Betrothed! Part 3: The Invite List
As a guy who's spent the last decade and a half writing about pop culture in general and music in specific, I'm intimately acquainted with the concept of The List. I've written innumerable year-end lists of albums and songs and movies and characteristics of people who might like certain albums and songs and movies. They're all by and large meaningless, a bunch of stuff that I both like and consider substantial on one level or another, and I hate doing it. Unamerican as it is, I loathe competition. I like what I like and in some areas I possess the expertise to argue why some pop-culture products are more deserving of attention or accolades than others. I don't feel the need to rank shit, or to see the creative people that I respect and have enriched my life pitted against one another, or given a rank.Now, I've gotta do that to people I know.
That's what the wedding invitation list is, really. I find myself put in the position of ranking my relationships. I guess if you're rich, you can invite everybody you've ever known and liked and considered a friend. We're not rich. My fiance grew up here, and is very well liked at work. Fortunately for us, I didn't grow up around here, and I mostly work at home, and I tend to not make too many new friends on account of the circumstance that I often act like an asshole.
I knew that would pay off someday.
Anyway, a lot of her friends are my friends as well, miracle of miracles, and that roster of common friends has made up the majority of our first rough stab at a wedding guest list. And instead of writing down the names of every single person I've ever called a friend, and having to painfully cut names off of that list, I'm thinking about formulating a set of general disqualifiers before Becks and I even get into the nitty gritty of culling:
If I haven't seen your face in more than a year. Sometimes we reminisce on the phone, and talk about getting together, but it never happens. I love you man, but we're living different lives now. Those who contribute more than five communications per month are exempt, and no, fucking Myspace bulletin board messages don't count.
If we worked/work together, but you've never seen The House. You know where to find me, and Becks plans, like, six crazy parties a year. And we've lived together for, like, two years now or something. And I totally tried to pay you back that money I owe you. Seriously, I recently ran into two former co-workers who had just been at the wedding of two other former co-workers I really like, and it wasn't a big deal. But apparently some people think it's a big deal if you don't get at least a courtesy invitation from a co-worker. I'm lost when it comes to wedding invite etiquette. What the fuck is a courtesy invitation? I know you're not going to come, and you know you're not going to come, but we do the invite-decline dance? I refuse to add to the burden of an already overworked Postal Service.
If you ever dated somebody I really cared about, and I pretended to be nice, but I totally made that fake face and you could tell I thought you were shite. Derf.
If you ever punched me in the face. Patrick and Joey are exempt. No one else.
If you ever called me out in front of the waitress at Applebee's for not being able to pay my half of the bill. Seriously, Mike, that shit was totally uncalled for. I was, like, two bucks short.
I knew that would pay off someday.
Anyway, a lot of her friends are my friends as well, miracle of miracles, and that roster of common friends has made up the majority of our first rough stab at a wedding guest list. And instead of writing down the names of every single person I've ever called a friend, and having to painfully cut names off of that list, I'm thinking about formulating a set of general disqualifiers before Becks and I even get into the nitty gritty of culling:
If I haven't seen your face in more than a year. Sometimes we reminisce on the phone, and talk about getting together, but it never happens. I love you man, but we're living different lives now. Those who contribute more than five communications per month are exempt, and no, fucking Myspace bulletin board messages don't count.
If we worked/work together, but you've never seen The House. You know where to find me, and Becks plans, like, six crazy parties a year. And we've lived together for, like, two years now or something. And I totally tried to pay you back that money I owe you. Seriously, I recently ran into two former co-workers who had just been at the wedding of two other former co-workers I really like, and it wasn't a big deal. But apparently some people think it's a big deal if you don't get at least a courtesy invitation from a co-worker. I'm lost when it comes to wedding invite etiquette. What the fuck is a courtesy invitation? I know you're not going to come, and you know you're not going to come, but we do the invite-decline dance? I refuse to add to the burden of an already overworked Postal Service.
If you ever dated somebody I really cared about, and I pretended to be nice, but I totally made that fake face and you could tell I thought you were shite. Derf.
If you ever punched me in the face. Patrick and Joey are exempt. No one else.
If you ever called me out in front of the waitress at Applebee's for not being able to pay my half of the bill. Seriously, Mike, that shit was totally uncalled for. I was, like, two bucks short.
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