Dear Prudence,
My brother and I are having a milestone party soon and our family has been helpful in both planning and gathering all of the food and stuff for this party. The problem is guests. I only have a few close friends and, in a turn of events, only one of them could show up. I’m not upset by this and I’m excited to hang out with him. I was relying on my brother to bring all the people in anyway.
However, my brother’s friends planned a getaway on the same date as our party and none of them will be able to attend. We found this out kind of early (like a week away from the party date) and I heavily encouraged my brother to go hang out with them. Everyone was cool with moving the party date to accommodate this. But my brother didn’t want to go with them and the party still stands. Now, nobody but my one friend will be there. My parents are pushing us to invite more people because there’s going to be a good amount of food, but I don’t know anybody else enough to invite them to this and apparently it’s too late to change the date. I told my friend about this problem and he said that he didn’t mind, but I don’t want him to feel awkward or obligated. I also don’t want my brother to feel weird at this pretty important thing because he can’t share it with his buddies and now I’m stressing about this! What should I do and how should I feel?
—Stressed Party Goer