A Lesson In Ethics

To fully be able to appreciate this lesson you will need to first know…

The Story of Amber and “Friend”

Amber first met “friend” during biology in Amber’s sophomore year of high school. “Friend” was in her group for many labs and so he and Amber and became school friends. They didn’t really run in the same crowd, but occasionally there was some group overlap in extended friend circles so random outside of class associations happened. The rest of high school continued in this manner.

Following graduation from high school Amber and “friend” began to spend more and more time with each other. Eventually Amber and “friend” became best friends. And Amber began to develop a tendre for “friend.” And things stayed exactly like that for quite a few months, with Amber longing for something more from “friend” and “friend” being oblivious to Amber’s affections.

Then “friend” moved out of the country for two years. And throughout the two years Amber’s tendre did not fade. Amber sent “friend” packages with letters, cassettes, candies, random fun items, and little secret pieces of her heart. “Friend” occasionally sent Amber letters with anecdotes about other girls.

Then “friend” moved back. Amber and “friend” were reunited at last. And Amber found that during those two years things had changed and the tendre was gone but the camaraderie still remained. Life was good. Amber began to joke about “back in the day when I used to have a crush on you” and “friend” was completely astounded.

So life carried on. Amber’s grandmother passed away. Amber was upset and “friend” invited Amber to dinner the following day. Amber was touched. Another friend wanted to come to dinner as well. Amber asked “friend” if that would be alright. “Friend” replied that since he was paying he thought it would kind of be a date. Amber was completely thrown through a loop because that was strange. They did not date. Amber said she was confused and “friend” said that he decided he needed to make his dates be more meaningful and that he was getting more serious about life and that is wasn’t that he needed to get married now but that someday he would like to. Amber pretty much had a heart-attack and said she was even more confused. Amber and “friend” talked some more and then agreed that they would have this date and they would discuss things more on the date.

The date consisted of dinner. Amber and “friend” went to a cute little bakery that Amber had been wanting to go to for quite a while. Amber ordered a panini. If Amber recalls correctly, she ended up paying for herself. “Friend” got a panini as well. They ate. And discussed everything but what they had come to discuss. The food was gone. The plates were empty. Amber was dying inside. “Friend” asked if they were going to talk about what they had come to discuss.  Amber said that he brought it up so he could start. What Amber heard was basically that“friend” didn’t know that Amber had had feelings for him and that  if Amber would have feelings for him then “friend” would deign to attempt to have romantic feelings for Amber. Amber was (for lack of a better word) pissed, but she hid it well. She said that she was good not having feelings for him and that they should just stick to being friends. “Friend” agreed. They left dinner and went about their various activities. Amber left her activity early and went home and cried, much to the distress of Amber’s friend who had come over to commiserate with her.

The next day Amber went about the business of burying her grandmother. Under the influence of grief and the grief-influenced influences of her family (who had nothing more interesting to talk about than what was going on with Amber and “friend” since they were at a funeral all day), Amber sent “friend” a text message that said his bringing all that up had brought her old feelings to the surface and she was confused and maybe she liked him as more than a friend and maybe they should see if they could be something more. The second after she hit the send key, she instantly regretted that decision and wanted to die.

The following day, Amber had still not received a response from “friend.” Amber’s brother-in-law said that Amber had ruined her friendship with “friend.” Amber cried.

Later that evening, Amber was spending time with her friends and they all wondered where “friend” was. So Amber sent “friend” a message asking him if he was just going to ignore her for the rest of his life or if he was going to come over and be her friend? He replied that he would be coming over to be with their friends if he could bring a couple of people over with him. He came. With friends. One of whom, Amber fell head over heels for one of the boys “friend” brought. And that sealed up the problem of the Amber-“friend” more than friends issue quite nicely.

From that day forward Amber and “friend” have (for the most part) gotten along with perfect ease and friendship.

Until yesterday.

When inviting guests to an event with limited number of available places it is important to make sure all invitees are aware of the limited nature of the event. Events where tickets are necessary are typically the most common of these limited events. However, there are the occasional “plus one” type events where this rule applies.

There are two ways to issue the invitation for these events: general invitation or specific invitation with filtration.

General Invitation

Let us suppose that you have 4 tickets to an event. You want to go and you don’t care who comes with you as long as you know them. So you send out a text message (or something like that) to all the people you think you could have a reasonably fun time with inviting them to go. You say something like “Hey guys. I have 3 extra tickets to this event. Who wants to come?” You receive replies back. The first three people to respond in the affirmative should be the 3 people who get to go.

The general invitation may also go through a filtration process. Suppose you have three core groups of friends. You may sense that Group A would be the most interested and most fun so the message would be sent to Group A first. Then once Group A has responded, if the tickets aren’t used, you would then send out a second message to the secondary group, and so on and so forth. Still the first three people to respond would be those who get to go.

Specific Invitation

Let us suppose that you have 4 tickets to an event. You would invite three individual people that you want most to go with you to the event. They reply. If all three say yes then you are in luck and the asking is over. If one or more of them say they cannot go, then you must move on down in your list of preference and invite the next person. But the invitation is never extended to more people than there are open tickets for. This way no one is invited needlessly.

Yesterday, “friend” sent Amber a text message that said he had tickets to an event the following night and wanted to know who wanted to go. Amber immediately replied that she would like to go. “Friend” told Amber that she was the first to reply and that he would get her more details. Amber was (for lack of a better word) stoked. Then “friend” gets back to Amber and tells her that several people have replied and that he only has one extra ticket so now he has to choose who to take. This makes Amber very unhappy indeed. Later, “friend” tells Amber that he has now eliminated all the boys since he has decided that the event will be a date. He asks Amber (and presumably the other girls to whom this mass text was sent) to tell him how much she wants to go and why he should pick her. Amber replies that he should take her because he owes her a date. (She is referencing the dead grandmother date where she believes she ended up paying for herself.) “Friend” doesn’t seem to get the reference. Nor does “friend” seem to remember that Amber invited “friend” to an event very similar to the event in question roughly a week ago. No “friend” does not.

“Friend” breaks the ethical code and does not take the first person that replies to his invitation. No. “Friend” decided to take the girl who offered to take him out to dinner. “Friend” is a doufus.

 So the lesson is this, kids:

“Friend” is a doufus.

And you should take the first responder. Since you are the person who invited them in the first place. Also, don't tick off Amber, because she is liable to get grumpy enough to blog about it.

P.S. Please don't be mad "friend"...