Can someone tell me when sending a R.S.V.P become optional?

Can someone tell me when a sending R.S.V.P become optional? Better yet, why is it so hard for people to commit to a social event? Have social invitations between friends fallen prey to the same bad behavior of online dating? Are people thinking that I’ll just wait to see how many invites I get and decide which one is the best offer before committing? Seriously, I want to know.

Every now-and-again, certain topics will get me going and this is one of them. If I invite you to dinner, just say yes or no. It won’t hurt my feelings if you don’t want to, but I’m planning dinner and need to know how much food to buy. However, I find that over the last decade people just think an invitation is a mere suggestion of something they can do, but they need not reply either way. For people like this I say: Bite Me.

For others that show real interest in getting together don’t read my invite and never respond. What you don’t realize is that I’ll send the email through Facebook so I know that you’ve read my message. It amazes me that you’ll read the message, not respond and get upset with me when I tell you I’ve made plans as I never heard back.

I’d like to say this is a novelty, but it isn’t. My point is this –if you’re not sure you can make it, let the person who sent you the email know it may not work with your schedule and that you’ll get back to them; better yet, throw out some dates that work for you. At some point if you continue this behavior, I’ll stop inviting you to do things because I’d like to think you want to spend time with me. Quite frankly, if I’m chasing you down, I’ll feel as if I’m another one of your obligations and friends should never feel like obligations.