[toolazytologin]

> It seems to be that there's a very strange crowd hanging out on Hacker News, who are not aware of very basic social rules. Those include not trying to impress strange rules on guests you invite to an event. Because people will simply make excuses and not come to your wedding or whatnot.

Are you genuinely suggesting that there is a basic social rule that says no other rules can be impressed on guests at an event? I don’t think that stands up to scrutiny.

Every event has rules — it’s inherent in being “an event” as opposed to pure chaos. Whether or not the rules are strange is open to individual interpretation. If you can’t abide by the rules of an event you are not welcome at the event. People’s polite tolerance of others’ anti-social behavior does not mean the behavior is welcome.

[carlosjobim]

Your comment is confused as to you believing that people would want to come to events with strange rules and not follow those rules. What happens in real life is that people decline to go to those events. Everybody knows how to behave at a wedding and what is proper conduct.

> Are you genuinely suggesting that there is a basic social rule that says no other rules can be impressed on guests at an event?

Absolutely, in the case of strange, unusual rules. If you're invited for dinner to somebody and they ask that you oblige to things which are outside of the norm, would you be very keen to go? Or would you make up an excuse and do something else?

It seems you are trying to say "You're not welcome here!" to people who already declined an invite?

[toolazytologin]

> It seems you are trying to say "You're not welcome here!" to people who already declined an invite?

These things are not mutually exclusive.

If you don’t want to abide by the rules, you are not welcome and you should decline. Perhaps the organizer isn’t aware of your preference and your declining helps inform them. If they prefer your presence more than they like their silly rules, they might change them.

Deciding to attend a social gathering where you intentionally ignore the rules that you don’t like is narcissistic and rude behavior.

[carlosjobim]

> If you don’t want to abide by the rules

It's really not about this. Many (most?) people don't want to go to events where the hosts are acting weird against their guests. When it comes to weddings, it's not unusual that you haven't seen the people for several years. And in that time people change.

> Deciding to attend a social gathering where you intentionally ignore the rules that you don’t like is narcissistic and rude behavior.

That's why I've said now about fourteen times here now, that people are going to decline an invite to events with strange "rules". For an adult the normal thing is that events you are invited to do not have any rules at all, because everybody already knows exactly what is appropriate. So real people have a low tolerance for those kind of things. If you're looking for "narcissistic", then maybe look at those people inventing strange rules for what is supposed to be their friends and family?

Maybe it is because HN is a forum for people who work in very corporate settings and are accustomed to having to follow a lot of silly rules without the option to decline?

[patmcc]

I think everyone agrees that some rules for guests are fine, and some are silly. "No flash photography or leaning into aisles during the wedding procession" is a reasonable rule, "No taking photos when we're dancing and having fun" seems silly to me.

Just like a dress code for a wedding is fine, but if they said "also you need to wear blue cotton underwear" I'd think that was a bit inappropriate to require.