AIBU to be annoyed guests announced vegan diets on arrival?

[Wtafdidido]

Wtafdidido · Today 11:27
I have guests. They have stayed before. No dietary requirements and no food dislikes. To accommodate them my child has to vacate her bedroom and spend the week on an airbed in our room which she very kindly does. Anyway guests have arrived and I have shopped, meal planned and prepared lunch, homemade quiche etc . They have now said “since we last visited we have both become vegetarian and dairy free as it is healthier” - so basically vegan. I am so annoyed. Had I been given the heads up I could have prepared and shopped accordingly . Aibu to be hacked off and have said that given their failure to let me know I won’t be able to accommodate that but can use what I have bought and minimise the amount of meat or they can shop for their own supplies and cook for us all? To be clear had I known in advance I would have accommodated their dietary fads. To be clear there is no medical grounds for any of this. They were already getting a week of free food and board and as we live in a very desirable holiday location would have been paying in the region of £800 to book an air BnB. They are not really family either and have in the past been ok guests though last time they were bemused I had not taken A week off to entertain them and take them places.

We are all cross for you, because real friends would pitch up with bags of food ready to look after YOU for the week, given you have cancer! They might offer to help with the garden, or take dd out, do stuff that needed to be done around the house. The whole point of friendship is to be a decent mate when your friends are experiencing health problems or other life events. It is utterly unthinkable that they are adding to your load like this.

They are unreasonable not to have told you of course.
But you're unreasonable hosting people you resent and who are not really welcome.
Your two options are also unreasonable. People who don't eat meat don't eat 'minimal meat' and I cant see why you think wasting all the food you bought to have them buy and cook more for sll of you is a good idea.
Surely the reasonable options are, this is what I'm cooking. You can have the elements that don't contain meat and dairy, or I'm happy for to use the kitchen to prepare stuff for yourselves if you want to pop to Tesco.

Wow OP. So you’re having cancer treatment as well and they still thought it was okay to expect to be hosted you for a whole week? That’s too much even without their thoughtlessness about springing the veganism on you and then making a face at being told they will need to do a shop. They sound awful to be honest. Please don’t spend a week running around after them.

Goodness me, they're treating you like a bed & breakfast! Have they brought some special food/presents/ treats for you all? Or even wine ...

They're not just thoughtless. They sound like entitled users ... the staying with you is one thing, but you funding their meals for their holiday, too? Fuck no!

This! With bells on. Jesus who turns up for a week expecting to be waited on by someone having cancer treatment, let alone the vegan bombshell. They sound like unmitigated arseholes.

Im sorry to hear you’re not well OP. I wish you all the very best. I’d nip round with a home made meal for you if I knew where you live. Take care

I'd do this.

I have to say, as a vegetarian for over 35 years, I have occasionally forgotten to tell a host that I'm veggie. But I've always been very apologetic with no expectation that they then do extra cooking.

I just hope they don't go shopping and then present OP with the bill.

It has been known.

Don’t minimise this OP! You’re starting to believe you’re the unreasonable one. You’ve done absolutely the right thing. If it comes up again you need to repeat what you’ve said here, that you would have happily accommodated them but you didnt know and you can’t afford to re stock. They can buy supplementary items. Don’t forget you’re already saving them a ton. Just because you feel you might need them in the future doesn’t mean you should allow them to walk all over you.

Yep, you did the right thing.

"Oh, I wish you'd told me that before you came, I've already done the shopping and planned our meals. Unfortunately, I haven't accounted for your new diet, but you're more than welcome to use what you like in the kitchen, and there's a shop nearby where you can get whatever else you might need".

If they don't like it, they're also welcome to go back home, or stay in a hotel.

So make this the last time they visit. It doesn’t sound like you get much out of this apart from a lot of hard work.

You are not being unreasonable at all. I think you saying as you didn’t tell me this is what I have planned feel free to buy things that suit your diet is sensible.
Please don’t stress about pandering to them.
I’d be very matter of fact. I’m doing quiche and salad for lunch. Take it or leave it.

Op does say they are guests rather than friends so if doesn’t sound like it’s what we think a conventional friendship should be like.

YANBU- they definitely should have let you know in advance of such a big change to their diets before you spent money on food. I would be annoyed too. I would see the onus as being on me to say if I had a new dietary requirement .

You had every right to be annoyed at their total lack of thought, care and consideration OP, and that’s without your health predicament adding further stress.

I would have told them that you and DD will continue ahead with your own food plan for the week and freeze their portions to avoid food waste. And that they should feel free to eat out without you as your budget doesn’t stretch that far, or they could shop for their own food and cook it for themselves in your kitchen which you will ensure will be clean and ready for them to use as from 6pm every evening. Please could they let you know now, what they prefer for each evening so that you can plan ahead to conserve energy for your recovery.

You are very kind and generous to host them x

this.

I was about to say the same. Don't rely on them, don't excuse them.

Tell them to sort their own food out

Yeah, I came to say this. Not sure you can count on these people to step up when you need them to.

OP, I've read the thread including your later reply and have picked up the implications within it. You're not overreacting at all. They are hugely, hugely inconsiderate guests. We adopted my child 2 years ago so we were old before we became parents and that is absolutely no excuse for their behaviour, which has nothing to do with parenthood or anything else.

They should be offering to take you to eat, quite frankly, let alone being 'surprised' you've suggested the mess they've created by not warning you in advance of their dietary needs change.

For context: I am a keen host and lots of friends and family live away, and I also grew up in Cornwall and most summers when I was a child, we'd have people coming to stay with us on the basis you say - saving money on hotels, basically! My mum is a keen cook and hostess (where I get it from) so generally, like you, she enjoyed the visitors and even if she couldn't take any or much time off work, would still cater for them just a you have. Universally the visitors would a) turn up with food and/or drink and b) take us out for dinner at least once. Memorably one set of visitors, the wife was coeliac in 1988, a time when you could barely get a diagnosis let alone buy gluten free stuff. My mum and I catered for her, even cooking gluten free Cornish pasties (a living nightmare with the limited gluten free flour available at the time). Neither of us would've been happy doing so had they sprung the ceoliac diagnosis on us at the last minute!

You are not unreasonable, they are. I can see you want to maintain the relationship for your daughter's sake in the future and I'm really sorry that seems to be so important due to your circumstances. So - bite your lip as you are but do not at any point think you're being unreasonable! they are CFs!

Exactly this.

“though last time they were bemused I had not taken A week off to entertain them and take them places.”

Then why on earth have you agreed to them staying again?

Anyway Yanbu, if you have specific dietary requirements and hosts are catering for you then you absolutely must let them know well in advance.
I’d just say “well I’ve made quiche for dinner tonight, would you like that or did you want to arrange something else for yourselves?”

Try reading OP's posts. The guests are her daughter's godparents, her daughter likes them. Op is undergoing treatment for cancer and is hoping the godparents will be there for her daughter in the not too distant future.

They’re not vegan.
But not to discuss their dietary choices with you before is not acceptable.

exactly! in which case they are free to do just that, air bnb whatever,
as if they are buying and cooking their own food they may as well !