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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Picky guest. Rude and ill-mannered or within his rights?

896 replies

AddToBasket · 29/06/2015 17:34

Gah. I am throwing a themed dinner party for friends from a particular interest. (A bit like a medieval feast for people from a 12th Century interest group.) The menu is complicated and of the 'Take one plucked flamingo' school of recipes. It's a massive deal and will require military-like organisation to pull off but I'm looking forward to it.

It's at my house but I have a co-host. The partner of the co-host will not eat anything on the menu. There are four options for starter, five for main course, four for pudding. My co-host tells me he eat won't eat any of them.

He's not vegetarian or allergic, he just doesn't like vegetables or anything 'complicated'. I've been asked to serve a plain chicken breast. The menu includes a roast chicken salad (offensive because of watercress) and a plain couscous.

I think it's rude. AIBU?

OP posts:
Tuskerfull · 02/07/2015 15:20

No, you really don't have to do any of that, Lashes. Just make sure you aren't making this face, and you're fine.

Picky guest. Rude and ill-mannered or within his rights?
limitedperiodonly · 02/07/2015 15:24

It's all true, I'm afraid lashes. NT people claim we care about our guests's enjoyment of our food and hospitality but really we do it just to make people like you uncomfortable.

And sometimes we text each other about you from under the table.

Hmm
Gruntfuttock · 02/07/2015 15:31

Sssssh! Don't tell her, *limited! Shock

Gruntfuttock · 02/07/2015 15:32

^boldy fail^

AlisonBlunderland · 02/07/2015 15:44

The OP started this thread on Monday after the co-host explained that his partner could not eat anything on the menu.
Surely in the intervening three days, she has been able to ascertain if the partner can bring their own food and not expect her to cook a separate item just for them.

limitedperiodonly · 02/07/2015 15:47

Gruntfuttock Are you the sort of person who presses reply all when you mean to forward?

I'm not texting you under the table unless you sharpen up your act.

Musereader · 02/07/2015 16:00

Finished the whole thread now. All the communication about this event seems to be going through the co host and not directly to guest, so i don't understand the implication that the guest is being picky and controlling, rather it is the co host imposing the demand on op. Guest may be horrified at what is being asked in their name. I know i have been to a BBQ where host was told "Muse will not eat anything but plain chicken" when the situation is i don't eat beefburgers or sausages, so i'm there digging into some spicy pork and ive got an aggreived host saying "i did this chicken specially for you." and i am stuck apologising for the inconvinience someone else caused. Is guest actually insisting on coming are they just assuming that he has to come because partner is co host? Has anyone told them that it is an option not to come?

As for the mac and cheese, if they did not like it is there a polite way to say you won't eat anymore? Is some of the ire here because of the slight the op felt at that incident?

LashesandLipstick · 02/07/2015 16:01

Thank you Tuskerfull. I don't really see how any of the other comments are remotely funny. Hmm All you've done is confuse me of the intentions of people who are NT at meal times

Gruntfuttock · 02/07/2015 16:10

limitedperiodonly, well I don't even care, 'cause you couldn't text me anyway - I haven't got a mobile phone. Never have had. So put that in your pipe and smoke it.

Yours maturely,

Grunt

Wink
QuintShhhhhh · 02/07/2015 16:15

Lashes, no really, we are just interested in what your food looks like PRIOR to you getting stuck in with your cutlery, and whether you enjoyed it or not.

Why else do you think instagram is overflowing with pictures of plates full of food, or tables set with dishes and candles and other ornamentation? And why else have some restaurants banned mobile phone use at the table because the chef own the copyright and the food is a work of art????

Go figure.

limitedperiodonly · 02/07/2015 16:17

And I say to you, Gruntfuttock: 'Tough titty, Fishface.'

That usually awes people at the kind of dinner parties I go to.

Tuskerfull · 02/07/2015 16:17

I don't think talking about "NT people" as if we're some kind of hive mind is useful. We don't all act the same or follow and understand the same social rules, just like people with ASD.

LashesandLipstick · 02/07/2015 16:20

Quint I had no idea restaurants had done that, and I'm not a big social media user so while I've seen food on Instagram it's always been either something someone's made themselves or someone showing their meal with friends or something. I haven't seen many posts of JUST food. I assumed the ornamentation was just because it looks cool?

Tuskerfull, not a hivemind, but you guys seem to all be on the same wavelength, whereas this thread demonstrates, some people with ASD and similar are not

limitedperiodonly · 02/07/2015 16:21

If that was aimed at me Tuskerfull, I was way ahead of you.

It's called irony.

If it wasn't, I apologise.

It's so hard understanding other people when you insist on making everything all about you Wink

Tuskerfull · 02/07/2015 16:26

No, it was directed at Lashes!

Lashes, we are clearly NOT on the same wavelength, as this thread demonstrates. There have been so many posts with different opinions as to how acceptable this guest's request is, how the individual poster would prefer him to deal with it, how the poster would deal with it themselves. It's really not useful for you to think of "us" all understanding everything all the time and you sitting there being the odd one out.

LashesandLipstick · 02/07/2015 16:29

Tuskerfull but most people on here think the guest is rude, and that he shouldn't go. There's a definite theme

SuburbanRhonda · 02/07/2015 16:29

I hate being watched eat and now I KNOW NT people are doing it

Jesus wept.

limitedperiodonly · 02/07/2015 16:32

I realised that as soon as I posted Tuskerfull.

Sorry, but this thread is making me really sensitive and uncomfortable Wink

MamanOfThree · 02/07/2015 16:37

lashes yep we do because we want to be sure that the people with us are enjoying themselves!

LashesandLipstick · 02/07/2015 16:40

Maman that really makes me feel weird haha. For some reason my discomfort at being watched eat seems to have provoked some unpleasant behaviour...oh well.

LashesandLipstick · 02/07/2015 16:41

Limited, as nicely as possible, can you piss off? I get it, you think I'm being unreasonable about my views on food. I really couldn't give two shits, but making fun of me for viewing something in a different way is pathetic.

Crocodopolis · 02/07/2015 16:52

Limited, you made me laugh.

Uncomfortably.

I am sure you did it deliberately to wind me up , too. Grin

SuburbanRhonda · 02/07/2015 16:55

For some reason my discomfort at being watched eat seems to have provoked some unpleasant behaviour...oh well.

Limited, as nicely as possible, can you piss off? I get it, you think I'm being unreasonable about my views on food. I really couldn't give two shits

Hmm
limitedperiodonly · 02/07/2015 16:59

It's not your thread lashes, and even if it was...

I don't think you are unreasonable because of your views about food.

I do think it's unreasonable to ask people to be understanding while making no effort to understand them as well as describing them as somehow 'other'.

I haven't done that to you or anyone else who dislikes certain foods because of sensory issues, ASD or simply because they don't fancy them.

LashesandLipstick · 02/07/2015 17:02

I'm not describing them as other - they are people who are neuro typical. While people have explained it to me I still don't get it. Doesn't mean I'm deliberately being difficult