Dear Eric: I would wager that the problem in the letter from “Planner” , who felt the burden of always having to plan events for friends, is either that the others feel disincentivized from even trying because they know that their efforts will fall short of what the group has come to expect or that the events have taken on a certain familiar atmosphere that the others know, consciously or otherwise, that they cannot reproduce.

The planner should do something like sigh and say, “I feel like my plans are getting repetitious. Jack, I know you’re interested in tropical orchids, I wonder if you’d like to put together something that will expose us to that world . . . ?”

It would minimize the scariness of potential comparisons and encourage “Jack” and the others to step up.

– Alternate Plan

See Full Page