Why You Shouldn't Be So Shy About Inviting Yourself

We’ve all been there. You run into a friend and they mention that they have something fun planned—maybe a dinner, a night out, or even a weekend getaway. You’re jealous because the plan sounds great, and you’re also sad that they obviously hadn’t invited you to join. What you’re probably thinking is that maybe they are mad at you, they don’t like you anymore, or they feel that you’re not as fun a dinner or party guest as you think you are. What you’re probably not thinking is: Why don’t I just ask if I may join?

Self-invitations get a bad reputation. Those who invite themselves and ask if they can join without having been asked first might seem a bit oblivious or tone-deaf. If friends want to make plans without us, we should let them do so gracefully, without appearing needy of social inclusion. If others really appreciated us, we shouldn’t need to invite ourselves.

New research shows that this thinking is wrong and might actually be harmful. In a new paper, Julien Givi and colleagues (2025) study self-invitations in several experiments with members of online panels in the U.S. and Canada. Participants imagined either having something fun planned (i.e., plan-holders), or hearing from a friend about their fun plans (i.e., potential self-inviters). Plan-holders then reported how they’d feel if the other person invited themselves along, whereas potential self-inviters reported how they thought the plan holder would feel if they invited themselves. The results show what we’ve all experienced. The potential self-invited fears the plan-holder would be annoyed and irritated if they invited themselves. Although the plan-holder might sometimes feel that way, the fear that they are annoyed is overblown. In many cases, plan-holders would actually like it if the other person invited themselves and join the plan.

If other people would actually like us to join by self-invitation, why are we so afraid to do so? This fear comes from a different perception about why we’re not invited. The potential self-inviter thinks the plan-holder had considered inviting us but had actively decided against it. However, in many cases the plan-holder had just been busy with planning and hadn’t made a conscious decision to not invite us. Imagine a friend inviting a few people over for dinner. We might feel that they thought about inviting us but decided not to. In reality, maybe the dinner idea was spontaneous and they just invited a few friends in a group chat and would be delighted if we joined.

Should we always just invite ourselves then? There are certainly situations where we absolutely shouldn’t. For example, people who are planning a wedding typically plan their guest list carefully, and if we’re not invited, we shouldn’t assume they just forgot. However, we can start to overcome our overblown fear of self-invitations by starting small: Next time a friend is headed to a museum, or even just a gym class or a quick lunch, ask if you can come along. Most likely, they’ll be delighted for you to join.

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