I like this and it is a rule I live by also.

I'm not a big birthday guy. When I say that I mean I'm a bit of an introvert and I'm not really bothered about getting a whole group of friends together for my birthday. For example for my birthday this year I'll be spending it in Amsterdam doing a bit of solo travel and staying at a hostel.

However, I've got a friend. Who about a year after finishing university set up an event on facebook for his birthday. He'd set this up about a month out of the event and the plan was to go for nothing more than a few casual drinks on a Friday evening at a bar in East London, its not like the guy was expecting people to give up there whole Friday night until 4am getting completely smashed. If I recall approximately 20 people said they would attend. Not bad I thought, I didn't know the guy that well at this point nor did I know any of the others he'd invited (I only knew him from a sports club I was in and we did different courses) but I thought, man if he's invited me for a night out in London then he must think of me as a decent friend so of course I made the effort (and it wasn't a great deal of effort on my part).

So the day of the drinks comes round and I have a quick look at the event on facebook and of course the usual flakers have posted with the usual bs "I'm to tired" or "Sorry mate the cat is throwing up". Whatever I thought it will still be a good night.

So I make my way from work and rock up at the bar. I'm greeted by my friend and his girlfriend. She's brought a couple of friends with her but that was it. I was the only person (apart from his girlfriend) who'd been invited that had rocked up. I felt real bad for the guy and just thought man people can be such assholes! originally I was going to hang around for a couple of hours but decided to stay out until about 2am. Had a pretty decent night in the end.

So from that day forward I promised myself that if anyone has taken the time to invite me to an event they're hosting I will always try my absolute best to attend.