January 2007: Behaving like Grown-ups

Dear Charles,

I am planning a 50th-birthday celebration for my partner. I am planning a dinner at a local hotel on a Wednesday night, and then on Thursday morning, I am taking 12 of his closest friends on a private yacht to the Bahamas for 4 days.

My concern is this: I cannot invite all of the guys who are coming to the dinner to go on the yacht. How do I go about doing this without offending the friends who will not be invited on the boat-trip portion of the celebration?

Harry

Dear Harry,

Your friends are over the age of seven, right? I’ll assume that we’re all grown-ups here, so I’ll plainly state a sad fact: Not everyone can be invited to every event or activity.

I truly think that most grown-ups realize this -- I mean, if I allowed myself to be offended by all the guest lists that lacked my name (the Vanity Fair Oscar Party again!), I wouldn’t have any time left for things like computer Scrabble and polishing the silver.

So all you need to do is issue separate invitations -- that is, you create one set of invitations for the dinner party and one set of invitations for the cruise; even if your invitations are verbal, you keep the two events completely separate -- thus avoiding confusion (you might have considered separating the dinner and the cruise by at least a couple of days if possible).

Now, obviously, it’s not nice to make a point of telling someone that he isn’t invited to something. For instance, you can't talk to your friend Etienne for hours about this birthday cruise you’re planning and then add, “Oh, by the way, Etienne, there’s no room for you on the boat.” If you can avoid doing that, you will not do anything that should cause a reasonable person to take offense. And grown-up behavior on your part -- that is, not making a big deal about the upcoming cruise when people who might’ve wanted to go are present -- should prevent hurt feelings.

I hope this is helpful.

Best regards,
Charles

Dear Charles,

I have a wide circle of friends who at one time were all friends with one another. But things happened, and one couple (“Mr. and Mrs. Green”) is no longer comfortable or friends with another couple (“Mr. and Mrs. Orange”). I'm in the middle in that I did not “take sides” and still speak to both couples, though admittedly not as often to the Oranges.

I'm having a party, and if I choose not to invite the Oranges, I worry that someone will tell them that everyone but they were at my party. And I’d feel bad about not inviting the Oranges, as we all used to be good friends.

On the other hand, I don’t want to make the Greens uncomfortable or compel them to not attend my party because the Oranges are there.

I worry that asking the Greens how they would feel if the Oranges were at my party puts a burden on them -- and I'm also afraid that they may just decide not to come. Should I invite the Oranges and then tell the Greens that the Oranges may come to my party? Or should I just not invite the Oranges and hope that they don’t hear about the party?

Thank you,
Melissa

Dear Melissa,

Again, I must ask this question: We are discussing grown-ups, are we not?

Yes, a good hostess does consider things such as potential awkward situations between guests when she's organizing a guest list -- this is more of a concern if she's planning something intimate, such as a dinner party. But if I were you, I'd invite the people I wanted to come to my party, without worrying too much about who likes or doesn't like whom. And I would trust my guests to behave like grown-ups about any past disagreements. Certainly, a grown-up can at least be coolly polite with even sworn enemies, if the occasion is a good friend's party.

If you can't trust the people involved to behave themselves properly, I have to wonder why you'd want to have them in your home at all. Then again, maybe your social group’s circumstances are such that big parties are no longer appropriate. That is for you to decide -- but in your situation, I might consider planning, for instance, a dinner party with the Oranges and then another event with the Greens.

But there is definitely no need for a hostess to run her guest list by her guests. I'd say that “not taking sides” is still the smart thing to do. Continue doing so.

I hope this is helpful.

Best regards,
Charles