  I corrected the date he had in his head, and he says he’s attending.  

Some people haven’t responded at all, including The One who brought a cake to Ann’s birthday party and then insisted we serve it, screwing up the planned dessert (I’m not even going to include a dear friend's comment on that gift!).  One emailed me and asked if it were at 7:30 in the morning or the evening.  I let her know it is in the evening, but she hasn’t yet told us if she’s coming.  Sigh.  Big sigh.  We’re going to have between eighteen and fifty people tonight, depending on who shows up.  

And then there are the people who say they’ll come and never show up.  I just don’t get it.

I might just as well post invitations on telephone poles because the response would be just as accurate.  Perhaps it would be even more accurate because all our utilities are underground in our neighborhood, and there aren't any telephone poles.

I don’t know whether this is just plain rudeness, or  people have the idea they don’t have to respond because we “know” whether they’ll be here or not, or because they don’t entertain and don’t know that responses are considerate and polite.

We could stop having guests, I suppose, but our social life would suffer because most people don’t seem to entertain, despite the economy and the wave of “cocooning” a few years ago.

We could use some solutions, so if you have any ideas, please post them by clicking comments below.  And if you’d just like to comment, feel free.  

I linked the referendum committee, and you can access it by clicking on it in the body of this post or by clicking here.