Hosts and guests

A few weeks ago, when I had a Superbowl party, I was upset at how few people actually replied to my email invitation. I knew, logically, that many of them were simply assuming they were going to come; some I asked, in casual conversation, and they were like, "Oh yeah, we're coming," but many people never said a word about whether they were coming or not.

A few weeks later, Ryan sent out a similar email invitation, inviting many of the same people to his house for a party to watch the movie RENT. A few days went by without me responding to his invitation, and Ryan mentioned my lack of response. I reminded him that he hadn't yet responded to my invitation, and we agreed that we should both reply.

My party turned out fine. At some point I realized that we couldn't fit any more people in our house anyways, so I stopped worrying about the people who hadn't replied.

Today was Ryan's party, and 20 minutes after it should have started, I was one of the only ones out of 10 or 15 people who were supposed to be coming. Ryan was getting a little anxious/annoyed, and I knew exactly how he felt. Were people going to come or not? Was all this work we did preparing stuff going to be wasted?

Eventually, many people came, (though not as many as expected), and we had a lot of fun, but was all the stress beforehand necessary?

Were Ryan and I respectively too worried about people's lack of response, or were people rude in not replying or coming on time?

I've been a guest and a host, and my answer is this: the hosts are right; as guests, we need to have the courtesy to tell our hosts if and when we are coming, and then stick to that agreement.