This goes hand-in-hand with the rudeness of people not answering digital mail period. I can't believe that this is normal for so many people... and it still pisses me off every time. I think it's just plain bad manners. Even in the overly-busy digital age, we need to remember that when people make contact with us, the correct response is to acknowledge it in some way, shape or form.

My niece, in celebrating her mother's sixtieth birthday, decided to assemble a scrapbook for her mother as a gift. So she implored upon us to submit whatever we could. Letters, photographs, write down a childhood memory of our sister, etc.

Sadly, most of us didn't even bother to reply to her. I feel so bad for her. (Yes, I replied and submitted something for her scrapbook.) I'm ashamed to admit most of my family behaved so inconsiderately.

I've only received about 10-15 evites. All of them have been for commercial or advertising type functions; i.e. Come to our day long seminar on this product.

As far as not responding to e-mails in general. Unless there is a specific response I need to make, I look at them as an annual Christmas letter type thing.

But that is my personality type and most people know it. I generally don't write a letter just to let people know what is happening. I generally don't get them either.

I would never open or answer a third-party invitation. That would
confirm a working Email address to a potential spammer. I,
personally, would never give someone's Email address to a third
party without prior permission.

For Evite in particular, it's set to go directly to my spam folder.

Here is the thing, some evites are via social networking sites. Problem is not everyone is on one or regularly check.

Next is people who use specialty program and web services for the invite. In my opinion are usually bloated and waste on of time with having to click and agree and give up privacy. What happened to simplicity? Made a phone, sent a letter, or even a good old email.

Heck now a days most webmail provide rich text editing. So you can spice the message up if you need to.

The other problem with evites and that is they are still not seen as serious. When I get them, I might flick and thing about, then forget quickly.

Which is harder to ignore a phone call or an email? Or a variation what will impress upon a person another email/evite that was hashed out in a minute or a nice card?

My friends have all lamented that this is a problem when you throw a party, no matter how you send invites. (Invites through the mail are a nice touch, but they're easily mislaid, whereas Evite or Facebook allows you send reminders and updates en masse.)

A few days before any event, I just expect that I will be chasing people down and demanding a response. And some of those people will be terse because they got cornered.

I believe this is down to people wanting to keep their options open until the very last minute. Or they need to check on something like a babysitter, so they delay and then forget. They assume everyone else RSVP'd and it's just them holding out, so what's a difference of 1 or 2. Of course many others have done the same thing.

This isn't just an evite problem. People don't respond to invitations anymore. A friend hosted a baby shower for me, and I helped with the invitations. The people who got mail invitations lost them or said they don't check their mail, so we should send digital invitations. The people we emailed said it went to their spam filter or they forgot. I resent that we had to send invitations in three different formats (mail, email and verbal) and STILL had to chase people down for an answer.

That said, I don't consider Facebook invitations real invitations. Most of the time they are invitations to things I need to spend money on, so I ignore them.

I wish people would just decide whether they're going and live with the decision. It's OK if they can't make it. We'll see them next time. It's like these people have never planned a party.

My husband and I disagreed over another party issue: When someone puts a time on the invitation, I assume they want me there at the time listed. My husband assumes any time before the end of the party is OK, and that showing up on time is rude. Maddening. People should say what they mean. If they list 6 pm on the invitation, I'm going to be there at 6.

The notion that times are flexible creates all sorts of problems for everyone. You have the hosts who want people there at a certain time and the hosts who would rather people be late, and they are never matched up perfectly with guests who show up on time and guests who aim to be late. Then you have 19 people show up late and 1 person show up on time, and the host has to entertain that one person who arrived on time, and both feel awkward. Food that should be served warm gets cold, etc.

Also, I assume that as much as people want to see me, since they DID invite me, they would also like me to leave at a reasonable time. I see a lot of parties go on forever because most of the people came late. I take pity on my hosts and leave before I wear out my welcome.

I recently had a big birthday, and I invited people through:

Facebook (lots of responses, lots of people saying they'd attend, and most of them didn't show up. No explanation, no nothing.

Evite--I sent "save the day" and then the invitations. Like PULLING TEETH to get any response. But those who said they're show up, did show up.

Next time, I'm just sending real emails or else sending a guy with a printed invitation and a gun to their homes. I really don't understand why people can't just tell me if they're coming or not.

I agree that it's not just an email invite thing.

A few anecdotes...

Apparently, when I was quite young (maybe 2 or 3) my parents had a little birthday party for me. They sent out a handful of invitations specifying RSVP regrets only. They got either no or one RSVPs, so they planned on pretty much everyone showing up. NOBODY came. Apparently, not one of the maybe half dozen invites arrived.

Along a similar vein, I (along with my husband & kids) were invited to one of my cousin's weddings. We could not attend. A week or so after we got the invite & I had confirmed that we couldn't go, I wrote a note wishing them well, etc. I sent it out. Ages later, maybe 3-4 weeks before the wedding, I got a call from one of my parents demanding to know why I hadn't replied and were we going. I was shocked, to say the least, as I had replied and the other mail I'd sent out with it (a bill) had arrived.

So, I'm a bit forgiving on the replying to snail mail!

I have used evite all of once. It worked better than snail-mail in that people could reply immediately and that did up the replies, BUT... there were still last minute cancellations (sick kids, death in the family, etc) and changes (we need to bring the older kid). I still also had to track down a few people via phone, because they just didn't reply.

What I hate about doing these things via email is that everybody expects you to just reply immediately, which is not a good idea (you know, I might need to, say, get a sitter or check my husband's travel schedule for work). I've found that sometimes these things come a week before the event and they want a reply in 1-2 days. I don't even check my mail all that often, although the assumption these days is that everyone gets electronic communications instantly, but that's another pet peeve of mine.

Of course, I've got small kids, so more than one paper invitation or bit of event info (especially fliers for school events) has wandered off to become an art project.

If I were to do something big, say, a party for my parent's 50th anniversary, I'd probably send out something via snail mail AND email, and I'd call people early on ("to let them know to be on the lookout") just in case.

Frankly, however, I dislike Evite as usually everyone can see who is/isn't going/invited, etc. Also, I don't necessarily want everyone of my friends' friends knowing my email.

Overall, the problem of response is difficult for everyone, and fairly universal.

My biggest pet peeve, though, is when somebody calls and says, "So what are you doing Sunday?" or something similar. I find it rude - maybe you're having a party and I want to sit and read. Maybe you're having a party & inviting soembody I'd rather avoid. Maybe you're having a party & I'd like to go. Regardless, just invite me, don't try to backdoor me into going OR open my calendar up for debate (I've had people try to do this... "maybe you could take your kids to the park on Saturday so you can come to our BBQ.")

I did my birthday via Facebook event invites and that was a mistake. I got a good turnout, but a bunch of my close friends didn't even realize I was having a party until I asked them if they were coming.

It is kind of a flawed system right now.

The answer to "What are you doing next Sunday?" is "Why do you ask?"

I always try to respond quickly to digital invitations, unless it's to a Scentsy/Pampered Chef/whatever party where I'm more of a sales target than a guest. I ignore those.

I threw a baby shower for a girl friend last summer...she had about 20 girls on the guest list, and I sent Evites only because she didn't want to track down addresses for them. Most of the responses were "maybe" or "yes", but only one girl showed up. I was dumbfounded. I felt so bad for my friend. She's throwing my baby shower next month, and I'm really hoping for a better turnout.

I freely admit that I am bad with mail. For a while I had a mail phobia, and simply would not open anything that might have the potential to upset me. Letters from the IRS and bills were the worst, but it also got to the point where I was receiving ten or more credit card offers a week, and I had an ever better excuse to ignore the mail.
On the other hand, I am great with email, and pretty good with telephone communications.

I think the problem is that people are barraged from all sides these days with telephone, texts, email, written invitations, and Facebook postings. I chose not to do Facebook because of both privacy concerns and information overload.

Most people don't multi task well, and they are simply overwhelmed.
I have a few men friends, who are terrible with email, but good with the phone, and delightful in person.

Here is my belief. If you are truly friends with someone, and want to remain friends, structure your communications with them to the venues that they prefer and can handle.
The way to invite someone to a party, or dinner, is to say "George and I would like to have you over to dinner. Do you have a good night in the next few weeks, or are you out of town/ have other plans?

Then, wait for a response.

If you are going to hold a party, just because the time/date is suitable for your schedule, don't assume that it fits anyone else's schedule.
People do not work in an office from 9-5 anymore, and even if they do, their free time may be sacrosanct.
If you are not close enough to the invitee to know their family, and job situation, don't be offended when they don't spend their off hours monitoring their voice mail,email, snail mail, and Facebook account to make sure they haven't lost track of your most recent missive.
If you are doing something really important where you are investing in a venue or a catered event, call, and double check before paying the caterer, or ordering a deli plate.

If they affirm they are coming, and then don't, without a really apologetic phone call, and "I forgot all about it while I was knee deep in water, on the phone with the plumber" take them off your invite list for any future occasions.

I have incidentally, never had someone not respond to an invite, and then show up, but I did have someone who was a day late once. We had a nice visit anyway, actually better than we would have at the party.

You can hide the responses on as well as the email addresses of anyone yiu invite and your own.
Yiu can freeze your credit so you don't get credit card offers.
Mail phobia is a bad idea.

Yes,mail phobia may be a bad idea, but I have put all my bills on auto pay, and keep excellent track of my finances on line.

My 800+ credit rating, and the fact that I still have friends, speaks to the fact, that it has worked out fine for me. For the most part, it has been a real time saver.

And although a mail phobia may be annoying, to someone who persists in using 18th century technology to communicate with me, saying a "mail phobia" is a bad idea, is a bit like saying hoplophobia is a "bad idea".

As long as I am not running around, insisting other people sign onto my fears, and biases, who the hell cares?

This very weekend I went to a going away party for someone who failed to show to the party and she was the one to personally invite me - in fact insist that I must come. There were others there for the party too. No email or phone response. I sorta expected something like "I dropped the U-haul trailer on my foot and was at the hospitality" -- she is known for being clumsy. But nothing yet.

I've tried Evite, facebook, and emailing directly and haven't found any of them effective in getting people to respond. It is a planning nightmare - one party I had double the number expected and ran out of everything, and another one with so many no shows there were only 8 of us! But I had no way to judge since no one responds. Calling people directly is the most effective, but I don't really like pushing that hard and it is super time consuming.

For an upcoming surprise anniversary party for my in laws we sent email invites, followed up with mail invites, and this week will have to start calling. Only ~50% of the list (~150 people) has responded. It is a formal, catered dinner so we really need an exact count. Nightmare. Perhaps no more throwing big parties is the solution.....interestingly nearly all those who have bothered to reply have to travel to attend. All of the family and friends who live in the area can't be bothered to so much as hit reply and type in "yes" or "no"!

I've blocked both my & my husband from unsolicited credit card offers. They still show up (sorta like the no-call list doesn't prevent people from calling you to sell you crap).

My standard answer to "What are you doing Sunday?" (or any day of the week) is, "no idea. I'm not near my Calendar. Why do you ask?"

I'm trying to beat it into peoples' heads that I'm never going to know what I'm doing more than 20 minutes in advance unless I'm directly in front of my calendar - and we actually have 2 because of work/home differences. I do this because I find it annoying/rude AND because it's true - I typically don't know what I'm doing if I'm not looking at my calendar. The psycho squirrels in my brain only obey for a moment & that's when I put the stuff on the calendar.

However, I have no actual hope of this working. My own husband, whom I love dearly and really ought to know better, is still known to ask me, "So what are you planning on doing today?" (I don't know, go check the calendar!).

I'm in the middle of planning a baby shower right now.

I used Evite and took the precaution of directly emailing three folks who Evite says haven't opened the invitiation. Two said they never got it. They are not the fibbing-excuse types - they both knew ahead of time about the event and had asked to be invited.

So yes while rudeness will be with us always, Evite is also not 100% reliable.

The only e-vites I've turned down have been for bring-a-gift showers of some sort from people I sorta-kinda know; invariably, they arrive the day before the event.

When I get the feeling that my late invite is just their way of scooping up a little more free stuff, I decline.

Otherwise I pretty much say yes to anyone's party invitation. It's a party! Who says no to a party?

"like saying hoplophobia is a "bad idea". "

Hoplophobia IS a bad idea. Hopping is a joyful activity, which means fear of hopping is fear of happiness!

I always RSVP promptly to paper, phone and email invites. But things get tricky with Facebook invites, and 80 percent of the invites I receive are FB ones. Thing is, I've gotten 10 FB invites in the past week, and most are "Hey, my band is playing at the Hole in the Wall tomorrow, you should come out!" type of things. One in 10 are things that legitimately need an RSVP -- like birthday parties -- but they get lost in the shuffle so often.

I usually do a two-pronged approach. I'll create a FB event (because it's a great way to centralize info like time the party starts, location, and any updates I need to make). Then, I'll text or email all the 10-15 or so guests individually and say, "Hey, throwing a Game of Thrones viewing party and dinner two weekends from now. Check out the FB event I invited you to, and let me know if you can make it so I can prepare the delicious food!"

That usually pushes people to give a response -- it also reminds them that I *personally* invited them and am keeping track of a guest list, so they need to ASK before inviting other random people.

If you are going to hold a party, just because the time/date is suitable for your schedule, don't assume that it fits anyone else's schedule.
People do not work in an office from 9-5 anymore, and even if they do, their free time may be sacrosanct.

I agree, but it's not on the host's shoulders to figure out a time that's good for everyone. That's the road to madness. There have been time conflicts for as long as there has been civilization. I don't insist that people attend if the time doesn't work for them. I just want them to let me know whether they can or can't. Hell, if people want to stay home and watch the paint dry, that's fine with me.

The FB invited I'm talking about appear on the right side of the screen. I almost always miss them because they aren't very attention-grabbing. And they're almost always more like mass bulletin-board posts than invitations.

I'll add to the evite etc are not reliable. A co-worker had a SE Asian equivalent of a baby shower and invites were by evite (I think - one of these online invite things) but made a typo in my email address. Somewhere along the line was just swallowed so it looked the email was sent and never responded too.

I think it is a general issue with RSVPs. I generally dislike them. My schedule tends to vary a lot and things jump up and/or disappear a lot. Asking me to commit to something two weeks out isn't going to happen unless it is something I really want to attend or feel like it is something I really need to attend. In most cases there is about a 75% chance I can make it...but there is another 25% chance I cannot without a big sacrifice. For the people I know, 80% seem to be similar situations. The other thing is most those things I am supposed to RSVP for are things that I don't really care about. It feels like "I want to lock you in now because I know it is only a so-so event and if anything else comes along it will be better."

Question: Are the Facebook invites you all are talking about ones that get mailed to your inbox or ones in "invitations"?

Depends on your FB settings. I stopped all FB-related emails, so I don't get anything delivered to my inbox. Instead, I get alerts in the upper left by the little "globe" thingy when someone invites me to an event. They're also saved to my "events" tab (accessible on the left) and, as MonicaP pointed out, I get a reminder off to the right on the day of. I believe that, if you rsvp yes, you'll get other "alerts" if the event's time changes, or if the host posts an update.

@The Former Banker, well there's a simple solution to all that: Just RSVP 'no.' That way, you don't have to worry about your crazy schedule, and the host (who ALSO probably has a crazy schedule) can start planning for the party. Two weeks out isn't a ridiculous request, especially when the host needs to plan a meal or make restaurant reservations. When hosts are asking for an RSVP, they're not trying to "lock you in" to anything. Honestly, I'd rather the person just say "no" than leave me hanging and wondering if they're going to show up anyway (with a guest) and catch me unprepared without enough food or something (it's happened to me, and it's AWKWARD). When several guests act like you do, it becomes a big problem for those of us who really really like extending our hospitality. Please. RSVP. It takes two seconds.

Leave out a key piece of info like the address or time. Then people who want to come will have to ask you.

We should rename the cell phone the "texter" or "thumbing device" or "what's this picture of a big C" device. I'm the first to admit that I'd rather text or email than call someone. Calling usually turns into a game of phone tag (or phone avoidance). However, if you want to guarantee that someone comes, call or ask them face to face.

I've had people RSVP to evites and not show up, I've had people show up who didn't reply to the evite, and both cases were rough to deal with.

I would also agree that most people seem to not think these parties are as important because the invitation came via email, but also, the notion of RSVP'ing has gone "out of style" for whatever that means.

The only way to deal with it is rough. Sorry, you didn't RSVP, I don't have food for your daughter/you/etc. Sorry, we spent $25 for you to participate in kayaking because you said you were coming - here's a bill.

I don't know. I hope this gets better.

To some extent, I blame mobile phones, and even more so smart phones. It used to be that if you wanted to meet people for something it was all arranged, time, meeting place, you showed up on time or close as possible because you knew everyone would be waiting around till you got there and you had no way of contacting them. Now, of course, it's so easy to change plans at the last minute that I think people have got into the habit of 'everything is tentative until 5 minutes before'. I'm guilty of it myself sometimes. Of course, it's extremely rude. It's good that we can now let people know we're running late, but that flexibility shouldn't become a habit.

A friend of mine organised a dinner for 12 on a tram (streetcar) restaurant a couple of weeks ago. It was pre-booked and pre-paid, she hassled everyone for money before paying for the booking, and lo and behold, we all turned up on time because if not it would leave without us. Which just goes to show it can be done. Unfortunately, inviting people to your home these days is asking for trouble. Book something where people have to be there at a certain time or miss out (movie, harbour/river cruise, winery tour) and make them pre-pay their share - don't ever accept "I'll fix you up on the day". Arranging an event like that is better than having it at home anyway, you don't have to clean up afterwards.

The Former Banker, I agree with sofar - just say no then. Then if you change your mind closer to the date, ring and grovel and ask if it's ok. To say you have a 75% chance of being able to make something planned only two weeks in advance is a huge cop-out. What if they answered the door and said "sorry, something came up, it's all off. Couldn't let you know, something came up"?

To expand a bit, I don't really think digital invites are the problem. If anything (I have a similar mail phobia to Isab above), my friends know that Facebook is about the only thing I'm guaranteed to check every day and that it's the best way of contacting me. Of course, if it's just "my band is playing a gig this Friday" I'll probably ignore that. But that's different to "I'm holding a dinner party and I need to print up place setting labels".

I do RSVP...just with maybe and usually leave a message if the service offers it. Which seems to always prompt a phone call...then I will explain..then they will say, Oh I am putting you down as yes and you let me know.

My friends never ask me to RSVP... For things like the movie it is buy your ticket...heck, just about everything is done that way. Gatherings at homes are pretty loose...no problem there. We don't go to Hoity Toity places or particularly large groups so no reservations needed - usually not even offered.

I do suspect cell-phones & pagers started the problem. During college my friends and I planned stuff and pretty much stuck to times. All of us got jobs that had whacky hours and where on call. I had pager & cell phone by work (before they were common - it was my team the Pres & VP), most my friends had pagers for work (that we used) and had all kinds of codes. So we could tell people last minute to say meet at 8 instead of 7.

And note earlier in this thread I noted this weekend I went to a gathering where the host failed to show -- that was planned 1 week ahead.

I follow up non-replies so i know who is coming a week or so before. I always have frozen cookie dough and other back up food in the freezer and cupboards such as pizza , hummus or pasta ingredients in case extra people show. This elinates a ton of worry.

@Nikolek, you are correct, and like the good boy scout, prepared.

Hook up culture has invaded even the planned dinner party. The freezer and the microwave are your friends. I try and always make food that my husband likes to eat for lunch. Remains go into those plastic tubs, which go to work with him, where they have a microwave.

I am surprised that I such an outlier, I guess. Yesterday afternoon I found out I needed to be in earlier morning meetings this morning...one to give a presentation about an issue we had the company last week - early hour because of the different locations involved (US, Europe, SE Asia). And it couldn't be moved - next available time slot is two weeks out. My manager wanted me to cover another meeting but I couldn't because of the first.

Oh well. And would it be ironic or something if I know complained about the restaurant I went to last night that closed earlier? Their website says 11am-9:00pm or later. I show up at 8:30pm...sorry, no more orders already started cleaning kitchen. It is a whole in the wall type place - better than burger king but not as nice Applebees - though the food is good (or so I am told).

I have a small group of ladies that I've associated with for a long time to get our kids together. We use the old system of Yahoo! Groups, and create polls to get people to RSVP. Eve after the direct complaint of lack of RSVPs, people regularly just don't.

I have seen it for parties I've thrown, and attended, via evite and FB. The only true way to get RSVPs these days is to call, and call, and call, since now people don't regularly answer their phones or respond to voice mail.

I think the problem is what someone said above... people are bombarded with requests, and they want to make the "best" choice. They want to leave that window open as long as possible. If you do get the RSVP, it's likely you throw great parties.

I try to RSVP to every invite (even FB ones) with the quick yes or no and ask not to be updated if I said no. If I took the time to look at it, it only takes another second to RSVP. If I haven't responded, I haven't seen it. Friends know this and I'll typically get a follow-up text asking about it.

I'll apologize for all those who ask "What are you doing Sunday?" I never considered it rude, nor am I trying to "trap" someone into doing something with me. I'm just trying to see if you are even available to invite you over. If you're busy, even part of the day, I typically decide not to invite. But I'll take this into consideration in the future.