The Mass Facebook Bday Invite

Yesterday, on my lunch break, I felt the phone vibrate. Turns out I had gotten the ol’ mass Facebook invite to an acquaintance's birthday. Not a great friend or a complete stranger, but someone in that grey area.

Whenever it comes to the mass Facebook invite from someone I rarely speak to, the first thing that I do is take the friend test. I check out how many invites were sent out.

If were talking less than 50… I must be special.
Around 100… It's still nice to make the cut.
At 150 I feel like a small fish in a big pond.
When there's triple digits, well, that’s when I'm pretty sure they're not bankin' on my appearance.

Why do people take this route? Any birthday I’ve attended usually breaks down to the person’s good friends anyway. Sure, if you’re luring guests with free bottles and drunk reckless women then that's gonna boost the turnout (no complaints here) but you get the point.

From my standpoint, it's frustrating to think “I know this will probably be a fun time but I haven't spoken to the host in years. Technically, I've been invited. Should I drop by? Maybe I can call just to say hi and bring up the topic mid-convo... I’ll feel out their temperature. Yea, that might work.”

But it never does. I never feel completely comfortable. The mass Facebook invite, if used alone, is impersonal and the lazy way of doing things. On the other hand, if the host were to pick up the phone for a follow up call, now that would be Sprezzatura.

(If you liked this post, show some love and pass it on to a friend/coworker who might also enjoy... Thanks.)