That's kind of interesting. Why were they so excited to get his invite and why was he so worried about managing his connections? (Ie uninviting people.) Curious to understand the behavior.
All those people apparently felt some sort of personal connection by the act, it was a very strange phenomenon. He had not cleared out his contacts in a decade! He had "reached out" to many past vendors, former colleagues, etc. They all want to "reconnect" and were emailing, messaging, etc. It was literally (in the correct use of the word), taking up a lot of his time with all the influx of emails and calls.