Being Good Hosts & Good Guests

DH & I have commented on how few of our friends actually host parties these days. It seems that it is too much work to have a bunch of people over to your house at the same time, so no one does it. In the five plus years that we lived in Arizona, we attended exactly *five* parties hosted at someone else's house. One was a Halloween party, one was a birthday party, one was a work party, and two were housewarming parties. I'm not talking about kiddo birthday parties, I'm talking about for adults, general conversation and chatting and wine & cheese, grown up parties.

What is so intimidating about hosting a party? You clean your house (which hopefully isn't that much of a disaster area to start with), you arrange chairs, buy some party platters or make your own, ask your friends to bring something to share (our favorite way to keep costs down), and throw on some tunes when people start showing up. Is that so difficult to organize? Oh, I suppose you should send an email or actual invitation to the party, too, but thanks to websites like evite, etc, that is easier than ever. Phone calls work too for informal invitations.

Perhaps it's not the mechanical aspects of hosting (clean house, organized food/drink, etc), but rather the gross inability of people to organize their own schedules and commit to a specific date. We've mused to some friends about this oddity, and they say, "Oh, but a party is so much work...who has time for that?" Um, it's not that much work, folks.

Do people just not entertain any more? Even getting invited to someone's house for dinner is pretty rare nowadays, in our experience. I don't think it's just us--maybe it is, maybe we are just unpopular! *LOL* Nope, seriously, I don't think so--we had over 50 people in our house for our St. Patrick's Day party, so we aren't *that* disliked. We invite people over all the time, and they are always shocked that we actually cook for them, you know, from scratch! It's like the response is, "I have heard of this thing you do, this 'cooking from scratch'...how do you find time to do it?" Em, we would have asked you over anyway if we were having take-out, it's just not a big deal to us to have some extra folks at the dinner table. We do make an effort to pick up, unless it's our best friends, in which case, well, they've seen our house at its worst so it doesn't matter what state it's in! Heck, during grad school we even had friends over for take-out pizza & a rented movie, and we were all in our PJs because it had been one of those weeks, and damn, we were tired! As I recall 2 spouses dozed off during the movie and when #3 fell, the movie was declared done with 20 odd minutes to go and they toodled off home.

I guess I am just puzzled because people seem to be lacking in the training or desire to host others at their homes. The best friends we've made here since moving a year ago are those people who have actually offered the hospitality of their table to us and we have reciprocated in kind. There is something very satisfying about breaking bread with others, and it's a very nice gesture of respect and friendship.

People also seem to not know how to be good guests. Right now we have a standing invitation to 2 couples for dinner & a board game night--we are putting our eldest kiddo to bed early, babies are welcome, and we are just going to enjoy some good food and chill out over a game of Scattergories or the like. First, one of the couples was unsure about the date we suggested. We told them we are very flexible, no problem, just let us know. It took almost 2 weeks to get a date, and even then, there was some uncertainty because the wife had some commitments earlier in the day and wouldn't be home until late. Hokay...you can just say it's a bad day, you know...that's ok! Hemming and hawing, "no, no, that's fine, it will work"; and we trudged along with that date in mind. Then, the Sunday before that date, couple #2 tells us at church, "I'm so sorry, DH forgot to tell me about this appointment he made months ago for that night, can we possibly move it to next weekend?" I said, "Sure, no problem--that's Memorial Day weekend, though. I will have to check with Couple #1 to see if they are going to be in town. Are you guys going to be in town?" "Oh yes, we are going to be here--that would be great. Thank you so much!"

So I go and talk to Couple #1, and they say, "Yeah, sure, no problem, we are going to be here." I feel horrid changing it at relatively late notice but Couple #1 is very nice about it.

Now, today, guess what? I have heard nothing from Couple #2, in fact we haven't even seen them at church and as they are busy and we are busy we just assume (as you do) that all is well and we are heading toward dinner & games this coming Saturday--and now I get an email. "I'm sorry, DH forgot to tell me about this arrangement he made to see some friends of ours, we are going to be out of town this weekend! We haven't seen them for a year, so we really have to go--is there any way we can move it again? We can't make it the weekend of June 2nd, how about June 9th? Would that be okay?"

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRR! No, it's not okay!! We are going to be going on vacation! And how is it that you didn't talk to your husband last week when I specifically asked you if you were going to be in town this coming weekend??? And we have another commitment on June 2nd! Arrgghh! I am not cancelling or moving on Couple #1 again, we are just going to go ahead and have them over without Couple #2. Maybe we will try to get another couple too, or we will just go ahead with just Couple #1. We have had several nice dinners/lunches with them and I think it will be another nice night regardless.

Another recent example of being bad guests. We invited our neighbors over to dinner while my ILs were here, because we knew they would have a good time chatting and we had been to their house several times and we wanted to reciprocate. So I called and arranged for them to come over on a Sunday night for dinner (a holiday weekend) and our neighbor said, "Ok, just let me know what I can bring," to which I replied, "Well I don't know what we are making yet, and we will probably have everything covered--but if I think of something I will let you know." So we went ahead with our lives and I bought a pot roast, all the trimmings, lovely bread, and baked a great cake, everything. My brother and his family happened to decide, spur of the moment, to come down that weekend to visit with my ILs (they love them, it's a long story but suffice it to say they wish they were directly related!) and spent Saturday night. I had told them we were having company for dinner, so they cleared out at about 4 pm to go back to their hometown and we (me, DH, FIL, & MIL) set about frantic house cleaning and dinner preparations for the neighbors, who were due at 6 pm. The appointed time came and went, and I called our neighbors at 6:15 to find out if I had misspoken and said 6:30 or 7 instead. Our conversation:

"Hi X, it's Y from next door. Listen, I was just wondering if I told you 6:30 tonight instead of 6?"

"Oh, hi Y. Oh...oh--oh I'm so sorry. We'll be right over. Let me talk to (DH)."

"Ok, great, we'll see you in a few minutes!"

I hung up, and the phone rang again about 30 seconds later.

"Hi Y, it's X. Listen, I'm so sorry, but DH is tired and to be honest we already ate our dinner, so we're not going to come over."

(a brief moment of stunned silence from me) "You ate dinner? Oh. Did you forget about dinner tonight here?"

"No, I saw you had company and you never called me back to let me know what I could bring, so I just assumed you changed your mind."

"Uh, no. Obviously there has been a miscommunication. I'm sorry, I should have called you to confirm. I just thought it was all squared away. We'll try again another time." (I really fumbled around because I was just stunned that someone would assume that because I hadn't told them to bring something and saw a strange car in the driveway that it was cancelled!!)

"Yes, really sorry about that Y. Enjoy your dinner."

Um, words cannot express the irritation and anger that we all experienced over that one. My ILs thought we should never invite them over again! A bit melodramatic, and certainly how we felt at the time, but fortuitously we have smoothed over that little incident and have a perfectly friendly relationship with them still. However, I still am amazed that someone would just assume that dinner plans were cancelled without at least picking up the phone to ask, "What can I bring for dinner on Sunday?" or "Hey, I saw you have company--are we still on for dinner tonight?"

I admit that I have my faux pas when entertaining, too. I have forgotten to offer guests drinks or something to snack on when they are visiting us, and I have forgotten to ensure that enough toilet paper was available in the bathroom. But really, is it *that* difficult to be a host, or a guest these days? Come on, people, let's learn how to do hospitality again!