Speaking of Invites...

So I had an interesting question posed to me today.  I was having a discussion with someone that I consider to be a friend.  We had invited them to Kirsten's graduation party because: a) we enjoy them, b) we wanted to celebrate Kirsten's graduation with people that we enjoy spending time with and c) if it was their child graduating I would hope that they would include us in their celebration because we would like to share special moments with them as well.  We have had these people in our home socially, we speak with them regularly, we attend church with them.  We LIKE them and we wanted to share a happy moment with them.  But today, I was hurt when they said to me: 

"I don't get this graduation party thing--I don't want to offend, but I am curious as to why we were included...I understand why we were invited to [Name]'s party because we DO things with them, but we don't really know Kirsten"  (slight paraphrasing because my mind is shot, emphasis added).

Sadly, after our conversation, I was again reminded that there are people in this world that view invites as an obligation to give something and it makes them uncomfortable.  That was NEVER my intention with any of our invitees.  Honestly we wanted to invite people into our home to join us in celebrating the beginning of Kirsten's adulthood.  We wanted to share something fun with others.

Now I know that I just wrote about why on earth we received invite to someone else's grad party.  I believe I posed query because the party that invited us had previously deemed us people who would abuse their child, so why on earth would they want us at their home?  The invitors were also people that we NEVER SPEAK TO.  This is far from the case with those that we invited to our home.   I am not so dense that I don't realize that the recipient of my invite obviously had the same questions I did--'WHY ARE THEY INVITING US?'.

I tried to make light of it, because I was suddenly filled with emotion and hurt.  I tried to joke with my invitee that we have had a lot of people distance themselves from us the last few years and that since they were people that still talk to us, we wanted to invite them.  Dean and I believe the distance with many is because of our lives becoming a little too messy for some people's comfort zones--we know most people aren't real comfortable around acute mental illness situations.  We also are aware that people maybe stopped calling us because the incredible stress, financial strain and chaos that is our lives the past few years doesn't always make us the most fun people to hang out with, HOWEVER that doesn't mean that we don't yearn for socializing with others.  That doesn't mean that we don't mourn those lost social invites and friendships.

I still don't think my invitee really understood what I was trying to say.  I finally told them that they were under no obligation to celebrate with us--we just wanted to extend the invite. 

So, if you got an invite from us, WE DON'T EXPECT A GIFT.  That isn't WHY we invited you.  We extended an invitation to our home to celebrate a milestone in our daughter's life.  We thought you might like to share our joy.  AND, if you didn't receive an invitation from us and were expecting one, I apologize.  We thought you might question 'why are they sending us this?' and we didn't want you to feel obligated.