RSVP

I’m reminded of this anecdote from class 11. A girl in my class had invited me to her birthday party. Knowing that there was a clash, I had immediately responded to her saying that I was sorry but I wouldn’t be able to make it. She immediately got offended – that I had told her directly that I wouldn’t come. She would possibly have been less offended had I told her I would come and then not showed up.

A lot of people in India don’t get the concept of how to reply to invitations. Like my old friend, these people think it’s a sort of insult to tell someone that they can’t make it for an event or a function. And so they end up giving false responses or non-responses which doesn’t leave the host any wiser. That leads to massively messed up planning, and possible wastage of food and gifts.

I must say I’ve been guilty of this in the past as well – maybe affected by that 11th standard incident, I have started giving non-committal responses to events that I know I won’t go to. And messed up my hosts’ planning. Having been on the other side multiple times in the last one month, however, I hereby undertake that I will give accurate responses to any invite I get, as far as things are under my control.

Over the last ten days, the wife had kept a massive doll display at home on the occasion of Dasara. We had made an elaborate plan of calling people from different “sides” on different days – in the interest of not mixing groups, which can have a massive negative effect on conversation.

And then some people threatened to destroy these carefully made plans by asking if they could come at a time when they were not invited! Some people were nice enough to tell us that the time when we had invited them was not convenient for them, and requested us right there to give them an alternate slot which we did. Others, however, responded in the affirmative, failed to show up and then wanted to come on a day when we weren’t prepared to receive guests (or worse, on days when were expected other guests from other “sides”).

The other side is also a bit painful here – when people give you an open invitation and tell you to “come any time”. While this gives you greater optionality than a specific slot, this also creates greater pressure on you to accept the invitation. And I’m guilty of responding vaguely to some of these invitations as well. Next time someone gives me an open invite, I will either say no, or try to tell them as soon as possible a specific date and time when I’ll be there.

PS: Of late I’ve started becoming actively (but subconsciously) rude to people who show up at my door unannounced. It throws me off massively. Sometimes my wife wonders why I bothered coming back from England at all!