To not want to go out to dinner on a week night?

[Anna8888]

We get endless invitations to dinner parties on a week night. While we manage to fend many of them off, some people are so persistent that we end up having to accept. I don't want to go out at 8.15 pm, eat dinner between 9.30 and 11 pm and not get to bed until half past midnight on a week night when we have to get up for work/school at 7 am. It KILLS me, and the dinners are unbelievably tedious.

AIBU?

I think there is something very sad about this thread.

The OP has put two questions but neither of them is the real question.

AIBU to not want to go out to dinner on a week night? But her real question is AIBU not to want to spend time with my DP's elderly, dull (yet ushockable) friends and relations from his past?

I want to approach a celebrity father but can't, how can I? But her real question - nothing to do with celebrity at all - is I feel I cannot speak to a father at school because I am worried that it will be considered a breach of etiquette.

It seems to me that you need to address some fundamental issues. Is your DP a little bit controlling? Are you insecure about his previous life? You say his ex-wife is out and about all the time, are you worried you do not measure up? I suspect if your DP asked you out to dinner on a weeknight you would happily go, and that if the leopardskinned, boob-jobbed timetable-analysers asked you at the weekend, you would not want to go. Are you worried about fitting in as an English person (trying not to appear English) in France? Why are you so obsessive about what the correct etiquette is - trust me, the French people you know do know you are English and will make allowances.

Try to relax a little bit. People will accept you for yourself, you know, and you need not live such a constrained and self-monitored life. Try to enjoy yourself.

yeah

Paris sounds shit.

Paris isn't shit. It's an exciting and vibrant place to live (sometimes wish I was still there). I think it's Anna's view of Paris and how to live there that is shit. She seems almost immobilised by perceived constraints, constraints which certainly didn't seem to exist when I was there.

This is a dreadful representation of Paris all right. OP's DP has a dreadful circle of friends and he's evidently being sod all use if the OP thinks she has to live like this .

I personally long to go to one of the dinner parties of unshockable elderly ladies texting their lovers under the tablecloth while politely discussing train timetables with English matrons above board.

Anna is your dh a vieil homme?

I wonder if he's much older than you.

Come on Anna, spill the legumes.

To speak to another human or not....quite the conundrum.

Fabio, Paris has many, many rats. Just hang out near the river near the Eiffel Tower and you will have many happy hunting hours.

vieux homme

On utilise vieil devant une voyelle ou un h muet.

Un vieil homme

mais

Un homme vieux

Show-off? Moi?? Jamais.

Fort Boyard

Sorry- I'm with Anna, Parisian society is horrible to live in. You are constantly judged, it makes life uncomfortable- and I certainly wasn't moving in the circles Anna is.
I was so sick of the place, and am so glad we have now sold our appartement and I never have to go back there if I choose not to.

Sorry- don't have anything witty to contribute I'm afraid, just bitter experience.

I have the solution - move to the left bank

We'd move to the Left Bank like a shot - but we for the time being we need to stay living here as we are only 5 minutes away from the DSS's mother in Neuilly.

ILikeToMarmite... - you are being a bit silly here. This thread is about what is a very occasional problem (read my OP title) of my DP's old/family life being annoying and painful (and he is more annoyed than me about it generally - since it is closer to the bone IYSWIM). We spend 99% of our time and life doing exactly what we please with whom we please.

Oh and also very patronising. Why on earth are you so sure that everyone knows I'm English, for example?

My DP and I are the same age, btw - there is only a year between us.

I just Wikipedia'd the [possible) sleb, and he sounds like the French equivalent to Noel Edmonds tbh.

But sans flame haired wife.

For Anna8888

PMSL at "Goodness, foreigners talk about the British having a class system, but, the way you talk, there are more strata to French society than a mille feuille. "