So as you can see in the picture, I threw a party last year. AEW is a pro wrestling company, much like WWE. They had this big outdoor show at Wembley Stadium in London. Sold something like 80,000 tickets. We watched live on PPV.
It’s the first time I ever threw a wrestling watch party. I invited 4 people. I bought cheese, soft pretzels, bought chips/queso. I had vodka, whiskey, beer, and 3 different THC vape pens along with edible gummies. I also had coke (the soda), barqs root beer, and one of the special novelty mountain dew flavors.
I cooked chicken, and cut the cheese into cubes with individual toothpicks. I got out my good plates. And used the projector to make the screen 90 inches.
Only 2 people showed up. Nobody ate hardly anything. Nobody drank anything. Hardly anything was said. This picture was taken AFTER the party. We went through 1 bag of chips, and 1 1/2 jars of queso.
I literally could have just bought 1 bag of chips, 2 jars of queso, and saved $100 and 2 days of prep work.
I even had 2 different styles of BBQ sauce for the chicken.
Yes, it’s a year later, and I’m still mildly infuriated over it!
That’s fucked up I’m sorry, I’d have eaten an entire plate of cheese hors d’vors myself and taken half that chicken with me afterwards. I’m not even into wrestling and I’d have come for that food.
You’re a good friend for providing that for a watch party (on top of paying for ppv) and I’m sorry your friends don’t appreciate how well you maintain your half of the bridge. The least the 2 could have done is tried the cheese and chicken.
Edit holy shit are those pre stuffed pretzel bites. Bro wtf is wrong with these people I’d have asked if anyone wanted any and eaten the entire plate. (I may or may not have portion control issues but seriously, they didnt touch any of that delicious looking food)
Yep, and they were locally sourced from a bakery. I think they cost about $25, and I put them in the convection oven at a low tempature. Not enough to cook them, but enough for them to be always warm, with melty cheese inside.
Edit: oh, and that stack of 2 plates? It was 3 plates. I used a plate for the chicken, and cheeses. I also had a few beers, and some jack n cokes.
The other 2 plates, their plates, you can see were unused. Everybody just ate chips off the orange serving platter.
hors d’oeuvre
You can keep your horse devorse
I’ll see you in horse court
That’s…. A lot of chicken. Even for four peeps.
I’m sorry you went to all that trouble, though.
I’d drop a few recipes for what to do with it… but uhm, I hope that chicken is long gone by now, heh.
Side note, you need better friends! Pro wrestling isn’t my jam, at least I’d hang out. Maybe shout insults at the heel or something.
Hang out, vape the THC, devour that chicken! OP, this is amazing hosting!
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Them’s legs not arms
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Forced perspective? Look at the plates, the jars, the chips! It’s so clearly a pile of drumsticks, and not small ones.
Yeah. So for a watch party, people are going to be hitting the finger food, right? Grazing is how people eat at these kinds of things.
Keep in mind recommended serving size would be 4-6 ounces- about one drumstick; but again, it’s kinda hard to graze a drumstick. That’s full on entree material. Two, if they’re small (these look large.)
I’d suggest something like buffalo wings, set out in a crock pot or slow cooker, so they’re ready to be grazed on their terms. (If you do go for drumsticks, well, they’re gonna have to be kept warm. If you don’t have something like a giant slow cooker, or a catering warming pan, that means the oven, which means they’re liable to be over looked.)
I thought it was a lot at first but taking a close look, it looks to be only 12 pieces on a raised tray. 3 per person is about right.
Those are huge drumsticks, though. Compare them to the size of the salsa/queso jars.
I wouldn’t be able to eat 2, never mind three.
There’s a tough lesson I learned about trying to get my friends into board games: It’s easier to turn gamers into your friends than it is to turn your friends into gamers. I’ve learned that some of my friends are never going to share my interests as much as I’d like, but that just means I needed to find people who were already in whatever hobby and start hanging out with them and some of them will eventually be your real friends.
Making and keeping friends as an adult is way more difficult than it seems it should be, but it’s a painful reality.
What I learned trying to turn gamers into board gamers is that most people don’t want to read so we end up making our own bullshit rules.
I found a different group to play board games with irl but then they suck at online games funny enough.
Shit that looks delicious but maybe they just weren’t hungry (could have eaten before). And I don’t mean to disrespect you but you did not have to do this much for watching a wrestling game. Though it does suck 2 people flaked.
Also, having been on the other side of such a situation: it’s not cool to pressure or guilt trip your guests. Either be hospitable and let them do whatever they want, or don’t invite them.
If people aren’t hungry, then they aren’t hungry. Maybe they are on a diet, maybe they misunderstood OP’s intention and ate beforehand. Maybe they are recovering from something and don’t want to eat too much.
And as for the two that did not showed up. It’s a good practice to reconfirm the night before. Sometimes people forget. Sometimes life gets in the way.
If they did reconfirm and still didn’t show up and did not have a good excuse, then I would start looking for better friends.
Hope OP has better success next time. I do understand that the situation sucks.
But it’s also a situation that, in my opinion, is preventable.
And as for the two that did not showed up. It’s a good practice to reconfirm the night before. Sometimes people forget. Sometimes life gets in the way.
It’s why for board gaming, nowadays we plan on this weird mix of snacks: Most is just bagged stuff so we can always not open bags, and the little fresh stuff that there is - usually one guy who loves to bake - is not done just for that evening, he makes a whole lot, brings some to board gaming and the rest goes to colleagues in the office.
And if we know before hand that nobody has eaten but we all want a major meal, we’ll order something and in turn plan for even less snacks.
For DnD night I’ll usually make stuff that’s good for leftovers.
Speaking of… I need to go get stuff for chili.
So I have a friend that sounds a bit like OP.
He plans some event and invites a few people (including myself). I said I already had plans, but would try and make it if my other plans ended early.
Weekend comes around and he prepares a preposterous amount of food for everyone. Like enough to feed a family for an entire month.
My other plans don’t end up ending early, so I wasn’t able to make it. He then sends me pics of all the food that hadn’t been eaten and does this little guilt trippy dance he always does: “my friends and I were really excited to have you join us, guess I gotta throw all this away now”
Like bro…I never said I could go in the first place! And even if I was there, there is no WAY I’d be eating all that food lmao.
I really don’t understand this behavior. It’s like they get a pleasure out of playing the victim constantly.
Not saying this is you, OP. Just wanted to vent a little bit haha
I will add that while I don’t know OP’s friends that seems like a ridiculous amount of food for just 5 people, unless you know they’re skipping their main meal that day before. And you need to confirm that, something I learned with organizing board gaming. You can’t just assume people will be hungry/thirsty.
It sounds silly, because we have this assumption that we should “just have enough stuff” (and being hungry right now, the stuff in the OP pic looks yummy!), but we’re also not throwing a kid’s birthday party, we can just ask and collectively organize and plan.
Yeah we also have friends in our group that have special diet restrictions/health issues they don’t want the while world knowing about where they can’t eat certain foods.
It’s one thing to ask someone to make certain food, then showing up and not eating any. But it’s likely OP’s guests never asked for all of this. So I don’t really see how OP can be upset that his guests didn’t stuff their faces?
Sometimes people aren’t hungry. Or they’re on diets. Or have legitimate medical reasons for not eating certain foods. It really doesn’t matter. I never understood this logic of getting personally offended because people didn’t eat something I made. I don’t give a shit, more for me! Or I can donate it/save it for later!
You’re a good host, sorry to hear this
This is why I always eat all the food I can at a party. Everyone else is being too polite and someone’s gotta eat all that food.
It’s a tough job
cut the cheese into cubes with individual toothpicks
Jeez, next time just use a knife my dude.
Two things:
- Did your friends know you were going to have a bunch of food and they were expected to eat it?
- Was your party at a time that people normally eat?
I find that if it’s too early/late or if you didn’t tell them what was expected, your results are suboptimal. Could just be your friends, though.
Started at noon, ended about 7pm.
That’s a long-ass party. I would have eaten all of your cheese in that timeframe. All of it. Do you have anymore?
If all of that food was prepared by noon it might not have been so suitable to eat in the back half when appetites might’ve kicked in. But please note I was a health inspector once and I fully recognize that my thought processes aren’t common.
My fucking guy, you had free trees and booze and they still didn’t show up?
Are you sure they’re your friends?
Hell, offer me free booze, trees, food, and Wrestling… I’ll be there and promise to be better company than those guys
Don’t be discouraged. This may not have worked out like you hoped and planned, but keep doing awesome things. Somebody will love you for it and you’ll have a lot of fun.
Absolutely this. Can confirm from experience. I got it from my Ma, whenever family was hosting growing up she was doing the most. Flexing at every opportunity. Obviously good to play with a budget you wouldn’t mind burning so you don’t chew off too much, but keep being extra.
I don’t know if that makes you feel better, but for my 40th birthday I invited 20 people, prepared accordingly, and 3 showed up.
Not even my wife was there, cause she ate too much of the dough for the weed brownies she had made for the occasion.
She crashed half an hour before the guests showed up.We sat around the table, emptied a couple bags of chips, I was the only one who drank beer. My friends left after 2 hours.
Doesn’t so much make me feel better, it just makes me want to hug you.
It’s ok, not every social event is going to go well and most of the time it’s nothing personal, we’re all just kind of bumbling along through the confusing and absurd reality that is life.
May I join this group hug?
This reminds me that expectation is the enemy of happiness. I didn’t plan anything last year for my 34th, just hung out with my dog like a regular day and went on a hike. No disappointment, just another day!
I dont even have parties because I know no one will show up so that’s pretty good.
I feel your pain.
Years ago I threw a party for work friends and acquaintances where I had 30 confirmed and 10 tentative (from calendar invite). I bought a variety of drinks (alcoholic and non) and bought/cooked food for about 50 to ensure there was plenty.
… 4 people showed up.
That was the instant that I stopped giving a fuck. Ever since then I’ve adopted the approach of “I’m going to do something, you can come if you want, but I’m not planning for you”. Or, more commonly, I just don’t organize anything :)
EDIT: I should note that this was a recurring yearly party that got bigger and bigger over 5 years until it just died. Pre COVID.
That’s still way too much food even if everyone came. And everyone never comes.
Ehh, not really. 5 people total, sporting event taking place around dinner time, 5 adults could easily destroy that amount of food.
Well never hurts to be over prepared unless you hate wasting food.
But I would like to point out that you were expecting each participant at an unrealistic 100% turnout to eat roughly 20 cubes of cheese each. That’s not including all the other food there. That’s the better part of a whole package of cheese each that they were just supposed to chunk down their gullets?
I always get self conscious about eating at parties, but fuck if only 1 other person showed up beside me I’m gonna eat at least two people’s worth.
What you did for your friends was great. I would have absolutely appreciated you doing this if you were my friend and invited me. That said, one of the things I’ve noticed after covid is that a lot of people are already going to go home after gatherings. Getting baked/drinking might be an issue with that. Were your friends driving by chance?
