To expect a snack when visiting someone's home for a few hours?

[Playdoughy]

Context matters clearly, so I will give some background.
We've been invited to friends' place who live outside of London (90mins car ride) and we agreed to come by over the weekend for a few hours in the early afternoon. The invite was not for an overnight stay but more of a housewarming situation - as in come and see how the place looks like (not for a group of people but just us visiting). They have been living in the flat for 5 months now, I am pregnant so couldn't take a trip during first semester due to sickness - now more up for it.
Anyway we had an early light lunch (luckily) and took off today to arrive after almost a 2 hour drive due to traffic. We had a lovely time chatting and stayed for around 2 hours (I literally had to leave and gave signal to my husband as I was starving to the point of being nauseous).
We got offered a tea upon arrival (drink, not a meal - to avoid any confusion) so I had a cup of tea -no biscuits involved.
I have to admit that on my way to the loo I literally stole a couple of crackers from an open bag sitting on a sideboard near the kitchen and I ate that in the bathroom (yeah...).
After we said goodbyes and went into the car my husband started googling for any nearby pub to have dinner - I advocated against in case they go out later, it would be super awkward if we stumbled upon them. So we grabbed some snacks in an off licence for the car and were on our way.
I mean surely as a host you have some concept of your guests travelling to see you and need to travel back - for us this would be almost 6 hours without a meal and I am pregnant.
I just don't get it. Even a box of digestives would have helped.
Maybe it's a cultural difference thingy, she is american he is scandinavian. Anyway aibu?

I'm 9 weeks pregnant and feel nauseous if I don't eat regularly so it is definitely a thing. Normally I can go a day without eating but I feel physically sick after 2 hours now so I completely understand. Maybe you've had a different experience but it doesn't mean everyone does.

She was only offered one cup of tea the whole time... should she have taken her flask as well?!!

I personally no longer eat between meals - but it is just basic hospitality to offer, at the minimum, biscuits with the tea/coffee. I always offer this when we have visitors, even though I don’t partake myself. And if they’re visiting over what most people would consider meal time, I will offer them a meal as well.

Whether you can if not the point, though I would faint were I without food (and drink, one cup of tea!) for six hours and OP is pregnant. Rude not to offer something light e.g. cake, some biscuits, sandwiches.

Some of the responses on this thread are WILD! Of course its basic manners to offer your guests some refreshments, especially if you invited them over for an afternoon. Just tea, coffee, water, etc and something small like a few biscuits, a sandwich, crackers and cheese, whatever is handy. Basic manners.

Oh and for two of my pregnancies I felt nauseous if I didnt eat small amounts of carbs regularly. Do you know what you are having OP? For me, those pregnancies were the girls!!!

I'm Scandinavian - if anything we tend to over feed guests so no, not 'cultural' 🙄

the fact you think asking for a biscuit or saying 'Well, we'd better be on our way,' is rude but stealing food from someone's bag is acceptable is just insane!

We often end up travelling to visit friends and I’ve come to expect that, more often than not, they’ll expect us to stay until the kids tea time, but not offer for us dinner despite the fact they know we’d then have a 2 hour drive home (with hungry kids in the car!), whereas if they visit us I always offer to chuck a couple of pizzas or similar in the oven so they can eat before they go. So YANBU

I was the same when pregnant, if I didn’t eat regularly the “morning” sickness was awful!

@Goinggreymammy I know. I'm absolutely agog at the responses saying they wouldn't offer any food for someone coming round to their house. It genuinely shocks me, I was raised to see that as the height of rudeness.

I'm waiting for my neighbour coming over at 5pm to drop something off and I've already got a plate of chocolate hobnobs out because I know she likes them.

Your friends were thoughtless. I’d have definitely offered you a hot drink and something to eat.

but they had no idea or control over what she had/hadn't eaten for the majority of those hours. They invited her over for a fairly quick mid afternoon catch up - they had no idea how much she'd eaten for lunch, or when she had eaten it - for all they know OP and her DP had been for a huge pub lunch 5 minutes earlier.

Would I have offered some biscuits or cake or something, yes, but ultimately OP was the one in charge of how much she ate for the majority of the outing - she could have had a big lunch, could have eaten lunch much later, could have had a snack before going in, could have put some snacks in her bag, could have asked them for a biscuit if she was feeling ill, could have suggested leaving earlier. She is literally going to be in charge of a complete other human within the next few months, at some point she has to take responsibility for herself!

A flask in the car is a good idea.

But then why didn’t you take specific food for the children?

Omg who are these people who expect you to travel 2 hours out of London and then don’t offer you anything to eat!! This is appalling hospitality. As they have bad manners I recommend you never visit them again. Also I don’t recommend visiting people who live outside the perimeter of the M25. Lets face it you could fly to Spain in the time it took to get there.

There is no way I would have guests over and not offer more than water or a coffee!

I think 2 hours probably isn’t long enough to feel that snacks should be offered tbh. I would have offered because I’m a people pleaser but they probably expected you would go through a drive through or grab something on the way home. They clearly haven’t thought that you would actually be going 4 hours without food by the time you left, although I do think lots of people do go four hours between meals so again not that weird. Is the journey normally 2 hours? If I visit my children then 2 hours can pass without any food being offered. Being pregnant they maybe ought to have suggested you go out for lunch together or something though if they didn’t have anything in. I know I sound harsh but why would you want to remain friends with someone that a) lives so far away and b) doesn’t view food as enthusiastically as you do? Just drift apart lol.

I think you are being a bit unreasonable. You went for a 2 hour visit, that was not planned to included lunch. Just a pop in. You got a cup of tea, and though most people would offer cake/biscuit or something with that, it's not guaranteed. I think it was on you to plan to eat before and/or afterwards.

If I messed my food planning and ended up really hungry at a friend's house then I would politely ask for a small simple something to keep me going - a banana, bread, cheese and cracker, crisps, whatever they have! I would do that without making them feel like they had done anything wrong. Because they haven't!

They should've fed you. However, I wouldn't stop visiting because of this alone; I'd just take cake and biscuits next time to share. As this thread shows, some of us like to feed people and others don't. It's unlikely to reflect their feelings about you/how much they like you.

Very poor hosting on their part. Unless someone showed up totally unexpectedly, I'd always serve drinks, biscuits and maybe scones or cake - at the very least! Ideally I'd do lunch or dinner depending on the time.

Tbf it might be better for the OP to stop visiting as it sounds like she expects quite a lot

Poor hosting, no doubt about it.

Very rude to invite you for a stay that was likley shorter that the journey there and back but…. Did you also arrive empty handed? Or did you bring a housewarming gift such as a bottle of wine or flowers? If you arrived with nothing, then they may have simply been returning your energy.

Nothing worse than an entitled person carrying on posting about being treated badly. I agree my sympathy ran dry a bit the more she posted. Especially after she stated she’d never see them again due to this. You’d think they’d given her stale bread and water. Well, the bread would’ve been food! Joke. And then to say she had snacks in her car.

Would you think your pregnant friend who'd had a long drive to come to yours was rude if she asked for a snack?

Honestly can't believe anyone would think that rude and most would feel embarrassed that the friend had to ask rather than just having thought to offer in the first place?

If you think asking for a snack is incredibly rude I don't think youd enjoy my house much 😬