getting cheesed off with friends and their funny ways

[Moomin]

Dh's best friend is a lovely bloke, godfather to our eldest, was best man at our wedding and he and dh think the world of one another.

We like having friends round and throwing parties and are generally very sociable. This couple are invited and come to most parties or nights that we organise and we all have a lovely time. EXCEPT... we have NEVER bee invited to theirs for an evening, not a meal, not a joint takeaway night (sharing cost), not even drink and crisps or anything like that. Even if we go for an afternoon the hospitality stops at a coffee. Once we were offered a biscuit! One day when dh took dd1 round do he and his bf could watch some football, dh had to go to the local bakery to buy dd1 a pastie as she was so hungry (I did warn him to take a sandwich but he thought i was being ridiculous!).

The wife of another couple we know has joked about this to me - they too have always been very good hosts to us all and have spotted that it's never reciprocated. We've worked out that the gf of dh's bf is a 'nervy' type and i think would feel a lot of pressure having anyone over for a meal or anything but still, it's starting to get on my nerves a bit.

And there's another aspect too: We threw a bbq on the day of england's 1st match and everyone brought a banger and a bottle. we all had a great time but then dh saw his bf taking the meat he'd brought back home with him after the party as it hadn't been eaten!! He's done this before at bbq's and we think it's hilarious, of a bit strange. He'll do this with wine as welleither take the bottle home with him or try to neck it at the end of the night!!

In other ways they are a super couple - they are also very generous with presents on the dds' b'days and christmas (too generous really, they spend about £30 on each) and he would do anything for dh. Now dh has suggested we see them on sunday for the next england match. when he mentioned it to his bf, he immediately said they would come over to ours, which i think it's a bit cheeky given the entertaining we've done recently, but i know if we go to theirs we';ll need to take a 'picnic' as they won't offer to feed us.
am i being unreasonable in feeling pissed off now? i've told dh i can't bothered going there and i don't want to entertain here (esp as we're skint). I just don't think they have any idea how much it costs to entertain and so it isn't a big deal to them.

I haven't invited my in-laws round for lunch/dinner etc for about 5 years now. I got pissed off with never being invited back.

It was fair enough when they first moved to the area and lived in a tiny rented bungalow while their new house was being built. Daft thing is, MiL made such a big deal over getting a big new house with massive kitchen and dining room! Dining room has NEVER been used to my knowledge... not once.

They were always happy to come to me though, in my tiny little cottage full of kids, toys and mess. My kitchen barely has room to swing a cat, but I managed to produce some fab meals for them. Forked out for posh bloody vino too for FiL (wine buff) even when we were pretty skint.

It was always 'you must come over to us for dinner and stay over so you can drink, but the house isnt quite right yet, so maybe sometime in the future...' Excuses excuses. Still never been and the house has been in showroom condition since they moved in about 6 years ago now.

I put it down to MiL is terrified of my kids making a mess, or somebody spilling wine on carpet... anything like that. I've been watching her and I reckon she has a phobia or some other mental problems. Weird.

If we call round when passing and sit for a cup of tea for an hour, MiL will say something like 'oh you'd better be getting off home. Look at the time, your kids are getting hungry'.

Yeah, taking away uneated food etc is weird. But then, they buy expensive gifts for the kids. So maybe it's just that they don't know that taking away uneaten food is not polite?

(I have had people come over for events, and wish they'd taken away uneaten things. I hate to throw food or drink away, but have no actual use for giant unopened bottles of fizzy pop etc.)

it's one thing the hosts insisting you take uneaten food home, though, and another shovelling food into a barrier bag at the end of a party! I'm of the opinion he really doesn't know that this is seen as impolite.

there is no way we would sacrifice this friendship over something like this - however weird they seem over this issue, the other aspects in our relationship are fine and, as i said before, he and dh think the world of each other, despite what it might seem from dh's bf's actions sometimes!

anyway, he's just rung about this afty while dh was at the shop and he has said that he can't go to the pub as their ds2 is a bit poorly but we can come to theirs!!!!! no mention of food though. i said dh would ring him back in a bit.

so what i think is that dh when rings him to give definitive answer and, if we decide to go after all, he should ask if they want us to bring anything..... and then we'll see what he says. I'm almost positive we'll be getting some food to take. but then part of me thinks that's actually ok - if it were any of my other friends i'd do the same. so what's my problem???!!!! oh yes i remember - it was the assumption they'd come to us. it's definitely not worth falling out with them. dh has said that he thinks he'll bring something up when they next go out and get a bit drunk, along the lines of 'do we smell?'

let us know how it goes.

how about you don't take round food (do they bring food to yours???) and when it gets to dinner time, stretch and say 'i'm starving! i don't suppose you have any food do you?'. and if she says no, suggest takeouts. repeat this every weekend for the next 4 months.

this is priceless! dh rang him a little while ago and said 'we'll come over to you but it's around tea-time so we wondered if you wanted us to bring anything.'
bf: like what?
dh: like... food?
PAUSE
dh (quite bravely i thought): 'well if there's food on then fine, but if not we'll stay here and feed ourselves.'
[i wad biting on my fist at this point with embarrassment]
bf: well, we haven't any food in but we were going to asda soon. i suppose we could get some stuff...... what exactly would you want to eat?'
dh: well i dunno. nothing special!
bf: well would crisps and stuff like that be ok?
dh: lovely. we'll bring some beers. see you later

PMSL at 'well what exactly would you want to eat?'

It's getting weirder and weirder.
lol lol

ha ha, maybe they are just a bit weird? It is strange! Jimjams, I absolutely wouldn't stop seeing someone because they weren't on any dinner party circuit thing, I think this sounds a bit different.

So Moomin, we are all dying to know, what happened when you went round to theirs?

I bet there was one bag of crisps per person.

well........ they are now rid of their hosting virginity!!

we had a lovely time - we took some crisps and beer but when we got there they said 'oo you won't need those (crisps) we've got plenty'!! we had a variety of crips and dips for the 1st half, warm quiche and salad during half time and then lemon tart for pud!!! we had a great time and they seemed very pleased with themselves for being able to host without it going wrong or being stressful i think. Dh was soo happy! he thinks this has maybe started something off for them and now they realise it's no big deal maybe they'll be more forthcoming from now on.

btw our crisps weren't eaten but we left them there! it remains to be seen whether food or drink will be taken home by them next time we do the hosting... but, one step at a time! hurrah!

Sounds like things may be changing

Deffo brill that you got to go there and have a good time AND some food !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

gobsmacked!

glad it's getting sorted out.

Moomin,we await the next installment.
You have obviously cured their phobia!!

hatwoman- a casserole is one thing (we live on them in the winter), a naked 7 year old shrieking upstairs until 10pm is another, even better when he streaks through the house or appears next to the dinner table, or one of us has to leave the table to clean up the poo on the floor. If my mum is free we'll happily go out for a meal leaving granny and grandad to babysit, but nope I do not host dinner parties.

Taking stuff home is weird, although I used to go to someone's house, take a nice bottle of wine which he would stash and bring out the cheapo. So I started taking cheapo.

at a 7 year old pooing on the floor!!!

He's severely autistic.

Ah I see. All makes sense now.

If people invite us out for a meal at theirs then I don't really discuss with them why we don't invite them back (which was the relevance to this thread intially- ie maybe the couple just found it too hard for whatever reason). Apart from my mum and dad we have occasionally had very close friends over for a take away (which we pay for), but we would never for example have a work colleague, but we'd also never bother to explain to a work colleague why we weren't inviting them.

In this case it sounds a bit like a severe case of gormlessness anyway so hopefully will happen more often.

jimjams - didn;t realise there was more to it than not being able to start cooking til 8. I can see why you might decide it's considerably more hassle than it's worth. . casserole or not. Moomin - sounds like today was great. It does seem like they had a big mental block and just got it into their heads that they couldn't do it. you've got them to prove otherwise. Maybe one day you'll be able to tell them how your friends on mn were intrigued by the story. Or maybe not.

er... probably not!

jimjams - i'm reminded of a time when i had just left college and on the spur of the moment decided to call in on a friend when i was in his area. we'd been very good mates at college but although he'd visited my home town he'd i'd never been to his. he'd told me that both his younger brother and sister were autistic so home was very difficult for having guests, but it meant very little to me back then.

i never even gave it a thought when i decided to call in. he looked panic-striken when i appeared at the door. his brother shot off upstairs and my friend took me to a caravan they had at the bottom of the garden to drink our tea that his mum made for us. this apparently was the only place his sister wouldn't go as she had a fear of being inside it. we sat drinking our tea with her running up and battering herself against the door, beside herself because she couldn't get to him with me obviously shocked and him trying his best to ignore it all. he was clearly mortified and i remember feeling that i'd intruded into a world he hadn't wanted me to see

don't know where that extra he'd came from!

I've been thinking of putting a yurt in the garden Seriously though, there are some people it's easy to have over and others that it's just difficult, really it depends on how used they are to ds1, and how fazed they are by nudity and screeching. I did a lunch for a shcool mini reunion plus families recently. It was fine, but also a little difficult because ds1 kept stripping off and I hadn't seen some people for years. He's 7 now, and it's just getting to the stage where it can be embarrassing.

I do worry about ds2 and ds3 having friend's over when they are older- I think it will be difficult for them, and is one reason why I am quite strict with ds1 about clothes (not that it stops him stripping off, but he does know he has to get dressed again). I can't really see us doing sleepovers unless we can organise some form of respite.