As your Friend, I thought I’d take the time to tell you why solicitations like this aren’t good:

Hey There,
Hope you’re doing wonderfully.  Only a week left before [insert name of show here]. I haven’t heard from you yet and I’d love to see you at the show. There’s a half price preview on [date].

Here’s the thing. I don’t know you. I know we’re Friends, but I don’t know how we became Friends. I just checked my Address Book, and you’re not in it. I looked at your Facebook photo and I don’t recognize you. So it’s little surprise that you haven’t heard from me yet — you aren’t going to. I don’t know you. And I don’t owe you. Deep down, I think you know that, because you addressed me as “Hey There.”

Sending me a message through Facebook? That’s okay. No harm, no foul. We’re Friends, but not every Friend knows everyone else. I’m not on Facebook often, but I’ve got 624 Friends, probably a good 10% of whom elicit a “Who?” from me when I see their picture. You’re one of them. “Who?” But the other “Who?” Friends aren’t berating me for not responding to an invitation I don’t remember getting, to an event I’m being asked to buy a ticket for (even at half price). That’s kinda rude. I know you’d “love to see me at the show” — with my twenty bucks or so — but not everything’s about you. I know it didn’t occur to you, but maybe I wouldn’t love to see the show. You’re just presumptuous.

No, I haven’t heard of you, or your show, and even though we’re Friends we aren’t friends (my real friends don’t need the “f” capitalized; those to whom this applies know who they are). You don’t know it, but your tone is demanding and insincere and insulting.

As a Friend, I thought you should know.

Your Friend

p.s. I am doing wonderfully. Thank you.

This entry was posted on Friday, April 10th, 2009 at 8:38 pm and is filed under Theatre, Thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.