When you accept an invitation to someone's bridal shower or fundraiser, what obligation, if any, do they have towards you?

Good question. The definition of friend is very slippery. For me, I would simply discuss it with my friend and have done with it. However, many people call mere acquaintances friend and they do not feel comfortable discussing this type of issue.

I have never felt an obligation is forced upon me by others. I either want to do something, or I don’t.

It’s an interesting question, inspired, I’m sure, by this one, right?

I’d turn it around to answer it.

When you invite a friend (of whatever level of friendship you want to assume here, from “lifelong boon companion” to “the guy in the next cubicle at work”), don’t you expect some level of reciprocation? Maybe not a strict calculation along the lines of, “Well, they invited us to their son’s bar mitzvah, so we should invite them to our daughter’s confirmation”, but still… something, right? When you buy their kids’ fund-raiser chocolate bars, even though you’re trying to diet and your wife hates that chocolate, you expect the same in return, don’t you? Or something like it.

Friends are friends because we don’t have to pay them, and couldn’t afford to anyway, but there still has to be some level of “social accounting” doesn’t there?

I don’t expect my friends to accept invitations just because I accepted their invitations (to whatever event) in the past. I want them to accept the invitation because they want to come and spend the time with me/my family.

I don’t keep tabs of how many events I went to of theirs and how many events they’ve come to of mine. To me, that is just silly and would make me question what the friendship really is about.

Really, @Seaofclouds? I think you wouldn’t be human if you didn’t have some sense of the balance of the relationship. You may not keep an accounting in a book, but I’ll bet you just about anything that you have some idea of how much reciprocation there is in your relationship with every person you know.

If one of your friends never reciprocated, would you go along, still inviting them to event after event? Still feeding them? Doing whatever, even if they never gave anything back except perhaps conversation?

I do have friends like that. But every single one of them tries to reciprocate, even when they can’t afford to. I don’t mind taking them out when I know they can’t afford to go to the places I like to go to, but I also know it bothers them not to be able to have things be equal.

It’s a nice idea that reciprocation doesn’t matter if you are real friends, but in my experience, it does matter, even if people don’t want it to. Reciprocation, I suspect, is a part of what friendship is about. Unequal relationships don’t work.

@CWOTUS I think your version of this question is fine and hope people will answer it. It kind of makes more sense than the way I put it.

Sort of? It’s less about the exact dollar amounts, and more about the effort put into the relationship. There needs to be roughly equal effort put into the relationship, which can have a financial aspect. But at the same time, not everyone earns as much, so you spending $50 on a present when you’re a lawyer isn’t the same effort as me spending $50 on a present on student loans. If I’ve gone to your wedding (gift, clothes, driving, time off), then you owe me equal effort to celebrate my life choices, but it doesn’t have to be in the form of equal money. It could be in the form of making sure you show up to my graduation (which is just gas money), even though we’ve since moved further away from each other and you now have to drive several hours both ways. Or, you always bring me soup when I’m sick. Similarly, I have to (self-imposed have to) go to my sister’s graduation in a few weeks, which is hugely inconvenient for me (5 hours driving both ways, in the 36 hours between my last class and that class’s final), and while it’s really just the cost of a tank of gas for me to attend, I’d be really hurt if she didn’t do the same when I graduate.

Relationships that have this imbalance of effort are really unhealthy, and not fun to be in.

If I accept an invitation, they have an obligation to be a good host. That’s all.

You are supposed to be attending (and buying a gift) out of love for your friend. Your attendance does not incur any obligation.

So, @marinelife, you feel no obligations towards your friends as a result of accepting invitations from them? I am talking about life as it is lived, not as written about by Emily Post.

I would be very shocked to discover you have no sense of obligation towards your friends, and that invitations are something you feel no need to reciprocate.

I do not accept invitations out of a sense of obligation. I accept out of love for and respect for my friends.

@marinelife But you still accept, right? How would you feel if you were constantly accepting – out of love and respect – and then they never accepted your invites?

I think we need to be careful to distinguish between what obligations we have qua friend and what obligations we have qua someone whose invitation was accepted. A lot of people are trying to shovel what might reasonably be an expectation of the former relationship onto the latter relationship. This, I think, is a mistake. Moreover, it is a mistake at the heart of the disagreement given the way that this question and the related question were posed.

@wundayatta Then by your standards, I suppose I am not human. I can’t tell you how many events I’ve gone to for my friends versus the number of events they’ve come to for me. I just don’t keep track of that. When I send out invitations, I’m not thinking about the fact that the person I’m filling the invitation out for didn’t come to the last event I had or any events for that matter, I’m just thinking about how much I’d enjoy it if they came to this particular event I’m inviting them to. To me, friendships aren’t just about showing up at the events. It’s being there for all the times in between the events that really matters.

I do not feel there is an obligation to me in return. I choose to do things for or with others that I want to do without ulterior motives or expectations. I do not like the idea of one person owing another for every action taken.

@Seaofclouds It doesn’t require an exact count to know if you have hosted someone many times but they have never invited you to do anything. There are two states: in balance, and out of balance. If you invited someone many times and they never reciprocated, would you not notice that and wonder about it? Would you feel comfortable with a friend who never reciprocated? Or would you really not even know? If so, how can I get on your guest list? Indeed, is there any room there?

@wundayatta I honestly wouldn’t know. Perhaps it’s because we’ve lived in so many places and had so much going on over the years, but between moves, deployments, and life in general, I couldn’t honestly tell you if I have a friend that has never shown up when invited to the big events. Perhaps it’s also because I do a lot of stuff with my friends that don’t include the big events. When I think back to time spent with my friends, I picture the stuff we did together, not the stuff they weren’t a part of.

@Seaofclouds It sounds to me like you feel that your relationships are in balance.