Bad Manners and Brimstone

But not, apparently, in Spain.
More than a decade ago now, when DH and I were active in organising British/Spanish reenactment events, a party of the Spanish reenactors who we were friends with let us know they were visiting England to see an international military model fair. We couldn't take the day off to join them there, but as we live only about a dozen miles off the route they would be taking back to their hotel in London, we invited them to come to our place after the fair, and we'd invite some British re-enactors who they knew, and give everyone a proper 18th-century dinner in our 18th-century house. So on the day there I was checking on my pies, basting the leg of mutton and whipping syllabubs, with the table laid for twelve with beeswax candles and all our best reproduction Georgian china and glass - when the British guests arrived from the fair alone, saying 'The Spanish aren't coming - M's wife felt a bit tired, so they decided to go straight back to London'.

We heard later that when they got back to Spain they told a mutual friend, an Englishman who teaches in their city, all about their trip and said that they hadn't gone to our big dinner he fairly hit the roof: "Don't you realise what you've done? When you've accepted a dinner invitation in Britain YOU SHOW UP! You've committed about the biggest social crime there is!" And they were aghast; they had had absolutely no idea. (It's also true that in Spain, just as in the county jazzgirl205 mentions, people don't tend to entertain at home. We had some really good friends in Spain but they always invited us to bars or restaurants; we were only invited inside somebody's home once, and that was because he wanted to show us his militaria collection, which obviously he couldn't do anywhere else.)

That's the Dons for you: four and a half centuries ago, having undertaken to invade us -- even then, they failed to make good on their intentions .

To SnappyLT

I hope I didn't offend with my post: your initial post states that your relative is female, which I picked up from the start -- I wasn't sure about your own gender (if that is indicated in your post, I missed it).  I was just unable to resist remarking how, in general discourse in very many places in these times: this is a matter on which it is opined with great frequency that "in the main here -- men tend to do / be A; women, B",

Real writing is work. Taking a typewriter to a coffee shop is showing off. Real writers work, they don't show off.

Off at rather a tangent here: but this post reminds me of a recent exchange on another message board, about the author James A. Michener.  There was quoted, a man who had served with Michener in the U.S. Navy in World War II.  He was asked, what was Michener like "in normal life": replied that he didn't really know -- the guy hardly spoke to anyone: "any free time we got, he was off in his own world, 'glued to' his wretched typewriter". One could sort-of say that J.A.M. was doing both -- of course, three-quarters of a century ago the only typewriters were (I think) manual ones...

Is Mary related to Sheldon Cooper of The Big Bang Theory, by any chance?

I recall that that poster on the old board came across as a sweet person; but her life appeared to be beset with quite a lot of dilemmas and rather painful situations, some of which did seem to be of her own making.

I'm coming around to reckoning that it is on the whole a trait of humans (with individual exceptions, of course) that they don't do well with adjusting themselves to accommodating other people's procedures / schedules when those are different from their own; especially when such procedures / schedules can be perceived as pettily complicated and finicking. This trait may make folk liable to appear to set at naught, aspects of life such as consideration and politeness, which should get a look-in -- but maybe, for better or worse, that's how people are.  lowspark, I agree, it comes down to priorities; and to compromising, or not -- re the latter, often it's "not", and friendships suffer accordingly.

As per my most recent post: my friends' phoning issues maybe don't really belong on a board concerned with etiquette -- with their situation there being an  "irresistible force and immovable object" one; and both  of them stubborn so-and-so's.  (Just, things about "who pays for the call?" brought them to mind.)  So far as I know, the dynamic didn't include phone calls being initiated by my friends, to those whom I'll call the "dinner-interrupters".  They were, as mentioned, essentially the wife's chums -- my friend, the husband, really just kind-of "suffered" them.  With his loathing of disbursing a single penny which he doesn't have to: I see him not being in favour of "his household" being the ones to pick up the phone and call them, in any circumstances.

My here-mentioned friend has, honestly -- believe it or not -- many good qualities.  It has to be admitted, though, that he is in the American expression (we're British), the ultimate "tightwad" -- sometimes to the point that one has disquieting thoughts about his sanity, or otherwise...

This is prompted by the thread "Do you answer calls when...?" . 

I remember from the old Etiquette Hell board, on which I spent some time back then; an issue which a poster there had, to do with a particular quirk of hers about her communicating by modern means. I forget the details of the situation, and what exact mix it was of phone, text, e-mail, other things, or "some thereof"; but there were factors in her life which meant that it was in her view difficult / inconvenient for her to communicate with friends / contacts via the whole of the same process which most of her circle routinely used.  There were circumstances which quite frequently obtained, in which she desired her contacts to, with her, depart from their normal communication routine and do things her way.  She felt somewhat peeved that often, they forgot to observe this special deal for her; or just simply did not observe it: whereby she repeatedly missed out on information about things in which she would have liked to take part.

A thread of some length, grew out of this; with varying degrees of sympathy or otherwise, for the then OP. It was generally agreed that her source of difficulty as explained, was a real one; but IIRC, something of a majority of posters considered that she was not being totally reasonable or considerate, in having these expectations of a whole bunch of people. It was felt that folk have anyway, a lot to keep track of in their lives: seen as less-than-reasonable of the "odd person out" to think that she should, as a matter of course, be remembered and accommodated in this fashion; plus the possibility of there being in the circle, more than one such "odd person out", each with their different way of needing to be accommodated.  There was a certain sentiment that in her expectations and attitude over this, the OP was being a bit special-snowflaky.

There comes to my mind a matter spoken of to me years ago, by a friend of mine.  It concerned friends or relations of his wife's, who lived some distance away: his wife and these folks quite often communicated by phone, to chat and catch up. These phone conversations were generally in the evening.  My friend and wife habitually had their evening meal quite late; the other people habitually ate early, and always seemed to choose to phone friend-and-wife, just when they were about to have supper.  What happened for a while, was that wife would tell them that she and husband were about to eat, and she'd call them back when they'd finished eating; this was duly done.

My friend is a great guy in many ways -- but he is extremely averse to parting with money; and is not the most charitable person on the planet.  It irked him that this routine which there had come to be -- the people called, were told "we're about to eat", phone was hung up, wife phoned them later: meant, what with the usual great length of the phone conversation -- an hour at the very least -- that friend-and-wife's phone bill was significantly swelled by these calls; and the sequence of things meant that it was always friend-and-wife who took the financial "hit" for the calls.  He came to insist on, and enforce, the following: when these people called thus, just before supper -- they put the food to keep warm in the oven, and wife and her friends had their phone chat, nor matter how long it took; friend-and-wife postponed eating until the phone call was done -- so that now it was the "early-eaters" who were paying for the call.  My friend opined to me, that the "early-eaters" were being at the least thoughtlessly selfish, in making their phone call at a time convenient for them -- after their early supper -- ignoring the inconvenience in one way or another, which by doing thus, they were visiting on friend-and-wife. (It's not clear whether, or to what extent, the "early-eaters" were aware of the late-eaters' habitual feeding time.)

I just find it something to ponder over: in life's many situations where such things come into play -- where do the shadings fall, as regards "rude / inconsiderate / entitled"; or "considerate"; or having reasonable expectations of people; or unreasonable or outright absurd ones?  Probably, it will often be situational; but there are maybe a basic two sides to the coin -- should people be willing to inform themselves attentively about others' routines / logistics, and adjust their behaviour to accommodate those, case by case; or are human life and society just basically rather messy -- with those who would require from others, much accommodation and remembering of procedures: being as selfish as the heedlessly inconsiderate are, in their different way; plus being thoroughly unrealistic in what they wish and expect to happen?

I just don't believe there was a man or a date. I am of the opinion that she made this up to sell books because it's too convenient, right? It's Valentine's Day, she writes romance, the coffee shop had these heart-shaped cakes, she goes on Twitter and gets it retweeted all over.

And Kimpossible writes: "The fact that she used the situation to plug her books makes me suspect of the entire situation."

Or -- alternative situation -- maybe it's true; and the man hoped to do her a good turn by providing inspiration for her, for a new romance novel: beginning with date where the hero acts boorishly in just this way -- heroine initially writes him off as a hopeless oaf, but in the course of the narrative, his sterling qualities progressively become more apparent, and the ending is true-love-and-hearts-and-flowers. (With an outside possibility that the real Mr. Two-Cake-Pops might, via his kind inspiration-type favour done, win the author's heart in real life.)