Why do some people never reciprocate hospitality?

[FrancinePefco]

For more than 10 years now, we host drinks for neighbours and local friends during the Christmas holidays. We also regularly have a summer drinks/bbq. Quite a few of our guests have therefore enjoyed our hospitality (including food and lots of drink) at least once or twice a year for a decade or so but they have have never once invited us to anything - not even for a "Come in. Would you like a cuppa?" when we have had to e.g. drop children off at their houses.

I don't think it can be BO or bad breath because they obviously don't mind being around us (as long as it's at our house). In fact, this year we decided not to Christmas drinks and apparently several people were asking around if they had missed an invite.

I wouldn't feel comfortable just asking "Hey, how come you never invite us round to yours?". So I thought I would check with strangers on the Internet first

We might be a bit guilty of this. It's because I often don't want to get into the whole dinner party circuit with neighbours and school parents. So we are invited out to dinner and accept because we can't find an excuse not to go (after consultation over diaries and date juggling with other invitees) have a nice enough time but not something I'd particularly want to repeat. Then there is the expectation that we will invited our hosts back ... except I rarely actually want to!

I'm probably anti social I suppose! but we do have old friends and family here often enough. Our children invite friends round all the time.

Hosting can be work, .....but I always stop "hosting" after an hour. By then everybody knows where the food, drinks and the glasses are and can help themselves...

My hosting style is very casual, people can bring kids if they like, I have a (at best) mildly tidy house (ancient carpet and dog beds/dogs everywhere) but my friends are casual too so that works...

I don't do dinner parties either, but might do a big chilli or something

I don't host much but in my social circles, going to people's homes to socialise is not really a thing. We mostly meet up in bars/at events. I belong to a team where there is an annual team dinner held in someone's house, but that is invariably held in one of two houses as no one else has the room (in this case everyone chips in the cash and some arrive early to help with the prep, many stay over and help with the clear up).
I have thrown a few parties in my house but I live some distance from a lot of my friends, in an area which I find perfectly nice but which some people are funny about travelling to, so I gave up.

Lovesagin Unless you're literally a hoarder and people can't enter the room, I sincerely doubt that the people who love and care about you are going to mind sitting in a messy room to have a cuppa and catch up with you :)

I understand the urge to only invite people when it's clean and tidy (I wouldn't allow people over until a full spring clean but I invite and do the clean rather than not at all) but it's better not to avoid it surely. Another benefit is maybe it'll spur you on to clean up if you know you have guests?

You don’t need a dining room table to invite people around for drinks one evening or coffee and cake one Afternoon . Just make it clear on the invitation so people are not expecting a meal.

“ why don’t you come round on Saturday about 7pm and well get a take away from the Koh I noor? “

“ come over for drinks on Friday, does 8pm suit ? “

“ come back to mine for afternoon coffee / a bacon roll on Saturday after the kids have been to football “ .

I kind of get that Lemon, it's my issue though, I don't know why but it just makes me anxious. It's not dirty untidy just messy

The people I love and care about know this about me and are very supportive and don't care that I don't reciprocate. Thankfully!

(I should point out I'm a very nice non-reciprocator of hospitality - always take a gift/bottle/dish and help with childcare etc whenever asked and I'm able)

i wouldn't allow people over until a full spring clean

this made me chuckle lemonshark

my DH invited a gathering of my closest friends round to our home for birthday drinks for me
it was in a Saturday evening and as i had no knowledge of what he was up to, nothing had been tidied up . kids crap everywhere, dog's bed strewn across the floor and a kitchen that looked liked a war zone!

it was a wonderful evening , but it may have had you out in hives

@citychick
*my DH invited a gathering of my closest friends round to our home for birthday drinks for me
it was in a Saturday evening and as i had no knowledge of what he was up to, nothing had been tidied up . kids crap everywhere, dog's bed strewn across the floor and a kitchen that looked liked a war zone! *

That would be my worst nightmare when it comes to hosting! My stress levels are going up just reading this!

One of my favourite hosting memories is an evening when a local hall had flooded so a hobby group tribute event could not take place there. Someone posted on social media asking if anyone could host instead or the night would be cancelled. They needed a space big enough for about 30 people available that evening. Our living room was being decorated so all the furniture was piled up in the hall at that time but I said I could do if nowhere else turned up.

That evening several burly team members turned up 20 minutes before the event started bearing beer and soft drinks and carried the furniture back into the living room. Then the guests arrived all bringing a plate of food. It was great. I saw old friends, made some new ones I lived on the food leftovers for days and all it cost me was several dishwasher loads of glasses and a few bottles of wine.

DH was away on business and was bemused when pictures of his house full of people kept appearing on social media when as far as he knew I was home alone.

@pax

ha ha! yes i do remember looking around and thinking cripes fuck what an awful mess

they are my closest of friends so were relaxed. dh was the host . i didn't really do anything but chat and drink a lot

Reciprocation is the glue that holds relationships together. If you only give or only take from a particular friend it becomes lopsided.

I don't buy into the "but we only have a tiny kitchen". It really doesn't take much to lay on a plate of food and glass of something.

Leaving it 10 years is really bad, I'm amazed they aren't red faced coming round each year without returning the compliment.

@loon

that sounds brilliant!

My house is disgusting and feels claustrophobically small all cluttered with shite. It's even worse today as I'm taking steps to remedy it and clear up! I haven't hosted the book group I go to in a year as I feel embarrassed about the state of my house compared to theirs!

Reciprocation can be done in other ways though surely? I do a lot of childcare for a friend when I can, yet she has never minded my DC, she holds lots of social gatherings at her home that I go to, I haven't ever done this for various reasons. Im a much better listener than another friend who will often call me for an hour at a time having a good whinge and when we go out for lunch I buy the coffees and desserts, in return she's another one who has the odd party etc with no expectation of me reciprocating because of the other factors in our relationship. I don't buy the desserts and coffees expecting a return transaction and I don't clock up the hours of childcare and counselling that I give to claim it back.

I'd say understanding and acceptance of people's quirks and personalities and still liking them anyway is a much better glue, stronger holding and more enduring anyway imo.

I agree lovesagin.
A simple recognition that hosting is hard work and costly, and therefore the favour should be returned, whichever way it comes.

i have a friend who regularily hosts at her house, and i would love to be able to pay back her generosity but i have two cats and she is very allergic to cats so much as she would come to m house she would be too ill if she did so she accepts that the hospitality goes one way,

I am afraid we are guilty of this... and it's because we live in a first floor flat with no direct shared garden access.

Most of our friends have kids and it tends to be one particular couple who do most of the hosting... but this is because they live in a very good size house with ample space for entertaining both adults and children, direct access to their own garden with play equipment, etc. It means that the adults can get on with having a drink and chatting in the kitchen / dining area whilst the kids play upstairs, watch a film in the large separate living room or run around outside. If they would be at our place the kids would be constantly underfoot and we can't even just usher them allout to the garden as one of the adults would have to go outside with them to keep an eye on the littler ones... and we also have to stop too much exuberance inside as we are fearful of the downstairs neighbours complaining about noise.

It is not due to us being selfish or lazy, it is pretty shit actually and I feel embarrassed about being someone in their 40s who cannot host a group in their own home. I do try very hard to be a good guest, bringing along plenty of alcohol and nibbles and making an effort to help with any preparations and tidying up after.

Christmastablecloth
So we are invited out to dinner and accept because we can't find an excuse not to go (after consultation over diaries and date juggling with other invitees) have a nice enough time but not something I'd particularly want to repeat

Us there any way you could politely make the people inviting you aware of how you truly feel? As a regular hoster, I would hate it if anyone felt that they were coerced or pressured to attend.

Why not just say "We really appreciate the invitation and the sentiment behind it. But we're just into socialising over dinner. We hope you have a lovely time" ??

Surely that would be the more honest thing to do for you and them?

If your domestic setting makes reciprocation difficult then compensation should be made in the form of wine/food/flowers when being hosted. If money is the problem then close friends would likely know this and adjust their hosting so as not to embarrass you.

isseywithcats So do you take her out for dinner/lunch instead?

Seawitchly you sound lovely!

Could you host a picnic in the local park when the weather's good with great food and organise a ball game? Or a trip to a local attraction or a beach?

Or give everyone loads of notice so they can get baby-sitters and organise an adults only dinner?

ChocolateWombat
Loved this

If you are someone who reels off the excuses about a small house, untidy house, lack of confidence or money, recognise that these might stop you hosting a gigantic all singing, all dancing event, but they don't prevent you showing basic hospitality to small numbers. If you don't show any basic hospitality to small numbers but attend gatherings organised by others and there are no health issues to prevent you, you really are being a taker and should recognise yourself for that. However, things can change....push yourself and d dude you will do something this year, however small

"Reciprocation can be done in other ways though surely?"

I agree with this, hugely.

I have two friends. Friend A is an absolute emotional vampire. She never, ever gives support, only ever takes. She is very wealthy. Friend B is very giving emotionally, wealthy by background but now very poor and a bit grabby around high-class food and champagne. For years, the unspoken arrangement is that A will expect unconditional positive regard from B (often at antisocial hours), and that she will occasionally pay for a Michelin-starred dinner for B in return, which helps B to bear the fact that she can't really afford that herself now, though she grew up surrounded by it. The friendship has endured for years on this, and to be honest it has seemed to me (as an outsider) to be fairly equal in terms of give and take.

Friend A, however, recently started to insist that B should pay her half of any dinner/drinks and that B is not a 'proper' friend because she's not doing this. However, this has upset the equilibrium of the relationship, because B is now supposed to be providing emotional support for literally no return. A expects to be "valued for herself" but can't reciprocate in kind emotionally. B expects her efforts at emotional support to be shown some kind of appreciation, but A is now refusing to acknowledge the exchange.

They are both really dysfunctional people, at the end of the day!! But the point of the story is that reciprocity isn't just exchanging the same thing - it's sometimes exchanging different things, and recognising that exchange doesn't have to be the same.

My favourite non-reciprocating guest commented one year after a New Year's party where I had provided champagne, a meal, including home baking, for 15 people that I should have another party at the end of January.

The reason being January is such a dull month and I could use up the profit I'd made from guests bringing wine. The word "profit" was actually used.