if someone apologises to you for not being able to make it to something you've planned, is it permissible/desirable to ask them what they're doing instead?

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I'm changing jobs within my company and to celebrate/commiserate/mark ambivalently the fact there's a BIG NITE OUT on Friday. Today someone in the office told me soz, she couldn't make it. "Oh what are you doing instead?" I enquired innocently.

she looked most taken aback "Mind your own business!" she exclaimed.

This is not such an unreasonable question. Or is it?

― MarkH (MarkH), Wednesday, 21 April 2004 18:49 (twenty-two years ago)

she then looked coy and said "um...well....stuff".

― MarkH (MarkH), Wednesday, 21 April 2004 18:50 (twenty-two years ago)

Is this inspired by that new Pink single?

― The Huckle-Buck (Horace Mann), Wednesday, 21 April 2004 18:50 (twenty-two years ago)

I haven't heard the new Pink single, so no.

― MarkH (MarkH), Wednesday, 21 April 2004 18:51 (twenty-two years ago)

hee hee, I've just remembered this is the same person who told my mate "I've got this bloke but I never see him" as recalled (and discussed) on my I'm *Sort of* Seeing Someone thread.

― MarkH (MarkH), Wednesday, 21 April 2004 18:55 (twenty-two years ago)

I think it's permissible to ask if they are a friend, or if they have said they are coming and change their mind, maybe. I don't think I'd ask my work colleagues in such circumstances, personally, but it depends on your relationship with them.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Wednesday, 21 April 2004 19:36 (twenty-two years ago)

I would ask people but I guess I've also been asked sometimes and not wanted to say.

― Ronan (Ronan), Wednesday, 21 April 2004 19:37 (twenty-two years ago)

I'm terrible though, I'll find out what everyone's doing, commit to nothing and then make a decision at 11 on a Friday night after drinking beers at home on my own for a few hours and surveying how everyone's night is going.

― Ronan (Ronan), Wednesday, 21 April 2004 19:38 (twenty-two years ago)

Dunno if it's permissible, but it's definitely not as fun as accusing them of not having better plans and purposely missing your shindig just because they are lazy or a jerk.

― martin m. (mushrush), Wednesday, 21 April 2004 19:39 (twenty-two years ago)

haha Ronan very OTM.

― Broheems (diamond), Wednesday, 21 April 2004 19:41 (twenty-two years ago)

so fucking paranoid about going out and not having the best of all possible times

― Ronan (Ronan), Wednesday, 21 April 2004 19:42 (twenty-two years ago)

"Dunno if I can make it...who else is going?"

― dave q, Wednesday, 21 April 2004 19:43 (twenty-two years ago)

Exactly.

― Broheems (diamond), Wednesday, 21 April 2004 19:43 (twenty-two years ago)

(x-post - to Ronan)

― Broheems (diamond), Wednesday, 21 April 2004 19:44 (twenty-two years ago)

I'd think someone's a cheeky shit if they asked me to explain my non attendance so therefore, I'd never ask anyone lest they think I'm a cheeky shit

― penelope_11, Wednesday, 21 April 2004 19:45 (twenty-two years ago)

Do you think people guess when you're doing it?

I sometimes feel like they're reading my mind, the worst is with some groups of people who are sort of assholes, or at least aren't nice when drunk, and sometimes I'm just thinking will a particular girl I fancy be there and trying to ask in a clever way so when I find out not I can decline.

I shouldn't give away my secrets.

― Ronan (Ronan), Wednesday, 21 April 2004 19:46 (twenty-two years ago)

I'd never ask, mainly because I wouldn't want to create a possibly awkward situation.

― oops (Oops), Wednesday, 21 April 2004 19:46 (twenty-two years ago)

it seems nosy to me, but i don't know the extent of your relationship with her.

― lauren (laurenp), Wednesday, 21 April 2004 19:51 (twenty-two years ago)

What if she'd said something like "I'm going to get sport-fucked by a Turkish submarine crew, then spend the rest of the evening shooting fireworks out of my ass"? Then your little going-away party wouldn't seem quite so special, would it?

― VengaDan Perry (Dan Perry), Wednesday, 21 April 2004 20:12 (twenty-two years ago)

I don't know, he hasn't said exactly what he's got planned.

Ronan is suspiciously like some people I know who do similar things, but at least they are pretty upfront about it. It's not so bad if you're just going to the pub and someone says 'I don't know if I'll be along, I might be going to this other thing instead', but it's kind of insulting if you invite someone to your house for dinner and they basically say 'I don't know, I'll have to see what else is on offer'. Of course, even that's not as bad as inviting someone over and having them turn up late and drunk because they've been somewhere else beforehand, or have them text someone else all night to arrange their next social event for that night. I've had people do both of those things.

Is it any wonder that I usually turn down all social offers and stay home with a beer and a good book? People are a minefield.

― accentmonkey (accentmonkey), Wednesday, 21 April 2004 20:54 (twenty-two years ago)

"sport-fucked"?????

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Wednesday, 21 April 2004 21:54 (twenty-two years ago)

No you may not ask what people are doing instead. It marks you as a Philistine who does not value the privacy of others. I once went off on a guitarist who did this to me:

Me: "I can't do rehearsal on Thursday--make it another day"
Him: "Why not?"
Me: "What do you mean why not? Because I told you I couldn't! None of your business!"
Him: "Why not?"
etc

What was going on? Well me being NOT a flake, if I say I can't be somewhere for whatever reason, dammit I can't be there. It is none of his business why. He does not get to evaluate my decision like a schoolteacher (oo....I'll give it a B+) . My decisions about what I do with my time should be respected in this context, and I should not have to explain or justify them.

AND he has been rude in putting me in a potentially embaraasing situation should the thing I'm doing really be none of his business (e.g. having a pap smear, a deposition, changing my grandama's daipers, taking a friend to rehab, i mean fuck!)

― Orbit (Orbit), Wednesday, 21 April 2004 22:52 (twenty-two years ago)

Exactly. What is to be gained from asking what their plans are? Even if I had a perfectly valid excuse, I'd feel like the person asking would think I was making it up.

― oops (Oops), Wednesday, 21 April 2004 23:02 (twenty-two years ago)

Yeah, I always have the urge to ask, but what I'm going to say, "Sorry, not good enough?"

(very close friends lose the right to privacy, of course)

― Jordan (Jordan), Wednesday, 21 April 2004 23:05 (twenty-two years ago)

The other day, someone asked me if I was going to be around in June for a gig they were putting on, and they thought I said "I can't - I'm going to the pictures that weekend," which would have been a v.poor excuse for something two months hence. In fact I said "The Pixies". Which some might say is no better.

― N. (nickdastoor), Wednesday, 21 April 2004 23:23 (twenty-two years ago)

'sorry, can't make it, its my bukkake night'.

― dave tremaine (dave t), Thursday, 22 April 2004 03:36 (twenty-two years ago)

i wouldn't ask someone as a general rule but i do get rather creeped out if people don't at least offer up a vague explanation. oh, and they'll probably never get invited anywhere again.

― the surface noise (electricsound), Thursday, 22 April 2004 03:40 (twenty-two years ago)

strange world you live in. don't they have right right to say no to you, i'll take a rain check? why must you pry?

― Orbit (Orbit), Thursday, 22 April 2004 04:53 (twenty-two years ago)

i don't pry. "i have another engagament" is enough. if someone just says "no i can't make it" and nothing else then i have to assume they aren't interested full stop.

― the surface noise (electricsound), Thursday, 22 April 2004 04:58 (twenty-two years ago)

oh so it's *how* they say it. fair enuf.

― Orbit (Orbit), Thursday, 22 April 2004 04:59 (twenty-two years ago)

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