Longest, I agree that there are several ‘themes’ on this thread. It is more nuanced than people spot....often the case on MN where there isn’t a simple black or white answer that applies in all scenarios.
To me, essentially the thread is about being an active friend and knowing friendship is a reciprocal thing. You need to give and receive for it to be anything more than very short-lived or superficial. People spend time together and that often involves food and a location and providing those in some form, as well as receiving them is the key thing. It doesn’t have to be like-for-like or on a totally equal number on both sides, but where there is a sense that one person does all the giving and another all the taking, it’s not reall much of a friendship unless it’s a temporary phase.
To me, all this is at the heart of it. But it gets mixed up with the issue of what hosting actually means. I said earlier that I think people are out off by the idea that hosting has to be a big deal or the fact some people, make it such, and some people in this thread have certainly emphasised the quality of their hosting and the effort and expense required in a way that does put people off and confirm all their worst fears about it.
Some people like to or choose to host a big party that costs thousands. It can involve days of work and planning and might involve hiring other people. Most people don’t do this. Others might really put themselves out with fantastic food and drink and it’s unfortunate when people make sneery comments about people providing or bringing round supermarket puddings or cheap wine or chocs. These kind of comments make people feel there is a minimum standard and worry they won’t meet it and others will judge them. For those less confident or with smaller budgets it doesn’t take much to out them off. It’s a real shame, that people lack the empathy on threads about hosting to not be able to encourage people rather than setting the bar impossibly high.
I’m of the view that friendship reciprocity is firstly about actively engaging in friendship. It could involve inviting people to your house or garden (and often will) but that could be for coffee or cake or a bbq, or a film and takeaway and doesn’t need to be for a big meal. It can also happen outside the home in a restaurant or cafe or in a public space for a picnic etc.
If I had friends who over several years came to mine for friendship and never invited me to theirs but did put the effort into organising events in parks or restaurants, I would be happy with that. It wouldn’t feel entirely one-sided and as if the friends weren’t actually interesting in showing us friendship. If they never ever invited us to theirs, I might be a bit surprised, especially if nothing had ever been said about it....but I’d imagine that actually if we were good friends, we would know why that would be. It would have come up and we would understand. I do think friendships are a bit different if you never, over many years see someone’s home, but there are circumstances where that might happen.
One thing this thread shows me is that lots of people are a but anti social. They do t have many friends and those they do have are pretty superficial. You have to question how close a friendship it is if you don’t want to actively engage in the friendship at all in terms of playing your role in some form...bearing in mind that form could be simply inviting a friend to a cafe for cake, or to meet in a park for a picnic.
The sad reality is that lots of people don’t have many or any friends or any of anything more than the most superficial level. The fact they don’t really want to spend time with those people or aren’t interested in engaging with them, tells us stuff about them and their lives. It’s their choice and no-one has to have close friends or to socialise. I’d always imagined most people did want to have a small group or couple of close friends and were willing to out the effort into that, but actually lots of people don’t want that or can’t see the connection between making an effort and actively engaging with friendship and those close relationships forming.
Where someone never actively engages but purely responds to the efforts of others, usually over time that friendship withers and dies. It’s not surprising really is it. It isn’t dependent on hosting lavish dinner parties but it is dependent on making contact with people and being actively involved in friendship. Long and strong friendships can weather periods of it being very one-sided, but newer or weaker friendships usually can’t an din the end, all friendships need both sides to be actively involved.