Organized a birthday party, hired a room, ordered food and drinks and decorations, messaged my friends, mentioned I needed rsvps to book all of this. People confirmed.
Then I’m in an email thread about another event (a minor, unpaid, community event for artists - think like, an open mic), and several people replied saying “sure, I can make that!” It’s a clash with my birthday party and they haven’t messaged me about it.
Like it’s just a birthday party, I know. But I’m feeling sore about it.
I’ve evovled my social planning as I got older. It consists of these two steps:
Instead of trying to do the massively complicated action of coordinating a single event across multiple people’s calendars, I do the opposite. I announce where I’ll be, when, what I’m doing, and that anyone I’m sending this message to is welcome to join me. If no one shows, I am fine with that and do whatever was described in the message by myself.
Very very rarely does the entire group of recipients show. Sometimes I’ll get most, occasionally a few, frequently a couple or one, and yes, sometimes none. Using this method I’ve found much more success maintaining friendships past 40 years old.
As we get to this age, everyone has their own lives and commitments. That’s a good thing that you have friends that also have active lives.
My experience with passive invites is worse than active ones, tbh and I think I would feel more anxious of an event where I just go to a place and see if anyone likes me enough to turn up
That’s self sabotage. If no one shows up its not because they [don’t like you enough]. Maybe they didn’t like the event you are doing irrespective of you. Maybe they have a kid’s birthday party they need to attend. Maybe they’re secretly caring for a chronically ill loved one. You aren’t their parent or their immediate family. Don’t assume you have all the info on them that would let you actually objectively conclude they didn’t come because they didn’t like you. In short, its not about you. They have their own lives completely separate from you.
Switch your framing. You’re doing something you want to do and you are perfectly happy doing it by yourself. You want to see a particular movie. What does it matter if your friends like that movie or not? Would you skip seeing that movie if your friends said they didn’t want to see it? I hope not.
In my mind a requirement for adulthood is getting comfortable in your own skin. Do the things that let you be proud of who you are and what you do. Counterintitively, its this that actually helps gaining and maintaining friendships.
I an a social person, between going to watch a movie I want to watch and something else I care less about, I will chose the option with my friends. This being said, I have also lowered my expectations. I usually try to secure one/two friends’ attendance and shoot the invite to a bunch of others. Whoever shows up, great! Otherwise, next time
Sure, but that isn’t the choice being discussed. If there were a plethora of events with friends available, OP’s current situation likely wouldn’t exist.
As you get older, securing attendance can be impossible, which brings us back to change the personal expectation that no one will show up and we are each comfortable doing an activity on our own.