To feel miffed by guests behaviour on the weekend?

[lill72]

We have just moved house and finally have a lovely garden. As it was a hot night, we invited some friends around for a BBQ to our new house. We were excited to have them round and share our new place. When they left ,I just felt upset and slightly insulted by their behaviour.

When they walked in, they didnt make any comment on the house. I don't want over the top - but a comment would have been nice. They just asked - do you like the area better etc. They didnt ask to be shown around, but then asked me a comment about DDs bedroom, which alerted me to the fact they had been snooping in the room whilst on the way to the bathroom. All their comments were an attempt to try and put us down, as I don't think they like being outdone. They have no kids and live in a modern, stark, city apartment. Our house is the opposite of this, so not sure if they just didnt like it. But hey a comment would have been nice.

They also always bring their own drinks. No problem there. But they always refuse to drink yours. It is as if they aren't good enough. DH went and bought some lovely white wine, but they just had a sip, then went back to their wine. There was nothing special about theirs.

My DH also bought some lovely ribeye, as they are very fussy about food and the guy is a trained chef. This trained chef is the fussiest eater i know and does not like fat in meat, so cut around the ribeye, making a dogs breakfast of it and didn't eat half of it. He knew it was good quality and said he felt bad not eating it, but it was insulting and childish I thought not to just eat it.

I get the feeling that they are most comfortable in their own home, with their wine and their food. Nothing else is ever good enough. We went to an effort and it was just chucked in our face I thought. They are never gracious and very thankful. Very very hard to please. So much to the point that despite the fact that we like them -well the guys anyway (i have never liked the wife), we just don't want to have them over again. Which would be odd, as we are friends. I would rather have people very who are more appreciative and easy going.

I also don't think they liked being upstaged at all, over anything.

Any suggestions? One thought is to always have the over with others.

Oh goodness, ignore me.

I'm trying to figure this out but this is the weirdest 'friendhip' I have heard of. It's in fathomable at every turn.

Is this the Osso Bucco guy OP? Might be mixing you up with someone else but have to say I'd just give up cooking for someone that fussy and instead just meet out (if you still want to meet that is!)

Re the wine though - personally I can't drink any kind of Sauvignon blanc, even the good stuff - been totally put off it by my mum (it's all she drinks, and I'm utterly sick of it -'it has a very distinctive taste). Try offering them a different white if you go there (what do they offer you?) Bloody rude about the champagne though so it may just be snobbishness!

"we just don't want to have them over again"

They would be the lucky ones!

Wow, OP, I think you've taken a right pasting on this thread!

FWIW, I don't think YABU; they were rude and ungracious but, if they have form for it, then it might be time to let it go. We know a couple a bit like this - he's lovely, very affable, warm and welcoming. She's bloody hard work; a right label Mabel and only really interested in talking about herself. She'll ask you a question and unless you précis your reply into one brief sentence, she'll steamroller right over the top of you and bring it all back to her. I'm old and ugly enough to find it vaguely amusing, and I don't need her validation. We don't see much of them and I get my 'friendship fix' elsewhere.

Just go to their house and drink their wine and food then.

I have relatives (well, in laws- thank god, no biological connection) who pointedly will never ask us anything about ourselves or pay us any compliments when we try so hard to be nice to them. I don't like them much so i avoid them, perhaps time to do the same?

ADish That was bloody rude!

It might have escaped your notice, but there are moves afoot to sweeten up AIBU, so people don't feel ambushed and insulted. I think your post is exactly the sort of thing people are objecting to.

Indeed, Clam. MNHQ have actually asked us the report the gratuitously nasty digs on AIBU, so I shall do just that.

"ADish That was bloody rude!"

I take your objection to my post on board, clam, and so will now apologies to the OP and try to voice my opinion in a less rude fashion.

lill72 I unreservedly apologise for summing up my opinion in a rudely phrased one-liner. I do understand that offering up an excuse for ones rudeness does not excuse it, however ... in case an explanation is required ... I read your posts throughout this thread with steadily increasing shock that you would call these people your friends and then have nothing good to say about them at all. In fact, to use a slang term, (it seemed to me) that you were completely 'slating' them. By the time I reached the end of the thread, where I might reasonably be expected to post, my shock had (unusually for me) reached such a point that, instead of the long-winded type of post I would usually write, I fired off a one liner that summed up my feelings.

The rudeness of doing such a thing, particularly given the "moves afoot to sweeten up AIBU", has been quite correctly pointed out to me by clam, and I not only unreservedly apologise for summing up my opinion in a rudely phrased one-liner, but will now attempt to express my opinion and feelings in a way that is more acceptable to all.

lill72 in my opinion you have written a lot of very derogatory things about your 'friends' and do not seem to value their friendship in any way. You did say in your original post "we just don't want to have them over again" and I cannot help but feel that this would not only be best for you, but in particular would also be in your 'friends' best interest, given your very poor opinion of them.

Very very well put ADish

Take the piss if you like. I don't think I was out of order.

A cross post MadameDefarge. As you will see, as soon as I read Clam post, I returned to the thread to apologise to the OP for summing up my opinion in a rudely phrased one-line retort and then went on to try to rephrase my opinions properly in a way that, while still expressing them as I would think I have a right to do, was reasonedand explained why I held that opinion.

I would value anyone's opinion on my post, which as a follow-up to Clam's post, clearly and rightly had to contain an apology.

While I immediately saw that I should make an apology for expressing my opinion in a rude manner (and indeed, wanted to make an apology for expressing my opinion in a rude manner), I did specifically want to go on and express my opinion in an acceptable manner, because obviously the opinions themselves (in my view) remain as valid as anyone else's.

I am completely accepting of your report of my first post to MNHQ, as I will also be should you choose to report my second post, or indeed this one.

Nah, you are all right clam. Think we need to send some sal volatile over to ADish to steady her nerves after all that increasing shock and all.

ok Adish. Fair dos. Xposts all round.

Friendships should not be this hard work, nor require this level of analysis. imo. It need not be a matter of who is to blame. It just isn't working, at least when it comes to dinner parties

"Take the piss if you like. I don't think I was out of order"

Clam, I most certainly was not taking the piss out of you and, in fact, neither do I think that you were out of order.

A most handsome apology Adish. Wish more people could manage it.

"Plumpatridge - I know the guy does love my husband and I both a lot. The girl who knows, but to be honest she has a lot of trouble making friends. they are all her husbands."

Sorry i'm still trying to understand this bit. Was 'both' a typo? What should it have said?

"A most handsome apology Adish"

Thank you, MadameDefarge, and while I'm here might I just mention that I don't really think that I'm the type who needs smelling salts (though very kind of you to offer, thank you).

Indeed, if forum social decorum henceforth requires that I now start calling a spade a 'finely engineered, well balanced, digging implement', then I suspect I might be up to the challenge...

... but I still know it's for shoveling shit

(and now, rather appropriately, I'm off to do a spot of mucking out!)

spades as spades are fine.

No need to overdo the cod 18th-C chat though!

AIBU does need to be more temperate in responses but I think that calling a poster out on rudeness once is quite enough. Most will stop and think and MNHQ can handle those that don't.

It seems a bit kneejerk here at the moment with hall monitors and they're not needed. Comment on other posters' prose and style is rude in itself and not necessary. I know it will calm down again, it always does but in the meantime, it's excruciating to watch.

aha...hall monitors...perilously close to thread police.

Well ya know Lying, MNHQ have asked us to be proactive, on threads. So people are doing so. And more than one person. So they can see that it is not fine. Calling people hall monitors for doing so is pretty rude. MNHQ have decided more reporting IS needed. So, er thanks for the input, but it was neither necessary, illuminating nor helpful. Just seems a bit bitchy and mean.

If you don't understand a bit of word play between posters then I would just let it go love, eh?

There ya go.

Well, I'm sorry but it reads to me as if:

You invited them round to show-off your Victorian house and garden, which is so much better than their bare flat. And now you're put out that they weren't as impressed by it as you think they ought to have been.

You tried to out-do them with your wine selection, which was so much better than their plebby Oyster Bay. But they prefer theirs and you're annoyed they didn't fawn over it.

You say they are trying to prove they are better than you, but it sounds to me like you are not happy that they might feel that they are better, and you want them to stay in their place. You are better, as you come from money. They don't. They need to remember this and not get ideas above their station.

And yes, you sound like you want the guy.

There are no unwritten rules. There are guildelines.

MNHQ want AIBU to lose the cuntish kneejerk reaction of attack that has become the norm here.

Oh the irony of Lying not liking hall monitors while trying to be the same, but giving more leeway to cuntish behaviour.