The Pretend Party

For those who have been following this blog, it will be clear the one place I love to be more than anything in the world is The Party.

I love the glamour, the people, the interaction, the reaction, the conversation, the cocktails, the photos, the impulses, the spontaneity.

But a new phenomenon is emerging and I am grappling to accept its impact.

Not to diss on social networks – I mean what kind of earthling would I be if I did? – but facebook invites are throwing the whole point of The Party out of kilter.

I would be invited to between ten and twenty events on facebook  by people I haven’t seen/spoken to/thought of in years.  To be fair, yes, why am I still friends with them then?  But remember when it was cool on facebook to have as many friends as you could find? Have you ever tried to cull those hundreds of people in later years? Very time consuming.  And boring.

Still, some of these events are to their houses people!  To catch up with their housemates I have never heard of! And yet, there is some part of me that wants to say “Yes, Attending”. Even though chances are I will never go.  But for some odd reason it feels good to be invited to an event you have no intention of going to?

There needs to be some kind of new ettiquitte.   A protocol for facebook invite.  Only invite those you definitely want to come – and if they did come you would go and talk to them and thank them for coming.  And attendees.  “Maybe” needs to be removed.  “Maybe” means you are pretty cool and I don’t want to offend you by saying no but there is really no way I will be attending.  And “attending” needs to be some kind of solid commitment to turning up.  Otherwise we are really losing the whole focus of The Party.