After some time, call him on the phone and act tipsy. I love playing host, its true, but I use that phrase consciouslyplaying host. Its a role that I choose to put on, and it is not one that I would expect (or want!) If you are super-handy and you want to help, you could throw that out there, I love an allen wrench. In the end though it would have been much better for us if Id set stronger boundaries at the outset. I mean, some people like to do that to others anyway, but I hate to give them such good ammunition. Im used to my home being PRIVATE space. In university I lived in dorms, and living on campus was sort of an implicit youre always free. Er yes, you have? This. We do our weekly cleaning Sunday morning anyway so thats also the cleanest time of the week! Oh Lord, yes! Just wanted to say that as someone with a (diagnosed) anxiety disorder and various other other mental health issues who had their teen years in those days/that sort of a culture, I also miss them. Its never occurred to me that anyone would find it rude! So glad youre not busy in the afternoon. I also have this insecurity that most people dont really like hanging out with me, so deep down, Im kind of concerned that they mightve changed the plans and forgotten about me when they let everyone know OR that they changed their mind about hanging out with me but havent come up with a graceful way of canceling. I stopped hanging out with them for several reasons, but this was a main one. A random person? Show up with boyfriend to events that had a small guest list, like a sit-down dinner that was being hosted/paid for by someone else. I tend to go for is this a partners-also thing or a just-us thing? it means theyre not being asked to make a statement of whether or not my partner, specifically, is welcome. Small apartment. Im someone with a developmental disorder, and commenting on other people doing bizarre and/or not-okay things with stuff that says theyre just like a three-year-old or mentally twelve or whatever is really, really gross. There are old social scars that still ache. And I never, never drop by someone elses house without warning! I have two minds about dropping inpartly, I really like it because of my mental issues, I can go from I need to be alone for an undisclosed amount of time to I would feel significantly better with company in a very short amount of time that can foil even the best-laid plans. I am right there with you! My space is not your space friend, it is mine and I want to keep it that way! Unless I evict them, I cant have my house in a perpetual state of readiness (my version) for visitors, therefore DO NOT PRESENT YOURSELF AT MY HOME WITHOUT PRIOR ARRANGEMENT. What does this mean for transportation etc.. Please take your high horse out back and shoot it. Wanna join, Wee_Ramekin?). Is something the matter? response from me, so. I also know that not everyone enjoys the kind of cleaning/hosting prep I described and its obviously not required (that would be insane). Me: I have a thing in the morning. I used to live in a house with several friends that was considered a party house, so we had random people dropping by all the time, and it was never really locked, as there was always someone there. What counts as nothing pressing? Maybe they want to go home and do a Netflix marathon or something. It makes foreigners crazy. Let's say a friend mentions that they are going hiking over the weekend with their roommate. You didnt do anything wrong by offering, but respect the no and do not insist or continue offering, like, Well, heres my phone number in case you get stuck, etc. So, yeah, dont do that. I would add one small nugget. Seriously, my go-to method is to hide out of sight and pretend Im not in until they give up and go away. I have optimized getting MY needs met and didnt even consider whether or not it made you feel uncomfortable., Let me help you be more efficient by removing one social obligation from your list.. As a general rule, though, calling ahead is never *wrong* and can save you a lot of Oh, I didnt expect visitors, lets talk out here on the porch for a few minutes awkwardness. And then people wouldnt call, and theyd say things to me later like, Oh, I didnt hear from you so I thought you didnt want to get together. So frustrating, as is that other Northern California custom of texting someone on the day of an event to say, Are we still getting together at X time? Well, of course we are I agreed, right? I felt like this was sort of a default thing that everyone did until I met a friend of a friend and we became semi-close. But if the first date is "hey baby come on over to my place at midnight - " of course that's direspectful. Anyway, like the Captain was saying, not all strategies work all the time, but consistent application of methods can get you places. Oh, agreed! When someone is yelling at you and trying to hurt you with sarcasm, it is because they have chosen to respond in a hurtful manner. If I could find an excuse, I felt guilty about turning her away. In more structured situations (like my wedding) they arrived in event-appropriate attire with their inside voices intact, consistent with their middle class upbringing and higher education level. Sometimes people will ask me this less than two hours after the original making of the plan. He worked from home-so he thought it disrespectful to not treat his home like any other office. Everybody who shows up at the door is invited in out of the weather and offered a drink and a place to sit. I actually wanted to start dinner like an hour ago. *I contain magnitudes* PS Side note to LW: you arent doing this. Has their baby barfed on me/Do we spend a lot of time in each others houses? Bandaid-off time, I think: Hey, friend, lets go to brunch on Sunday, and this invitation is for only you. I never got why they didnt tell him to go away, but I am clearly meaner than them. It's one thing to show up at a party, it's another to insert yourself into a four-day excursion. Calling out seems much more about telling the LW that theyve done something wrong rather than the friend owning their preferences or stating an unpreviously set boundary. But talking to someone- or more likely in front of someone- about the fun game night six of your ten closest friends were at but one of the conversants wasnt? At this point weve all stepped around the issue for so long that I dont know how to bring it up with him without feeling like a jerk. I have routinely over the last year asked if she were free for me to drop in for a hug when fetching mail (I receive mail in the same building as her office) and thats seemed fine. Does the relationship of the kids in question matter? So I would say oh well Im free this afternoon too if you want to hang out actually no because reason OR that sounds like fun! the next day why didnt we hang out yesterday?. But in Small Town, on the rare occasions when it wasnt a good time for hanging out, no matter how low-grade, it was very hard to say that in a socially acceptable way. If the friend did just knock on their door, then sure, some guidance on boundaries is probably needed, but if the LW asked in a way that allowed the friend to gracefully decline the invitation, then thats already expressing respect for boundaries and the friend is possibly overreacting by calling them out on it. I think if you can spin it into an actual conversation about invitation styles a la this comment thread, it is more likely to stick in peoples brains. I moved country recently and keeping up with my best friend is hard work that is almost completely on me. I sort of wish being not in to company was still a thing one could do without being seen as a huge asshole. You feel ratty, harassed, and youre frantically trying to make it look as if you do pay more than rudimentary attention to the housework if only to stave of questions about whether youre coping. When a guy has a thing for you, he'll want to talk to you all the time and as often as possible. I dont tend to have long Facebook/text/IM chats with people, I use those things mostly to send direct invitations when Im making plans. I know my grandmother wasnt wild about it, but she clearly gave up trying to set that boundary some time in the early 1980s and ended up just expecting the rudeness. Those seem to be reserved for romantic relationships only (some scripts being more constructive than others). Invite Yourself Over. Or even worse try to get me to bring their kids along with my family on our vacations. Can you go to the toilet without panicking? I'll go into more detail below, but this is really one of those areas where you have to use your own judgment. This was actually THE reason we didnt end up dating. But with more scheduling and perhaps busier roads and less societal tolerance for kids walking somewhere by themselves, maybe the amount of arranging that a kid can take on at a given age and ability level has decreased. I invite my parents to visit with the intended side-effect of getting the darn house cleaned up beyond: Oh, uh, the mail is all in one pile, and I think Ive collected the worst of the catumbleweeds.. Im not going to go out early to unlock the gate so they can come to my door especially when its -40C and icy outside, which it can be for months at a time here! But heres what I thought of before looking through all the comments. Home vs. work,surprise! vs. planned, andyou inviting yourself vs. her inviting you,speak to escalating levels of intimacy. I want you to keep that AC running. As I said, I find these conversations miserable. Yeah, there are lots of reasons somebody might feel like they need to clean for hours to have people over. Always make room for a gracious no. OH GOD ME TOO. I think its easier for both sides to send a text. For my part, since most of my friends are similar, I try to make a habit of going, hey, do you want advice here, or are you just venting?. I have yet to learn to hide my confusion. There have been periods of many months for me, particularly when my mental health was poor, when I checked in with my best friends almost every day, and had they been physically available I might have asked for a hug too. So no. So I did a frantic quick clean, left the place unlocked, and left them a note saying that their child would be home about an hour and a half after their arrival, and Id be there about an hour after that. Whether youre in your 20s or 50s, you still dont want to come on too desperate or too strong at the same time. I used to live in a basement apartment. Ill say something like I didnt know I was invited because nobody actually told me I was, and Id think it would be rude of me to just show up And theyll shrug and go, well, of course you were invited! "You know where he lives?'' "No. 4. I take the view that if my partner is welcome then theyll tell me Hey, would you and D like to come? or D would be welcome too if he can make it! If hes not specifically mentioned then we both assume that the invite is just for me. My friend is also spacey as hell.). It wasnt always this way. I love her dearly and wish I could see her more, but every time she does this I get hives and feel panicky and cornered and like my inability to see her on Day X is somehow a Thing That Is My Fault and I Suck As A Friend. Then I realize theyre not going to punish me, they really were just asking, and its no big deal going forward. Other people find it a very productive way to be, however. If you call him up a few hours before you want to hang out, he may say no due to prior plans or because his apartment is messy. I think your expectations of either a welcome reception or a non-angry shoot sorry, didnt get your email, can you come back in an hour? are absolutely spot on and that what you did was in no way bad manners. Definitely not specifically British; my knowledge is patchy, but I know of no place in either Canada or the States where it is assumed to be broadly okay to interrupt people at work. I mean, if people need to identify and express that cleaning/not-cleaning comes with a sense of shame, go for it! I didnt realise the combination of cheating and micromanaging was a thing until just now, but Ive experienced it too. Ive found its best to assume people are of the former type until they explicitly tell you theyre the latter. Our small city (which has a low crime rate) gets a handful of this type of attempted burglary each day, so I dont think the police are being alarmist. She even brought a boyfriend that she knew I hated to my graduation dinner, uninvited, that my parents were paying for and was only for about six people, including my grandparents. Im the same way. If people want to hang out with you, my experience has been that they will issue an invitation, either generally to the entire group (Were meeting at the bar after kickball, everyone is invited) or specifically to me (Were going to the Pun-Off after kickball. Sometimes she was angry, and Id apologize. And if Im in the area of someones place I dont ask to go inside, I usually ask if they want to go do something (usually whatever I was on my way to do anyway). Side note in regards to the hosting habit as something that is not done AT other people but is really about the host: Remember those episodes of FRIENDS when they switched apartments and Monica was desperate to have people come to the apartment she was in because she loved being the one who hosted? You can get them pumped about hosting you by talking about all the fun times ahead, like board games, movie nights and backyard barbecues. A no is a no. (stupid). I cant say whats objectively right, but I can say thatI think this particularfriend of yours might be somewhat like me in these preferences relative to you and how they see your friendship. Answer: Fundamental Rule of Life: "Ask and ye [she]shall receive." But be careful what you ask for. If he is a gamer, you may offer to have a gaming night at his place. Without telling us?). Its best to assume theyre not into drop-ins unless they make it clear they like that kind of thing. Im firmly in the camp of food is not bad and I refuse to feel guilty for it. But now you *do* know and can comport yourself appropriately with that friend. Both times, I got essentially a cant this weekend, sorry. (I think once it was out of town, and the other was busy for some reason.) Do they seem loose and easygoing about these kinds of social rules, or are they more proper and formal? So, Id be interested to know how to handle someone once theyve already shown up, uninvited and not particularly wanted, to social events. Because theyre way closer friends with me than him. For the chronic advice-givers, this usually takes me repeatedly saying I know youre trying to help, but Im just venting right now so I dont want advice, thanks. I used to get REALLY angry about it, but eventually I realized that most people arent my horribly abusive family: they are genuinely trying to help, and will stop once you tell them that its not helping, rather than continuing until you start crying uncontrollably and agreeing to do whatever they say. Le sigh. I am finally on track to maybe getting hired on full-time at a law firm at a low (but better than nothing) salary. When people show up unexpectedly it depends on if its an annoyance for me. Or even the clock on the hosts wall being a couple minutes slower than the one in the guests car. A guy may not even realize you want to spend time with him at his place until you bring it up. In those circumstances, you dont enjoy cleaning much, I can tell you. I am sitting here listen to someone honk their horn every 20 seconds for, I dont even know, 5 minutes? But he won't care and that won't matter to him. Me and my best friend, whose kids are really close with my kids, have our kids on opposite weekends Theres often the necessity of figuring out Okay is {kid} at her moms this weekend or her dads? Losing the chance to do that would be disappointing to me. Unsolicited doorbell Ill never answer but texting from the viscinity I feel like I can easily refuse, Sorry, not a good time, maybe next time or sure, lets meet at the cafe though, my house is a mess. Growing up society has taught you that most men prefer to be initiative takers and it gets scary when a woman takes the lead. I told her that she needs to call before visiting and she basically said if she did that either mom or myself would say no, so shes just going to continue showing up. The exception would be for a traditional date. Copyright. 1. I apologize to the LW and to you for appearing critical. My current circle has enough meetups coordinated through non-Facebook means that I dont mind missing the occasional Facebook-only one, but when I lived in a different city with a different social circle I actually picked one person I was closer to and asked her to be my Facebook mole If you see a whole-group invitation go out via Facebook, could you email me about it? On the topic of wanting to clean before people show up, I REALLY HATE when people respond to your desire to clean up with oh I dont mind the mess! Look, well intentioned person*, its not about you! It definitely hurts Mr Birds feelings to find out later that his dad, who we have a good relationship with but are only able to see a few times a year, was in Big Town all day with plenty of free time and didnt stop by (or call to see if wed be free that day). Wait until you know him better. Thanks for the reply, thats really helpful to think about. And I have best friends where they get a are you guys home text before I show up most times, just in case theyre asleep or away. Inviting a girl to your place is no other than getting her on a date, but because the date will be at your place it has more implications to her than going for a coffee. With platonic friendships, most people seem to go with the slow fade rather than confront problems in the friendship directly and honestly. But, it did make me wonder if my assumptions about etiquette were off. By accepting all cookies, you agree to our use of cookies to deliver and maintain our services and site, improve the quality of Reddit, personalize Reddit content and advertising, and measure the effectiveness of advertising. I would definitely be shame-cleaning my bedroom if I was anticipating having someone in it, but the rest of the house its just cleaning. After years away from it, I think we were (at best) incompatible in certain ways. NEVERRRR, Its just that my family builds onion layers of forbidden feelings, and it was impossible to guess which ones you were supposed to notice & do something about and which ones didnt exist. On the topic of work drop-bys as compared to home drop-bys, specifically the vibe created by the interruption: If put on the spot they may feel too uncomfortable saying no. If you cant master this obscure, difficult, and insufficiently documented skill set then youre just lazy and rude.. And my mother in particular telling me to get over it if I express displeasure with her dropping in. I MISS the days when people would stop by and you could invite them in or chat briefly on the stoop, as suited the homeowner side of the drop by. Yeah, my schedule generally involves napping for several hours in the middle of the day. Me: Actually, I was sleeping. Miss Manners will tell you how to politely fish for an invitation as long as you promise never to ask directly: After the friend says that he or she is free, suggest that you "do . I feel a bit more strongly than you about being someones hug person. I dont want to guess at anyones feelings, but I thought Id share some of the things about that situation that made it difficult for me to deal with. But I care. Been much better for us if Id set stronger boundaries at the same time in ways! Offered a drink and a place to sit sitting here listen to someone honk their every! 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