To feel uncomfortable when people repeatedly try to get you to accept refreshments?

[usedtogotomars]

Another thread made me think of this.

I know some people find it funny/charming/eccentric but am I the only one who actually finds it quite ignorant when people push food onto you and won’t accept repeated ‘honestly, I’m fine .... thank you but I’ve had enough ... no, really ....’

I’ve actually stopped visiting a friend because of this as she always wants to visit her Mum and her mum spends the entire visit getting me to try and eat something.

I rarely go to people's homes anyway, unless the situation necessitates it. Unfortunately it sometimes does.

I don't see why you can't visit someone without accepting a drink though. Surely you're there to see them, not to have tea.

echt my point was that if people should just accept enforced hospitality that makes them uncomfortable to appease someone else then the tea and consent metaphor is meaningless.

You have clearly not understood this.

Ignorant can mean rude. I think it may be a regional use of it but that's how I understand and read it.

I would find it annoying also OP, but I must admit I have never personally come across this.....

Teufelsrad - I think your 2 comments match up though. If someone doesn't want anything when theyve come over for coffee I would think that they are thinking "unfortunately "...regarding coming to my home.

Friends that come for coffee aren't thinking that it's unfortunate they have to come to my house, they want to be there! We usually spend an evening either with tea/alcohol something to eat if it's not dinner. It's fun! People who think it's unfortunate they ve been invited in aren't the ones I want to regularly invite!! (Which is presumably mutual.)

"I think there's a cultural element to this. Middle eastern friends I have always do this, and it's very common when I've been in the middle east. I think you're rationally supposed to say 'No thank you' three times before accepting. "

I visited an African friend, declined a cup of tea/coffee. Her mother was there and was scandalised saying my friend should have just made me the tea or coffee whether I accepted it or not. (I could still have left it of course, she wouldn't have force fed me!).

I despair.

Hosts are being nice but it makes you feel uncomfortable.

Fact. This is what people are like. They like to offer a cup of tea or biscuit when you visit. OK, they ask more than once, sometimes visitors change their minds.

"Because there's a whole video about tea and consent that is predicated on the premise that you don't force cups of tea on people who have said no!"

That video is using tea as a metaphor for sex. It's not really about tea.
I think pressuring someone into having a cup of tea is quite different to pressuring someone for sex.

I have some 'issues' that the majority of the population don't have so I wouldn't base anything on my opinions. I'm sure that the majority of people are perfectly content with your home and company even if they choose not to accept a cup of tea.

Stop visiting someone else's Mum when she has the temerity to offer you some hospitality and you take this as the insult it isn't.
She probably cringes when she sees you coming.

" I offer once then leave it, assuming that as intelligent people my guests know what “no” means"

Not sure. Sometimes people will say 'I'm OK thanks' if they think you're offering out of politeness. If you offer again, they will happily accept or say something like "if you're having one" or "if it's no trouble". Sometimes it's good to ask twice.

Yes, I find the constant social nicety of being offered and refusing very taxing too. Our problem I think. I think you are right that explaining makes it worse. I am avoiding a certain food group to determine how much it improves my allergic reaction this month. I don’t usually say this, because it is a long ongoing process that I am not very good at sticking to. But a colleague borought in food for everyone yesterday, and kept saying ‘I got these becasue I know you like them’, and I felt (and was) so rude not having one.

Oh, and this is also what broke me as a vegan - hated seeming ungrateful or difficult (even though I wouldn’t find this awkward or be offended if hosting someone else).

ItsTooEarly Accepting "enforced hospitality" is odd, it's a cup of tea, not an AK47.

I have understood the video. I don't think your use of it as a comparison stands.
As a guest, you are there to be appeased and to appease, hence "me casa su casa" is a metaphor for welcome, not literal. It's a polite act, a necessary performance, a way of oiling the wheels of social intercourse.

Your parallel to the cup of tea in the video is entirely misjudged. While the cup of tea works as a way of re-thinking consent about sex, it does not work as a way of thinking about tea in the domestic sphere, i.e. this thread.

An example of this would be that the video does not invite the non-tea drinker to consider cultural norms about accepting some tea, and that's because it's about sex, not tea. It does not say that in some cultures you must expect to be offered tea and to accept it as a politeness , because the video is about sex, not tea.

Upthread, points have been made about asking for a glass of water as a way of signalling acceptance of hospitality, but on terms that that satisfy the host's desire to place, with the guest's desire not to have tea.
The video, which is about sex, not tea, does not address this, and quite rightly. No, is no.

This is why your reference to this video has no application to the thread.

Sometimes people will say 'I'm OK thanks' if they think you're offering out of politeness. If you offer again, they will happily accept or say something like "if you're having one" or "if it's no trouble". Sometimes it's good to ask twice.

This. Also, if someone is visiting for an extended period, I'll offer again as 30 minutes or an hour or two later, they may be feeling differently.

I'll admit that I feel uncomfortable if a guest doesn't accept anything. It makes me feel as if they are not planning on staying.

I have understood the video. I don't think your use of it as a comparison stands.

It does stand. It is literally what the video is saying - you wouldn't force a cup of tea on someone; you wouldn't expect them to accept a cup of tea on this occasion just because they've accepted on in the past; you wouldn't expect them to accept a cup of tea now because they accepted one earlier in the day. So don't do the same with sex.

Of course there are cultural norms in place.

But I was responding to the specific point made that maybe someone should just accept a cup of tea to be polite, even if they don't really fancy it. So as not to offend the host. If we're going to say, "actually, sorry, you should have a cup of tea whether you want one or not because someone offering it might be upset if you don't," then it doesn't work.

It was quite a simple comparison, I haven't misunderstood it.

If you are uncomfortable with something as trivial as accepting offers of hospitality being used as metaphors for consent, then I suggest you take it up with the police force who came up with the idea. Because that is exactly what they were saying too.

Anyway, I've got better things to do than this today and it was supposed to be a comment, not take on a life of its own!

In many cultures it would be rude not to try and feed their guests. One only has to look at Father Ted’s housekeeper to see the perfect example. A good guests would want to make their host feel comfortable and show respect and refusal could be seen as a bit offensive.

Its pretty simple. If you are continually forcing something on guests who repeatedly say "No thanks i dont want x, y, z." Then you are making your guests feel uncomfortable and being a bad host.
Nobody is obliged to drink or eat when they visit you. Its their choice not yours.

does anyone else find it really unnerving when you are in someone's house and they offer you a cup of tea, you say lovely thank you! and then they make you one and don't have one themselves!

My FIL is like this with wine. If I refuse wine ( because I don't like drinking at lunchtime and have explained this many times ) he takes this to mean that I must not like the wine he has offered and will then open the drinks cabinet and wave a succession of bottles under my nose in case I actually wanted a whisky / martini/pastis/rum/absinthe with my lunch.

It does get tiring refusing after a while.

That's quite unusual, babi? Never happened to me.

@Iamagreyhoundhearmeroar i know two people who do this! i would never! although one is the MIL so perhaps we'll give her a pass as that's the least of her peculiarities

I can see it from both sides. I probably always offer twice, just to make sure. There are lots of reasons someone might say no initially when really would like something. Like for example, because they don't want to put you out or appear greedy.

What irritates me though is when I decline cake or chocolate because I'm trying to lose weight yet they continue to offer and usually respond with 'you don't need to lose weight'. I'm clearly obese. It was hard and took willpower to say no the first time, don't ask again!!

If I've gone to the trouble of home baking though it can be disheartening if no one eats, I worry it looks unappetising. If I can see someone has gone to effort but I really don't want it, I'll say it looks delicious but I'm on a diet, but would they mind if I took some for DH or the children.

I think you're rationally supposed to say 'No thank you' three times before accepting. "

That would be the case in Ireland too, traditionally. It would be considered rude to accept the first (or second) offer. Although you were allowed to accept on the third offer.

Haha, Whyami, that reminds me if the time I was offered a "drink" at someone's house and said "oh God, no thanks, it's far too early for me!" (early afternoon) so they accepted this and made everyone else tea and coffee.
Just assumed drink was alcoholic...