I need group dynamics and hosting advice (1 Viewer)

[centen]

This is long, sorry.

I have a random "issue" I could use some thoughts on. My bestie and I do a lot of hosting, her house is the biggest and mine is the most central. We tend to be the main hosts of events for these reasons.

We share a lot of friends, but both of us have our own friends. (E.g. Abby is bestie's friend and we don't mind each other, but we would never hang out together without bestie. And same with friends I have who bestie likes well enough, but they would only see each other if I was there.)

Lately, bestie has been wanting to do big things that everyone can attend that's very come and go, no set time when people need to arrive, the more the merrier.

On the other hand, we also do things, like someone buys a board game they want to try out that only plays 6, so we need max of 6 to agree to come AND show up at the same time.

Issue: how do we handle making sure people are included, but also, when the activity has a cap, not excluding people exactly, but... I mean, a game that plays 6 only plays 6. And it sucks if you bought the game and can't do the thing you wanted the activity for because 12 people want to come. And if there are too many people, bestie HAS to host, for space reasons. (She is a solid hour drive away or more for most people, which means people who would come to my house won't bother if it means going to hers.)

This is all kind of compounded by the fact that some friends in our extended friend group are unreliable about responding initially (and then show up) or say yes and flake at the last minute.

Currently, we have a small group chat for the "core" group of 8, and then issue separate invites to broader groups for bigger things. But bestie forgot people for one of her casual, come-and-go meet-ups this weekend and feels terrible.

How would you handle this? I'm thinking maybe we make a discord where people who get added have to be vetted by one of us (I mean, I'm not letting tertiary friend's rando know my address) and maybe use the event functionality for big things? And then keep the small, we can only hold so many people, events to the group chat? Or I'm sure other people might want to issue invites too, so maybe be like, "react to this post to indicate you're coming and the host will send you details." Do you have any better ideas?

 

[centen]

Btw, if you had told teenage me that "I have too many friends" as a legit problem, I would never have believed you.

 

[Ahsoka]

Having friends who flake paired with games needing a specific number of people is difficult. The only thing i can think about in that aspect is having a couple game/activity options (preferably one with not specific a number of people), but that still depends on how long they take and is the layout awkward to divide and things like that. Or maybe just have a core game group of people who like the kinds of games you do and are actually dependable to show up (doesn’t necessarily have to be the same as your general core group).