New Brunswick — St. Patrick’s Day is almost upon us, and people around the province are planning their parties based on those who’ve confirmed with a solid “going” and those trying to be polite by clicking “maybe” on the Facebook invite.
Well, a recent survey conducted by The Manatee suggests you can count those “maybes” out as they have no intention of showing up and have most likely made other plans that they’ll tell you about last minute — after you’ve already included them in your party’s headcount and purchased the supplies needed to accommodate everyone attending.
“Oh yeah, I hate saying no to party invitations,” admitted maybe-clicker Jacob Hilderbrand. “I don’t like letting people down, so I usually say ‘I’ll try and make it,’ even if I know there’s no way, and then just not show up and give the host some excuse next time I see them.”
Hilderbrand said he has a vast collection of ready-to-use excuses in case he runs into those who invite him to things.
“The best excuses are the ones that make them feel bad so they won’t question you further,” he insisted. “Like, ‘oh sorry my brand-new puppy who only has three legs that I recently saved from the shelter ran away and was hit by a car and the driver was my elderly grandmother, who recently lost her husband of 68 years, then swerved off the road and hit my best friend who’s blind, who happened to be walking by at the time.’ That shit is iron-clad — no reasonable person is going to ask any follow-up questions.”
Our reporter was surprised to find that 100 percent of the people questioned over the age of 30 admitted to always clicking “maybe” on Facebook invites with no real expectation of attending the event.
“Yeah, like I’m going to go out on a Friday night and have drinks,” said a sarcastic Shelly Bethany of Fredericton. “I have a job and kids — I’ll be in bed at 9. But, I still want my friends to invite me to things, so I like them to have hope that I might show up. Usually I’ll just say that my kid got sick or something — no one asks questions about child diarrhea.”
Kerry Lighthouse told our reporter that he’s currently putting the finishing touches on his St. Patrick’s Day party and fully expects the 18 people who said “maybe” to show up at his apartment this Friday night.
“Why would they click ‘maybe’ if they weren’t planning on showing up?” Lighthouse stupidly asked. “Who does that? Not my friends, I tell you that. My friends are responsible adults with jobs and kids and commitments — there is no way they would bail and choose sleep over a night of drinking beer and doing green Jell-O shots while we watch Bad Lip Reading videos on YouTube.”
During the survey, we were unable to confirm that a single person over the age of 30 has any intention of doing anything other than putting their pyjamas on and watching Netflix this Friday evening, though a few of the women questioned suggested that “maybe” they’d fool around with their husband.