If someone you haven't spoken to in 6,7 years
 

calls to inform you they are getting married and they'd love for you to come, is it just a ploy to get a gift? An unvitation, a la Seinfeldese?

Isn't an absence of 6, 7 years pretty much the cutoff point between "it's a shame we're not as close as we used to be" and "not in my life?"

Further, the wedding's a twenty hour drive. No shit.

I'm sort of stuck as how to respond. The socially graceful thing is to say, on the phone, unofficially, "Yeah," then decline when the proper invitation arrives in the mail. The wedding's all the way in November, which leaves plenty of time for me to think of an excuse.

The less proper yet more honest thing would be to say "No" right off the bat, and explain that if I any interest in seeing him and celebrating life's little adventures with him, it would've happened already.

Yes, we used to be friends, but isn't "used" to the operative word?

Tell her/him to go fuck themselves and buy there own gift because you'd rather keep the money. ;)

Did you ever date and it ended badly? Is it a "just so you know... " kind of invite?

Perhaps they have little to no friends and really would like you to come.

Perhaps they have too many friends and wish to give all of their other friends the impression they have.. way too many friends, because they're fabulous, of course.


I'd just say no if you don't want to go. Surely its no more rude than inviting someone to an intimate event when you haven't spoken to them in so many years?

My thought would be that the wedding is an opportunity to reconnect with someone who you've lost contact with for some time. It can cost a lot of money to have someone as a guest at a wedding (those meals don't come cheap!), no-one's gonna make an invite unless they really want the invitee to be there.

I think the key thing here for you is, do you feel a strong sense of friendship towards your friend? If you do, then I would agree w/blunderbuss and go ahead and re-connect.

You're hardly going to spark up a freindship again at his wedding, weddings are hectic, they're like the only time in your life when EVERYONE you know is in the same room, he's hardly going to have time to sit down for a few hours and talk about the old times...

^
Really? I've never been to a wedding, so I wouldn't know.

Lucky, lucky man.

Good point. Unless the dude figured I wouldn't make the trip, yet still be obliged to send a present. (Frankly, I don't see a way out of sending a present.)


Good point, too. Yet I haven't been difficult to track down, and neither was he. In fact, he had no trouble finding me to tell me about the wedding. I guess I don't feel a strong sense of friendship. If I had, we'd have been communicating with each other all these years, right?

Fuck it. I'm gonna send a $20 gift certificate to Outback Steakhouse and call it a day.

Contact with freinds (or friends of the past) works both ways. He's probably not contacted you all these years simply because you havn't contacted him. You've both probably been sitting there thinking the other doesn't like you, when actually you'd both be well up for drinking, merriment and a catch-up. Thats how this is stuff works, in my experience anyway...

After 6 years I don't see you're even obliged to get'em a gift. Congratulate him and leave it at that. Its his wedding, not yours. Just because he called doesn't mean you owe him anything. Of course it also depends on how close you were back in the day.

Plus, the life that's happening right there in front of you tends to be so all-consuming that, despite your best intentions, you forget that there is also a life beyond your immediate surroundings.

My girlfriend moans constantly about friends of hers who she has to do all the work to keep the friendships alive. I have to remind her every time that these friends have kids who take up most of their waking hours, and their "neglect" of her is probably because, once looking after the brats is done, it's quarter past midnight and all they're fit to do is sleep.

^^ this.

hey wait, that's MY girlfriend.
GET
OUT
OF
MY
BRAIN.

Amen to this.

None of these. It was a message on voicemail! I've been too busy saying "What the fuck?" to call back.

meh. ignore it. if you ever run into said friend and the message comes up, you say "what message? i didn't get any. you sure it was the right number?".

End of thread.

just say no

they just want a gift. for real.

send them an envelope with a shit-stained wad of toilet tissue and tell themn this is from when you wiped your duck butter cuz it gots righteous greasy after slam dancing at a sonic youth show in 2004.

this is pure poetry

i don't know why peole are getting so bitter about this. if you want to go to the wedding then go, if you don't want to go then don't, i'm sure you know which you would rather do.

buy them a gift card to get their belly button pierced from a basement tattoo parlor.

You're a bunch of cold, materialistic cunts, you know that? It's a wedding. Weddings are when people get pissed and have a good time. No fucker's keeping count of presents.

If I was getting married I would be mortified if people I invited thought I was doing so for the presents.

I'm a little bit disgusted, in a Daily Mail way.

this is interesting... i don't know protocol about wedding invites either... i hadn't talked to this girl in over a year-and-a-half... and hadn't seen them (group of friends) in over 2 years or so... we got a nice invite by mail, but no phone call or any other contact... my brother and i were invited... we didn't go or send a gift. are we wankers?

edit--- and it was a 3 and a half hour drive to get there... plus hotel costs, etc...

unless home-slice is loaded and can afford as many guests at his weddinga nd reception as he wants, then to send wedding INVITES, as opposed to announcements, fcould be a ploy for a long-distance gift. especially since they have not talked in years.

I love feeling disgusted in a Daily Mail way. It's that sense of belonging I think.

actually he's right. the last two marriages i have been to i never got them anything. the couple never cared. they were just glad that i came.

it all depends on who is sending the invites. there are plenty of mo-fucks out there who send as many invites as possibe, just hoping that those that cannot come will send gifts. happens all the fucking time.

Hmm, well i think your (old) friend maybe just wants you to stay friends, and he/she just wants to see you again because it's been so long. Maybe they are just a douche that wants a gift, but i really doubt they are. 21 hours itone hell of a drive though... I've been 16 hours in a car straight, making only three 30 minute stops, it's still hell. So i guess it's up to you whether to go or not, just think back and ask yourself if this person is worth it.

also, it goes to show that you're still in your friend's thoughts even though you haven't spoken in all these years and that he cares about whether you are there or not on one of the most important days of his life.