Social norms and civility, part 2

My last attempt at this post was fired off in annoyance and wasn't too well thought out on my part, and as there is no guarantee this one is any better, and although I'm running the risk of starting another friendly debate (Jen sorry I never got back to you, but I ended up on my death bed last week- but I did enjoy your points!)...I'm writing it anyway.  These two incidences happened to me on Monday. 

1.  I work at an organization that has the name of a religion in the title, such as The Hindu Group.  Well there is a fairly prominent Hindu Community Center in town and a few people I encounter just hear the "Hindu" and not the full title of my employer and assume that I work at the Community Center.  Well remember that old saying about not assuming?  yeah..... Well after almost 4 years at the organization I have very few acquaintances who make that mistake anymore.  However, this week 2 friends both made the same mistake within one day and it backed fired on one of  them pretty bad.  Friend one applied for a job at the Community Center and put my name down as a reference WITHOUT ASKING ME.  When I explained to friend A that I would be no use to him as a reference, since I don't work there and know no one employed there, he was annoyed.  He acted put out.  When I gently pointed out that it is typical to ask a person before you use them as a reference.....well you would have thought I slaughtered his first born.  I had never been a reference for this person, we've never worked together, there is no reason for me to be a reference, except he thought that I could get him the job. 

My issues with this scenario are 2 fold:
             a) I believe you should ask a person before listing them as a reference.  It is common courtesy. I have a bank of references that I hold in my pocket, depending on the job I am applying for, I confirm with them that I can list them again, give them a brief description of the job and thank them. 
              b) The reaction from Friend A to me when I clarified that I don't work where he thought I worked.  Annoyance at me?  I am hoping that his own embarrassment and gut check reaction was projected on to me as annoyance and that he really wasn't annoyed WITH me. 

2.  D$ and I are having a party on Saturday night.  We are really looking forward to it for a variety of reasons, but one reason is the guest list.  We are having a wine tasting party featuring California wines we picked up on our road trip this summer.  So the guest list was tricky and we had several criteria for picking our guests and we had to limit the number of guest based on the number of bottles we were pouring and our 900 square foot apartment.  One factor, the main factor really, was that anyone in attendance must drink and enjoy wine.  My bff doesn't drink and her husband told me recently he really only prefers red wine- so they didn't make the cut.  We also wanted to vary the group a little bit.  Not our usual group of go tos.  So including us there will be 9 people, 3 couples, 3 singles- all of the same political party and none of them having met before, except perhaps briefly at our wedding.  Two of the people coming are good friends we rarely see, let's call them W and C.  We are all mutual friends with couple x.  Apparently couple x called W and C about getting together on Saturday.  W and C turned them down explaining they had plans with us.  So couple x called D$ and pretty much invited themselves on Saturday.  When D$ explained we couldn't accommodate them, that it was already planned out, etc- the reaction was annoyance, but also frustration with us.  D$ explained why they weren't invited and it should be noted that one half of couple x doesn't drink and the other half doesn't enjoy wine, but he also went out of his way to invite them over at another time as a peace offering.  {I feel the need to also point out, that we don't mean to exclude non-drinkers, but for a wine tasting party and for the size of our home, we really wanted the party to reflect people that would enjoy tasting the wines we love.} 

My issues with this scenario are:
                 a) I AM sensitive to being excluded from events, but I don't expect those hosting an event to tell me everytime they are planning something without me.  And maybe I'm not being 100 percent honest with my self, but if someone was planning a "the very thing you don't like" night, I wouldn't care about not being invited. 
                 b) I've never once invited myself to a party.  Who does that? 

So again this week, I am left scratching my head at the civility of people in our lives.