I’m scared the tiny number of guests I have at my simchah will reflect badly on me

Q:

I’m making a simchah in a few weeks and I’m dreading it. Of course I’m very happy for my son (the bar mitzvah boy), but I know the kiddush at shul is going to be very hard for me personally. This is because my husband davens at a small shul, and I have a very small circle of friends and family, meaning it is going to be a very small affair.

Moreover, we’re in the thick of winter where I live, and I know that some of the people who are invited won’t show up if it’s a cold or snowy day.

In addition, I have a daughter who will soon start dating and I’m worrying in advance that her future husband’s side of the family will be enormous and bring an entire stadium of friends and community members to the wedding, while I’ll scrounge to find 20 warm bodies to invite. I’m mortified in advance!

I have younger kids, too, so I’m going to have to endure this mortification over making a small simchah again and again. Do you have any suggestions that can help me cope?

A:

The “small-simchah crowd” experience happens regularly for many of the reasons you’ve already noted. A small shul naturally means fewer people will be at the kiddush. A cold or rainy day certainly reduces those who will trudge over from their homes or other shuls. Sometimes the season of a particular simchah means that a lot of people will be away (Pesach, summer or winter vacations, etc.). Your small social circle is also a very common factor in the creation of a small simchah.

But here’s an interesting fact — your circle of friends is about the same size as everyone else’s! Research shows that people everywhere only have two to five really good friends, with two being more common than five. You’re not short on friends; you’re only short on simchah attendees.

So who are all those other people at other peoples’ simchahs?

In tight-knit communities they may be neighbors or shul members, not friends who one speaks to regularly, but people one shares a street or institution with. Sometimes it’s people one shares a history with — classmates or people from a community one used to live in.

Depending on one’s lifestyle, including what one does all day, one may have more or fewer friendly relationships with other people. For example, a woman who is the principal of the local high school may have hundreds of acquaintances pouring into her simchahs — staff members, parents of students, and students themselves. However, a woman who works part-time doing administrative work in the same school office may have only a couple of her colleagues come as guests. And a woman who works primarily in her kitchen in the privacy of her home and who spends her days tending to the many needs of her growing family, may have only a few friends to invite.

Similarly, a woman who is married to a man heavily involved in community matters may be swamped with simchah attendees whereas a woman whose husband works from home during the day and learns with his single chavrusa in the evenings may not be a rich source of willing celebrants.

In your situation, the shul, your neighborhood, your spouse, the size of your extended family, and your own lifestyle have left you with a diminished pool of acquaintances. The small turnout at your upcoming simchah will not prove that you’re unpopular; it will only prove that your daily life isn’t filled with community contact.

Nonetheless, you’re feeling judged, assuming that others will conclude that you aren’t well-liked. And you might be right about that. You aren’t the only one who thinks that someone can actually have hundreds of friends. There’s no way to stop people from thinking their thoughts, but there is a way for you to stop thinking your own thoughts. Ask yourself if you think you’re a good person living a good life.

Ask yourself if you want to get a prominent job within the community so that you’ll have more people to invite to your simchahs. Ask yourself if you want to start a community initiative of some kind so that you’ll have more people to invite to your simchahs. In other words, you can choose to build a larger network of acquaintances in order to solve your simchah dilemma. Or, you can choose to acknowledge you like the life you have and that life comes with a small crowd of “followers.” Once you decide how you want to proceed, you don’t have to think about what others will think anymore.

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 977)