Your being tacky...not a way to be remembered...

Admit it, you have met those people in your life you felt were a bit, "tight" with their money. I do understand that people need to be economical and save money. Being "cheap" and a "tight wad" do conjure up unsavory images of people who are tacky, unkind and unsocial. The actual truth is farther from this perception because it is one thing to be frugal, it is another to be tacky. I know it is a fine line.

Being Chinese, my Chinese friends love to joke how "cheap" the Chinese can be. Then again you can say that for a lot of people "cheap" and "insert ethnicities" akin to lateness. For example, my friends joke Asian do not attend events on time but on "Asian Time" meaning later is better or at least 1 to 2 hours into a party they are invited to attend. My Filipino friends, Latino friends and other have joked the same thing about the lack of punctuality to events. Same for cheapness, but it does not mean being tacky.

What is tacky? I am going with the "in poor taste" definition (Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper). One incident that comes to mind that my friends hailed as tacky was this situation. Tonight, there is a party my friend was invited to attend. It is someone within her social sphere but she is not close to this person. It is a small cocktail party to fit 30 people and the evite was sent out two weeks ago. (In the past, this person has had to cancel many an event due to lack of interest or attendance for the event this person planned.) Thus far, 6 people have rsvped. The instructions were strict, all guests must rsvp, must arrive by 7:30pm-8pm and must confirm with host if they can or cannot bring a guest. On top of this, the recent count was previously 14 people and it went down because after the party planner had decided to charge each guest via PayPal $10 to attend this party. My friend is in a bind. Her guest who wanted to go to this party (my friend was not interested in going) bailed after finding out the $10 fee. Plus she is not keen on going alone as the rest of the guest list are not her usual sphere of friends. I told her these are a few options:

a) Change her "YES" to "MAYBE" and not show up
b) Change response to "NO" and give regrets but I cannot make it.
c) Totally do not go and do not change response (very irresponsible).
d) If original answer was "MAYBE" keep it so

There was an article written about the pressures of evite invitations in WSJ last year how people feel pressured to write something witty if they can, cannot, or might be able to attend an event on a evite. No more plain-yes, no or maybes. People feel the need to be creative with their responses and not be thought of as boring. Who would have thought? (BTW, my friend had put in the response "maybe" and is not attending now as the company holiday party is the same night.)

Another tacky situation was for a wedding. Weddings are all about being there for the friend, sometimes flying in, getting rental car, hotel, attending a rehearsal dinner, and getting a present for the bride and groom. You are lucky to get more than 10 words or a photo with the happy couple. A few years back, one acquaintance in an organization I was active in invited a lot of people in the organization. I got the registry and the only choice was a $100 gift card for a local furniture store. I thought it was odd! Well, other people talked and complained they were only given the $50 furniture store option! (They way the invite was worded made it seem the couple really really wanted your furniture gift card present.) Many were turned off and I guess I was thought of as a better friend so I was supposed to cough up more money? I am not against giving more money to close friends, in fact I do. But I like to have the option to give what I want, have a more reasonable registry and other times I end up making presents for close friends who are the married couple.

Being tacky is not the way to go! Think before you act and if you are not sure get some counsel. The party planner is not a young person but an established working professional with a high position in a good publicly traded company. The now married couple were a bit older and in their early 30's. So age does not necessarily equate to maturity.

Also, spending a ton of money does not mean everyone at your party is going to have a great time! Some of the best functions, weddings and celebrations were enjoyed due to the guests in attendance, the geniune enjoyment of everyone around me were great celebrations, weddings or parties.