Dinner Party hell

[dinnerpartyhell]

Please tell me what I am doing wrong.

It is customary where we live for friends to have lots of dinner parties, these range from silver service formal dinners all the way through to a relaxed buffet style supper.

I absolutely detest them, I hate hosting them with the two days of cleaning, cooking and preparing. The nerves that it will all go wrong (I am no Nigella) the endless inane conversations with people I barely know or care about. I try to talk to more interesting people, but after a few hours I have had enough even with the most sparkling character.

I don't even like going to other people's houses where it is the same in reverse. I like seeing my closer friends, but this all adds a layer stress/formality that is not normally present when we see each other day to day.

Please tell me why you enjoy them? (if you do) and what I can do to enjoy them more. I would have no friends if I opted out, as everyone has them. I wish I could enjoy them more, but I really don't. I dread them now, and it has got worse as time has gone on, not better. Everyone seems to go out every single weekend, and we are knackered from working long hours and caring for dc. How do you have energy to do this? After another weekend, I am exhausted today and really ready to throw in the towel and move to a desert island.

Maybe all the others feel the same way as you do but are just waiting for someone to have the courage to break the cycle. Be that person ... you may find your “friends” will thank you.

Op sorry but why are you worried about what these people think? Just do something that makes you happy you only get one life x

hilarious thread!!

They aren’t for everyone, if you don’t like them don’t participate. Life is too short to do shit that doesn’t make you feel good.

Honestly, OP. Say it’s a murder mystery dinner next time, and just kill them all. Life in a high-security prison will be much more fun than five-course silver service, vomiting dogs and droning guests, and wrecked lace-edged hand towels.

Op I'm getting worried about you and your raclette set. We did a fondu back in the day and the hostess was still finding cheese around the house weeks after the event.

You'll also need a specialist shop to get the right cheese, you can't stick any old block of cheddar on it.

Despite being the grand age of 44, and someone who sees rose petals as litter on my lawns, so has spent an hour collecting the wretched things. It has come to light that I may need to move to a place that is served by uber eats, or deliveroo or some such thing. I may even then acquire the kind of friends that like to cackle into the night unhindered by courses, with no washing up, and then I don't need to ruin my raclette evening with the wrong type of cheese! The wretched thing arrived this morning, and literally has a million and one small parts. Who the hell suggested this?????
It will take me ten years to work out how to turn it on. Not unlike my soup maker still unused in the cat's boudoir.

I like the look of a raclette! I could buy one and put it in its box in the spare room with the Pressure King Pro, slow cooker, Ready Steady Cook blender, coffee makers and various vacuum cleaners. They are feeling bored with eachother and could do with some new blood :-).

I don't know. Anyone who comes round gets sandwiches and cake. I don't do lunch or dinner any more.
I think over-catering is mad. I recently went to lunch and the poor woman had gone completely mad with the performance-cookery. There was a thing that was a salad in the form of a tower and then everyone started going on about designer cheese which had maggots swimming in it and how faaaaabbbuuullloousss Moroccan food is and its all they ever eat at home.
The food was amazingly clever but all messed about with mayo and cream so I felt very sick after two mouthfuls.
My friend said she liked dairylea and processed squares just to be passive aggressive and I got the giggles.
I actually caught flu too from the hostess who clearly should have cancelled. Bollocks to food crappery!

Just order Dominos. Job done. Break the cycle.

dinnerpartyhell when I was in my 30s I could have written your post! Then I hit that age where I no longer felt obliged to do stuff I didn't want to do and just....stopped. I see many friends on a one-to-one basis and don't miss the dinner party circuit at all

Have all the china, crystal, cutlery sitting forlornly in a cupboard. Nowadays we all think it too much faff most of the time so either book a table at a nice restaurant or have a much more informal get together with everyone bringing a dish of their own.

Why not suggest a round robin supper, you only have to worry about one course each and get to move around a bit.

recipes.howstuffworks.com/menus/how-to-throw-a-progressive-dinner-party1.htm

Be single, then you never get invited to dinner parties.

Gosh, I love few things more than having a group of friends for dinner. We do it, and go to friends, a LOT.

I might enjoy it more because I cook only the puddings and my dh does everything else.

Ours are informal with loads of booze, great food and laughter.

Yours sound bloody awful OP, like an unfunny sitcom. You need new friends.

We once went to a ‘progressive dinner’ in the US. Each course was at a different house.

It was awful and the antithesis of relaxing. We still laugh about it now.

Life is short (cliche but true). Only go to another dreaded DP if, on your deathbed, you imagine you'll say "I wish I'd gone to more dinner parties....." If not, assess what you want from life, how you can change things to accommodate that, and prioritise accordingly.

As bad as this sounds, in your situation I would probably get more drunk myself and then the boring people wouldn’t annoy me so much. I realise this isn’t a grown up solution but it might be more fun.

Cautionary tale Re: Raclette. My friend had a dinner party and about 5 mins before everyone sat down, DDog decided it smelled delicious and bounded on the table and scarfed as much as possible (amid lots of shrieking and growling - not sure who was worst, her or DDog?). Given your DDogs previous expulsions, perhaps arrange a secure room before melting begins. 😬

Could you start a new trend by asking friends round for morning coffee or afternoon tea instead (weekends)? Just a thought, but if you hate them you hate them. I can't imagine that you are the only one who finds them stressful.

I choose recipes that can all be prepared in advance and are very simple. So no stress using the few ingredients and very little work, especially on the night itself.

We once went to a ‘progressive dinner’ in the US. Each course was at a different house.

They are called safari suppers in the UK

I would nt do this, no one is forcing you. I don't do anything I don't want to do socially and my life is so much better for it! I would n't care about having no friends if this was the lengths I had to go to to keep them!!

This conversation has probably massively moved on from what I've read on the first page, but a lot of what you stated resonated with me. We did them once when our children were young, late 20s and early 30s now. I'd be shopping for ingredients the day before and the chopping, mixing, marinading or whatever prep to be done and actual cooking on the day, occasionally puddings were made a day or couple of days in advance. My husband would clean the house like a maniac from top to bottom, (not really necessary to do the whole house) by the time the guests arrived at 8ish we'd both be frazzled and really wanted to tell them to f**k off. We probably enjoyed it once it got going, often they stayed till the early hours of the morning, by which time I'd have been ready for bed a couple of hours before, sometimes they would be as late as 3am I remember really wanting them to go around midnight. We'd be woken up the next day by the kids, worse for wear and go down to the dining room where every piece of china and glass we owned were strewn across the dining room table where they'd been left. Then the big clear up would then begin, more hours devoted to what became an all too tedious event. Suffice to say we don't do them any more, few people we know do them, if they do, they'll wait till hell freezes over before they get a return invite from us these days. Apart from Christmas, informal Sunday lunches, mainly with families is about the extent of our entertaining these days. Your circle will eventually tire of it too OP.

Sounds as if you move in rarified circles. I've nit been to a dinner party since about 1997, so can't really advise. Would it affect you adversely if you dropped out of thr dinner party scene?

They are not your friends, True friends will stick by you no matter what, It all sounds very keeping up with the Jones, very stepford wifes kinda thing, Or those Scientology folks that once you leave you're a non person you no longer exist ugg, Lifes to short to feel you have to do things to please others or you're Banish into the ether , Look what's happened to your friend who decided enough is enough, Don't put yourself through it do what suits you, Say no! I'm sure you're not the only one pretending to enjoy these gatherings of disrespectful people puking up on your towels and throwing cigarette butts in your garden, Take a DEEP Breath be brave and move on from these judging people, Its their loss and your gain ,I know I've been there done that and boy does it feel good to be free of all that shite, Now I choose what I want to do when I want to do it and with the people I care about the most in life,I wish you well OP x