As a young girl, I used to think that people didn't come to my birthday parties because it was so close to Christmas. As a teenager, when I had How To Host a Murder Parties and people would cancel last minute or be no-shows, I decided it was that I wasn't popular enough and that people just didn't like me. Either that, or the majority of people were just unreliable and flaky. After all, it was the story of my life that when I would ask people to do things with me, they'd turn me down. Or more often, they'd accept but would fail to follow-through. (Rex was one of the few people I'd met that I could count on; he said he'd do something and he did! As one of the first people in my life outside my own family that I could rely on, I had to hold on to him.)
When I married Rex, I tried again to have those How to Host a Murder parties. It went much better, although there were some cancellations anyway. I figured my luck was better because I like to think Rex is the life of any party. A couple that we introduced to these games, we discovered, started hosting their own How to Host a Murder parties and not inviting us. It hurt quite a bit to be excluded like that, especially since we considered them one of our closest friends at the time. Furthermore, the couples we would invite to our parties wouldn't come to ours but would go to theirs. Were ours no longer fun? Or did they just not like us well enough? Needless to say, we stopped hosting. Besides, children complicated the matter.
I rarely even bother inviting just one family over anymore, or even one person for that matter. I am disappointed in myself that I feel this way, especially since I really do want people to come over. Believe it or not, I do like to host, even if I am quiet and shy. Despite not being a kid-person, I always wanted to be the house where my kids have their friends come to hang out. I wish my house could be the gathering place, like the Ludlow house was when I was a teenager. Sadly, James doesn't have very many friends, and my anxiety level goes up tenfold when he does have someone over. Megan has become better at being nice to the girls she has over so that isn't a problem.
But it really breaks my heart when I have a birthday party for one of my kids and no one shows up. James wanted kids to come for his birthday last year but he has a summer birthday so that made it difficult to pass out invitations to kids at school; he had few friends from school or church anyway and I didn't want the mean ones to show up because their mothers made them. So I just had him invite one friend and we took them to Pump It Up. It turned out great.
Megan wanted to have friends over for her party last year too. Since hers lands the week after school is out, it was easy to still pass out invitations at school. Only one friend showed up, and they weren't even in the same class that year so it was a bit awkward having not played with each other much in many months.
This year, she remembered the turn out from the previous year and agreed that she should invite the kids from her primary class at church instead. Three out of ten kids showed up, for which I am extremely grateful. But I still considered it a sad party; most of the games we'd planned on couldn't be played with that few kids, and one or another of the kids that were there decided they didn't want to play the ones that could be played. I think there was too much down time and they got bored, despite having a playroom full of toys and a big backyard with a trampoline. Megan is a popular girl at school and has lots of friends. I imagine the same is true at church. So I don't think the problem is that she isn't well-liked.
When I think of the parties that my kids have attended (the few parties that parents hold on Saturdays), I see the same problem. The parents put up a lot of money to hold the party at a designated party place (Pump It Up, Chuck-E-Cheese, Peter Piper Pizza, etc. etc.), and the attendance is still very low. If there are quite a few participants, the guests are mostly family or friends of the parents. One of the awkward parties I took Megan to last year was that of the one friend that came to her party -- Megan and I were the only people there not related to them. However, I have also taken my kids to some parties (often hosted at home) that had a lot of people.
I still struggle with the image that I am just not popular enough for people to want to come to something I invite them to. After all, if I create a facebook event, no one shows up to that either, but if someone else creates the same thing, there is often a larger turnout. But if I consider the many other parties and events I've gone to that have had a similarly low turnout rate, I don't think it is me. (I include Relief Society activities, which I usually forget to go to because it is not part of my evening routine.)
So the question remains: why are some parties a success and others failures (in terms of attendance)? Does it have to do with who is hosting? Is attendance determined by the other [more popular] people who decide to grace the host with their presence? Do people turn down my invitations because they don't like me/my family? Are most other people similarly unpopular and therefore can't get people to come? Or is it just that the successful turnouts seem to be successful because they invite 100 times more people and when only 10% show up, it appears like a lot? Or is it just coincidence? A luck of the draw?
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