to think that a lot of people seem to neither have an idea of how to be a guest or a host nowadays?

[LadyBiscuit]

At the risk of sounding like a terrible old fogey (but I am one so I may as well embrace it), whatever happened to wanting your guests to enjoy your wedding as much as you do? Or to feel comfortable, not awkward when they are invited to your home?

And since when was it okay to go round to someone's house and dictate to them whether or not the telly is on or off? Do some of you tell people to change the CD because you can't stand Coldplay?

Are we just all so self-absorbed and egotistical nowadays that basic manners don't matter any more?

It makes me very sad and a bit worried because tolerance for people's differences and peculiarities are what makes us an integrated society. Once you decide that your way of doing things is better than everyone else's our multicultural society's a bit fucked

I had an old friend from my childhood come to stay. I've known this woman for 20 years but had never before realised how inconsiderate she is!

She barged into my son's room 'to tell me something' while I was trying to settle him to sleep. She invited a load of her mates round to my house to visit, so I came downstairs from settling Ds1 to find three large men smoking and guffawing in my kitchen (which, considering I was pregnant and have an asthmatic child is devastatingly thoughtless), then when I made hints about the noise levels, the whole lot of them fucked off to the pub (without me, because I was pregnant), and my friend turned back up at 2 am and promptly started frying sausages, set the fire alarm off, and filled the house with smoke (again).

She gave me unprompted and ignorant parenting advice "Just tell him not to touch and he won't!" (Oh yes he will, he did, and still does 5 years on), told me I was wasting my life working as a carer by not pursuing a career whilst trying to raise on child, incubate another and escape from a bad relationship, left her earrings all over the living room floor then whined when my 2 year old picked them up and played with them...

I have NEVER been so glad to see someone leave.

Just remembered that I had a truly lovely lodger once who invited her boyfriend round for dinner. He made some exceedingly rude remarks about her cooking so I turfed him out and told him he could only come back in when the meal was ready! He is happily married now, and so is she, but not to each other...

I am an Old Guffer. An Old Guffer who was always particular about manners despite being a very liberal parent in other areas. Over the years, I have been amazed at how many people would compliment my sons on what I considered to be the basics...saying please and thank you, and politely eating (or at least leaving discreetly) the food offered in other people's houses.

Now these children were far from perfect. In fact they were regularly described as "I expect they can be a bit of a handful". But they were fucking polite! Was it difficult to achieve? No. But you have to want your children to be well mannered and do something about it. Manners rarely arriving by some sort of osmosis.

However, I see appalling rudeness, daily, from people who are allegedly old enough to know far better. The newspaper stand at Waitrose seeming to bring out a particular beastliness.

just to present the opposite view...we had a friend come to stay for a week while he worked in London. he was the PERFECT guest. he cooked, he cleared the table, he swept the kitchen floor ffs, he asked if I minded him putting some washing on and would I like him to do mine as well, he kept dds entertained, he bought wine, when he left he bought us a thoughful - and useful - present (a replacement for a knackered but expensive frying pan), he charmed my mum, I'm sure I could go on...(I could...he's also rather easy on the eye....

I positively wanted to thank him for coming. and his parents for doing such a great job.

ooo have just remembered - he's not exceptional either - I had 2 other house guests for a week who did all of that plus baby-sitting.

none of them are British. not sure if it's relevant or not.

OMG ! your poor Mum.

i see no one's mentioned shoes yet.

i always take my shoes off when i visit someone's house and i'd like it if they'd take their shoes off when they visit me.
I have to say that I will tell people to remove their shose if they don't do so (mainly from my last house which was in the countryside and therefore muddy)

I wouldn't dream of going beyond the hall or porch without removing my shoes.

i hope i'm a good guest: i'm always very polite about food and drink and i tell people that i'm veggie when i accept my invitation (usually very apologetic about it!)

my parents are rude, though, at my house: they act like they expect me to look after them and when i tell them they should help themselves to stuff, they tell me that i should do it because they're guests (obviously have guests more often than are guests, but there you go! )
they don't act like that at anyone else's house, in case you think !

oh no - I didn't mean he charmed my mum. just re-read it and realised it looked like the charming my mum business and the good-looking business were connected. good grief no. he's a genuinely lovely charming man. separately from that it's a long-standing upfront joke among his contemporaries (including me) that he's drop-dead gorgeous. he's the only person I know who gets the piss taken out of him for being lovely looking. and lovely.

I'm not good with convention - having to do something because it is expected. I would much rather friends didn't slave over thank you cards but had a nice relaxing evening instead. I would rather they didn't judge me for not doing them, but so be it. I think I have good manners generally, and try to help out / make rounds of coffee / tidy room before leaving etc. I often strip the beds but am coming to the conclusion most people don't like it. I always wash sheets between guests and can't bear the thought of not. I think its about charm and considerateness for me, not about knowing 'what the right thing is to do'.

YANB at all U!

I want to invite LadyBiscuit for tea and cake - what a lovely lady she is for starting this thread. And I'm sure she'd be very complimentary about my cake and ask for the recipe even when it was clearly only useful for paving slabs.

Ooh I'd love to come for tea and cake GinSlinger I promise to be extremely complimentary about the cake (not least because I only make cakes when there is a birthday and hope that the fact they are in the shape of Thomas the Tank Engine disguises the fact that you could build walls with them)

Webdude I'm the only person in my nephew's life (other than his parents) that has made sure he had a birthday and a Christmas present every year. Everyone else has been a bit hit-n-miss but I have always come through, even though he lives 9 time zones away, and I regularly get him books he genuinely does want.

Miggsie As for the child who listed all the things she didn't like about your dinner, that would have pushed me over the edge. By the third complaint, I would have calmly told her that was what was on offer for dinner and picked up the phone for her parents to come collect her with the very next pipsqueak of a complaint about anything. I'm afraid I'm a bit of an ogre about that sort of thing, because to say nothing (even if she's not invited again) means that you have this horrid little example of rudeness for the rest of the evening for your own children.

Webdude I'm the only person in my nephew's life (other than his parents) that has made sure he had a birthday and a Christmas present every year. Everyone else has been a bit hit-n-miss but I have always come through, even though he lives 9 time zones away, and I regularly get him books he genuinely does want.

Miggsie As for the child who listed all the things she didn't like about your dinner, that would have pushed me over the edge. By the third complaint, I would have calmly told her that was what was on offer for dinner and picked up the phone for her parents to come collect her with the very next pipsqueak of a complaint about anything. I'm afraid I'm a bit of an ogre about that sort of thing, because to say nothing (even if she's not invited again) means that you have this horrid little example of rudeness for the rest of the evening for your own children.

Sorry about the double post, not sure how that happened!

Hear, hear, JareththeGoblinKing (about calling people on their bad behaviour).

I try to get DS to apologise to kids he shoves in the playground , and am really saddened by how frequently the parent replies, "Oh, don't worry/ It's fine." No, it isn't fine for me to end up with a hooligan child who doesn't have to say sorry! A mum friend recently made a point of thanking me for trying to intervene when her children seemed to have come to blows; she said hardly anyone else had ever tried to intervene. That made me sad, and not a little bit cross, as well!

As for the legacy of the Sixties (which I don't believe has been mentioned explicitly yet, proving that we are not that fogeyish!), I think that deference is rightly dead, but respect has been unfairly killed.

killed unfairly (although splitting an infinitive is not exactly rude)

WingedVictory, that's such a good line about respect being unfairly killed that I may have to borrow it and use it often.

We usually have very good guests, to the exeption of one couple of DH childhood friends we were helping out when they were between houses.

We were quite skint at the time and they always managed to find the most expensive food/shampoo to fill the shopping trolley with. Never lifter a finger to help but what really really ennoyed me, was when DS2 who was 2 month at the time was crying I would get (each and ever time) "Is he hungry?" "Is he cold" "Is he tired" "DO you think he needs changing?"GRRR, that and "the phone is ringing!" as the first ring I felt like saying "I can hear that, just cannot drop everything or spend the day sitting near the phone to answer as soon as it rings!"Saddly I never had the guts to do so.

This is a bit different but because I love that story I will say it anyway. It was when DH was a student(not long after I arrived in England so a cultural shock to me) We were living in the campus in acomodations for students with a family just after DD1 was born. We lived down stairs and another couple lived upstairs but to go to their flat, they had to go though ours(very practical!)

After a few weeks we were there we became quite friendly with the upstairs couple. THey found out she was expecting a baby and decided to get married. They asked us if they could cross our kitchen and use the common back garden as their reception place. "no problem" I say. Then I am asked, "do you mind if we use your oven as well?" "no,Please do!" On the day I decide to go out for a walk with DD1 to not be in the way. I come back 2 hours later, There are people in my toilets, children bouncing on my bed an other children watching tv in my livingroom. A few gests are reheating stuff in my kitchen and I am welcommed as "the stange woman who just gate crashed their friends/family menber wedding reception".

I sent all the children out and waited for the person in the toilet to come out and let them know they are in MY toilets (the situation made me feel quit possessive of them somehow!)

After a bit I feeel bad I told the children off and offer them ice lolies. To make sure that the parents would be ok I asked on of the guests still in my kichen if he could ask the parents on my behalf and get the answer " just give them the ice lolly, I do not think their parents will care!" Not a "oh thats nice!" or a "than you!" in sight.

I was sooo pleased when they all eventually left!

gorionine, that is an appalling story, but given the way so much of our housing is made (chopped up original structures), probably not uncommon! The Russian/Soviet writer Bulgakov got a lot of material about the conflict and drama arising out of the housing situation (mass urbanisation = several families to a flat): people informing on their neighbours to get more space, trumping up charges against non-neighbours to get more space, blackmailing to keep more space.... Stories like yours make me certain that housing is really a moral issue in this country, too!

I am a terrible guest as I'm so tired/ill a lot of the time so cannot help round the house.

I obviate this by turning up with a tray of brownies everywhere I go.

As to children not liking the food..I can cope with that, but not the systematic criticism I got.

My uncle used to sit and pick all the raisins out of my mum's "speciality rice" dish. This used to drive her bonkers as she had already made sure his portion did not contain nuts, as he "didn't like bits between his teeth". Other than that, he was lovely.

However, the dinner guest who sat at the table and said "of course, I can never invite you round to my house for dinner because I don't cook as well as you" made me a bit .

Miggsie, you have made an effort with the brownies, and it sounds like you cook well, too, so you are performing the traditional politenesses of a guest and host. It is modern politeness to help out before/after supper/ with beds/etc., but not traditional, so you're probably not as dreadful a guest as you think!

Being a good guest/host can also be as simple as making an effort to be amusing, charming, a good listener - basically a pleasure to be with. This knocks out the argument of your dinner guest who made out it was all about the cooking. It's not: it's about the occasion and enjoying one another's company, even over a bought-in pizza.

Another Old Fogey here!

I agree - but I think it's part of the general decline in manners (consideration for others, not fussy etiquette, which is different) and social skills.

Also, I get the impression having people over for meals is not done so much by younger people - they tend to go out to eat. We've never been able to afford to eat out much, and my circle of friends tend to invite each other for meals.

The essence of being a host is to make your guests comfortable and relaxed and the essence of being a guest it to show appreciation and offer a bit of help where appropriate.

Sometimes cultures clash (eg the sort of people who do things so differently that it's no fun for either guest or host) but we only make that mistake once!!! You end up socialising with pleasant people whose company you enjoy and weed out the difficult, rude or hard-work ones.

ZOMBIE ALERT this thread is 13 years old!!