Conundrum

Why do people not respond to evites? This question plagues me, because I pretty much always respond. In fact, I almost always respond yes even if I'm a maybe. The reason I do this is because when I view evites with very few "yes's" I'm less likely to WANT to attend. And I'm a huge fan of people who decide to host or throw events - since I recognize how much work goes into these things and how they are holding the glue of society together. But no one responds. In most evites, the majority of people never even bother to respond. Why?

One theory is that people are too busy. Bullshit. I know people read all that shit.

Another theory is that people don't know their schedule and want to keep things open-ended. This is a very Los Angeles-California-y thing to do. And I get it. But why not do like I do and respond yes and then keep it open-ended? Everyone knows if you grandpa dies, you aren't coming to the party. No one is holding a "yes" response to an evite over ones head like the Sword of Damocles.

The third theory is that people don't want to look over-eager and therefore do not respond and then forget about it.

My fourth theory is that people are waiting to see what other people do and then no one responds because no one else responds.

My fifth theory is that people are rude. Purposefully rude. Not responding due to any of the four previously mentioned items is in itself rude, so perhaps this one is redundant, but I separate the category because sometimes the asshole-ness of people trumps a practical explanation.

I'm not sure which theory accounts for the most non-responses. But in this day and age where people shamelessly spend their hours on facebook and internet dating, wasting their lives trolling meaningless blog posts and commentary and Charlie Sheen's twitter account, and perusing pictures of high school classmates weekends, you would think some more priority would be placed on the good old fashioned RSVPing to an ACTUAL PARTY or event where human beings gather and interact face-to-face. To me, the three useful elements of the internet are: email, evites, and blogs. Email is a great communication tool, a quick in-between to the phone call / letter / business package. It might be the most important single tool invented during my lifetime. Evites are a fantastic invention because it saves time and money and explication for organizing parties and events. It is similar to an email, but of additional use because of the group access to information of a specific event. Blogs end up filling gaps that were being systemically ignored by traditional journalism and op-eds.

All the rest of the internet inventions are of questionable value. Internet porn has made access to porn much easier and cheaper, but it isn't clear to me this is a good thing for society or male-female relationships. It certainly helps the relationship men have with themselves, but I'm not convinced that is a relationship in need of nurturing. Facebook is giant scam. Internet dating is bad (see other posts). Netflix and Amazon and other shopping sites are probably a net positive and will probably become more positive over the long run, especially with streaming and kindle, etc. So maybe I should add that to the good stuff about the internet.