Translations:Invitations & RSVPs/7/en

There is also a distinction worth drawing between an invitation and an obligation. An invitation is an offer. It is not a claim on the recipient's time, and declining one is not a rejection of the person offering. Groups that internalise this distinction tend to receive more honest replies, because declining carries no social penalty.

| Social=Invitations map social structure. Who is invited, who is not, and how the invitation is delivered all communicate something about belonging. A group message reads differently from an individual one. An invitation extended late may read as an afterthought, even when it was not intended that way. People notice these patterns, and they accumulate over time into a sense of where one stands.