To be so disappointed about not being thanked for a dinner party

I'm keen to hear any expert tips on how to stop yourself yawning btw.

OP I'm with you! I think it's really rude not so send a personal message the next day thanking the host for their hospitality & complimenting the meal & the huge effort entertaining at home entails. I would fund it incredibly rude for my friends not to do this.
We have a v active social life & a wide, broad circle of friends & it us entirely normal within all these friendships that we would send and/ or receive a thank you the next day. In some cases we've received a thank you card too.

Your friends were also rude to be yawning & nursing a 2 day old hangover. I think if some ones gone to the trouble of shopping, paying for, preparing & serving lovely food & wine in their home you pull yourself together & make an effort & don't sit there slumped & yawning. That's v rude to me.

We enjoy our friends company & they enjoy ours & the mood is always very upbeat & happy when we host or are hosted -we're delighted to be in each others company & have much to catch up on.

It's so easy to make another person feel loved & appreciated or unappreciated & taken for granted & I know which side I always aim for.

We always text each other the next day if we've been out to dinner in a restaurant or to a party or cinema / theatre so say how lovely to see them & check how hangovers are etc. That's absolutely normal in my world too.

I am convinced its the often the tiniest of things that make or break relationships between people whether romantic or friendship based & those who choose to ignore that wouldn't be my type of person at all.

I'm not British & don't live in Britain.

If I thanked you for inviting me at the time and again on arrival, complimented your efforts throughout the evening and again at the culmination of the meal, then gave you a genuine, heartfelt thank you again as I was leaving, and again next time I saw you if that was soon... that wouldn't be enough for you? You'd still want a text message the next day?

Well, OP you went to a lot of time and effort because you wanted to. They're your friends. Everyone had a good evening and they thanked you for it.
Just leave it there.

Perhaps the flowers are en route! 😂

I remember making a real effort throwing a party for someone’s birthday and the other guests all texted a nice thank you the next day, but radio silence from the person I had held the party for. I was feeling a bit😬 all the next day about that. I’d got over it by the Monday. On the Tuesday I received the most beautiful bunch of flowers plus a hand written card which she had clearly taken in to the florist to have included. So never wind up too soon! 😆

OP said: We put a lot of time, money and effort to get the best food, cook all three courses from scratch, get expensive wines etc... it was a lot of money and work.

Why do you feel a written, lasting thank you is better. Do you go and look back at the thank yous at a later date?

What a very weird thing to be all upset about. I hope you can get over the ordeal OP.

Just once properly.

YANBU. It’s rude, but I feel it’s not just about manners, it’s also about empathy. Trying to put yourself in the shoes of your friends that you care about, and the expense and time they’ve obviously put in to make that night a really nice one. To me, sending an appreciative message the following day would be as natural as breathing and anyone who would feel uncomfortable with receiving that message, I think would have some issues of their own to work through.

Yes. And I think that’s fine too as it shows the event ( and gratitude) has lingered in their minds and they haven’t just wolfed the food, digested it and moved on.

You don’t thank for a thank you.

Actually I don’t think phones have precipitated a ramping up of thanks but rather the opposite: you can send a quick text where once you might have sent a card or phoned.

Manners ARE essentially things you don’t HAVE to do, but do do because they make people feel thought of, happy or at ease. You can pick your nose on the bus if you want. But it’s not good manners because it makes people feel disgust. When you strip manners out of life it starts to look a bit bleak in many places. Manners are among the little warm spots in life that make us feel pleased to be human. I don’t think phones have heralded the advent of manners - probably quite the opposite when you look at people in cafes not engaging but scrolling.

How much effort and expense can a dinner party for 4 adults really be? A reasonably decent cook wouldn't exactly exhaust or bankrupt themselves to organise such an event to a high standard.
It's not a wedding for 400 people.

They already said thank you and, hopefully, have been gracious and complimentary about the meal during the evening.
No further texts required.

(The card thing after a dinner with close friends is just bonkers to my mind. I'm sure there must be 'thank you for sending me a card' cards in this country.!)

As a guest to a dinner party, I'd always take flowers and wine and some dessert item from a good independent cake shop. And would be genuine in my thanks to the host on arrival, during the meal and on leaving. I don't get drunk so it would be genuine and considerate and from the heart. Me writing a text or sending a card the next dat, would not be the real me, it wouldn't be a genuine gesture.

The text is just the modern way of saying thanks for a great evening. It used to be a card or a phonecall. It’s always been good manners to thank a host the day after they went to the effort of cooking for you.

It they said thank you already. I’ve noticed a few school mums always text after a play date to say thank you when they’ve already said thank you, I find it a bit weird and over the top.

It is a thank you. I think this is a case of validation by phone update.

I would have sent a follow-up text too, to double acknowledge your effort.

Rude that one was yawning through being tired by work... didums, , you sort of make an effort to hold it together when out , and another with a 2 day hangover??

Don't give up on dinner parties, maybe invite different people, maybe it's time for new friends? ( meet-up app)

Exactly, @pinkdelight - focus on what a nice evening it was and how your friends appreciated it.

They already said thank you on the night. Some people text the next day as well. I do sometimes but not always. The whole thing can then get a bit ‘thank you for the thank you’ and it’s not necessary.
We went to a party recently which was really nice - I thanked both hosts at the end of the evening. Big hugs etc. I gave a present - haven’t texted. These are good friends who host us a lot and we always take wine/chocs etc. (I invite them here but they seem to prefer us going there).

I don't understand how an oral thank you isn't a thank you.

People have become so addicted to the little dopamine spasms that their phones can give them that real life just doesn't cut it for them any more.
They need actual gratitude of actual people in the actual flesh to be replicated as a grotty little set of pixels , or they get jittery.

Clearly it does mean a lot. To many people.

Eesh well fine then, go ahead and get all upset about the lack of a text and let it cast a pall over what was actually a nice evening when the guests did thank them. I'd prefer to feel glad the night had gone really well and that i did get thanks but if people prefer to make a deal of a text and turn it into this big disappointment both in this friendship group and humanity overall, go for it.

Nor me!
She was thanked for the evening.
Why isn't that enough?

Text at the very least, card if I was in the mood.
I would also have taken flowers or something with me for the host, not the meal.
55 grew up on council estate.