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!
I need friends like you. I would have eaten so much I felt ill. Then helped clean. (I love cleaning, I know I’m weird.)
In reverse, I’d never throw a party like that because my anxiety is exactly afraid it’ll turn out like you said.
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.
Can we please be friends? I’ll make sure those lovely snacks don’t go to waste. I can bring two grackles, a bluejay, and a couple of raccoons to fill out the party. Oh, and my wife!
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 sucks man. You went the extra mile to be a good host, so you should be proud of that, regardless!
So I guess the little balls are the pretzels? Never seen them in that shape, looks yummy just like everything else there, sorry to hear about your disappointment.
Apparently they are cheese filled prezel bites from a bakery near him and now the courting must begin, for I must have them.
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!
That’s a lot of chicken? I had to check the picture like 5 times to make sure I wasn’t missing something. That’s 12 wings for 4 people… 3 wings a person. I still feel like I’m missing something.
Them’s legs not arms
Yeah you might be right. It’s hard to tell with the forced perspective shot.
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.)
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.
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.
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.
I feel your pain, several years ago I made Thanksgiving dinner for about 15 friends, everything prepped the day before, and we had a hard ice that night, everything frozen over and no one showed
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did you miss the part where the streets were frozen? they probably didn’t want to risk their lives for food
What? That’s like humanity’s whole shtick. I live my ancestors by always being willing to risk my life for food!
I will crawl into an active volcano for a crunchwrap. I have literally walked through a jungle and got ringworm for a good Thai curry.
Some of y’all ain’t living.
That’s what it was, they were frozen solid. It sucked but I wouldn’t have gone out there either. At least I had plenty to eat until it thawed outside
Ah, that sucks too. At least you can take solace in the knowledge that it was unsafe to drive. Still sucks, but it’s a bit less insulting. My thing was on a sunny August day.
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.
Gotta invite more than 4 people
I would say 8, if you want 4 to show up.
I generally plan on 50% turn out for informal events
Why didn’t you call me to fill one seat?
Hey man, you still did a great thing. Don’t let that go to waste. You cared for people.
