[seeker5]

Originally Posted by LordSappington

I spent a fair amount of time trying to convince people that this movie was worthwhile to see; most people weren't particularly interested to begin with. I think proposing something else would be even worse because no one likes a bait and switch. The point of the outing was not to socialize; it was to see a movie, and maybe socialize. The people who were going were not likely to socialize. Based on my previous experience, they wouldn't have gone out somewhere with me afterwards. They probably wouldn't have taken any time with me to discuss the movie. Some people were bringing dates. They promoted the movie to their dates, and were very disappointed that they couldn't see the movie. No one suggested that we see another movie. No one other than me sounded at all interested in doing it in the first place at all.

If all you guys were going to do was watch the movie, and nothing much else, then why go as a group? When I want to watch a movie, I just go and watch a movie by myself. I've done that plenty of times and I love it. I don't need people to be with me to truly love watching a movie. If I go with a group, or with other people, then I'm going to the movies as a social event. I certainly don't need a babysitter to watch a movie .

You're complaining about having no one to socialize with, and yet, you create events where you know there'll be no socializing. I'm puzzled.

And frankly, that's not bait and switch, if you promote something, find out you were wrong, and then offer for something else. It's being honest, and a resources. It's apologizing, being upfront about your mistake, and offering something else with the knowledge that they can refuse to come because you've changed the deal. It's you being proactive and trying to offer something else since they've already committed their time.

In this case, the best thing was to cancel. I strongly suspect that if I said, "OK, so no movie, but now we're going to be playing board games," I would be playing board games alone and would have a bunch of very pissed off people on my hands.

Again, it's not about you deciding what the alternative is. It's about you offering an alternative - you finding out if there's something all of you guys would have a great time doing. It's about "Hey, I've got this idea of doing this or that alternatively, what do you think?".