Bad Manners and Brimstone

How reasonable is your friend? If she was late, and you were to incur a $50 late fee, would she be the type of person willing to reimburse you?

If so, I say go ahead with the girls' night, but make to 100% clear to her that YOU will be the one slugged a late fee, and you will be seeking reimbursement for any latecomers.

If she's the sort of person who'd make excuses and refuse to reimburse you the $50, I'd be inclined to invite a smaller group to do the pottery - and not include her!

"Thank you but I've been looking forward to my yearly hamburger and chips. So I'm getting a burger/chips to go along with the salad roll. Would you like one too?"

I googled "salad rolls" and "Vietnamese spring rolls" come up (as we call them in the US). Is that the dish you're talking about? Unless they're huge, I think they will be refreshing to eat with burgers and chips, but I know some people have smaller appetites and can't eat both.

No, these were just white-bread rolls that you can buy from supermarkets or bakeries, filled with some chopped up salad ingredients (lettuce, tomato, red onion, and the like).

Not sure about the USA, but here in Australia, Vietnamese spring rolls are a completely different thing to salad rolls - they are made with thin rice paper rolls, and shaped like little cigars.

Your Mum is a very good friend.  Who eats food that was stored in someone elses handbag? yuk

Ha - according to my Mum they were wrapped up in clingwrap. But yes, they had spent several hours in her friend's handbag unrefrigerated! Luckily it was a fairly mild day!

my church used to send out a newsletter about events.
There was a lady who would show up for the food-centered ones, but she didn't actually attend our church.

She'd bring something, but usually very small. And sort of weird. if it was a potluck, she'd bring a couple packages of ramen, maybe. Once it was a baby shower for the pastor's DIL, and she brought a toilet-paper-roll cover as the gift.

I didn't realize until someone pointed it out. And then he said, "well, at least we know she eats those days."

And she didn't completely freeload.

I seem to remember on the old boards, there was a story about a guy who always bought along an unopened packet of pop tarts to his work morning teas. No one would touch it, so he'd just take it back at the end, and bring it again the next time!

Re: the OP, that guy and his friend were annoying and presumptuous! My partner is currently doing the keto diet, and he always plans carefully whenever he's invited out to eat. He'd never dream of demanding that other people cater to his diet (nor would he expect them to be mind readers - if Mr Keto had informed the volunteers beforehand that he had dietary requirements, he might have had half a leg to stand on, although even so, it would have made more sense for him to just bring his own food).

I have a friend "Mary" who always puts the onus on me to pick the venue for our catch ups. This is the case even where Mary initiates the catch-up. She'll text me something like: "Hey, want to catch up next Saturday for coffee? I don't mind where we go. Happy for you to decide."

I don't mind deciding per se, but here's the thing:

- Mary and I live on opposite sides of the city (nearly an hour apart). She is a nervous driver, struggles in heavy traffic, and doesn't have a good sense of direction. So any venue needs to be relatively easy for her to get to. Public transport is virtually non-existent in our city on weekends, so that's not really an option.

- Mary is also hard of hearing, so the venue can't be noisy and/or have lousy acoustics.

- As we both work during the week, and have commitments most Saturday and Sunday mornings, Mary and I usually meet in the afternoons on weekends. In our city, most of the cafes close in the early afternoon on weekends. People tend to go to the pub after that, but Mary doesn't drink, so pubs aren't an option - it really has to be a cafe.

This means that I end up having to do a fair bit of research to pick a venue that meets all of the above requirements. The mental labour is real. Most of the time, I get it right, but there a few occasions where I haven't. Mary is too polite to say anything during the catch-up, but afterwards, she'll send me a gentle text along the lines of: "Hey, it was lovely catching up, but unfortunately I found ABC Cafe too noisy." On one memorable occasion, I picked a cafe in an area with lots of curvy streets and alleyways. Afterwards, she texted me to say that she got hopelessly lost trying to drive back onto the main highway, and ended up going the wrong way down a one-way lane!

I've tried pushing back on always having to pick. Last time we caught up, I insisted that Mary decide the venue (as I'd picked the last 10 times!). She picked a suburban cafe for a 3pm Sunday catch-up. I strongly suspected that the cafe would be closed, but decided not to say anything, and let the chips fall. Sure enough, when we arrived, the cafe had already closed at 2pm. Mary seemed genuinely astonished, and I had to restrain myself from saying "Some basic Googling would have told you that"! We ended up just walking around the residential streets instead. When we said goodbye, Mary cheerfully said something like: "Well, that cafe was a bust! Happy for you to pick next time."

Now Mary has texted me again, saying "Hey, it's been awhile since we caught up! Want to do Saturday week?"

My response: "Sure! Where would you like to meet?"

Mary: "Oh I don't mind. You pick!"

Any polite script for how to push back on always having to pick the catch-up venue? At this stage, I'm thinking of suggesting a walk, rather than a cafe, as I've sometimes done in the past. But even then, Mary insists that I pick the spot! (My city has several lakes, hills, and numerous walking trails).

Am I being unreasonable, or is Mary? I really do feel like she's pushing all the mental load onto me.

I'm rather surprised that a child, who is part of the family, is unwelcome to participate in conversations. How else would a child learn to converse with their own family? Or should the child just go off and play on their tablet, and not engage with family members? That seems rude, to me.

I think there has to be some balance. The adults shouldn't spend the entire time talking about grown-up topics to the exclusion of the child. But nor do I think it's feasible/healthy for all of the conversations to be catered towards the child's involvement and interests. Ideally, there should be some instances where the adults talk about grown-up stuff (and the child can ask polite questions if she wants to learn more), and other instances where the adults make the pro-active effort to involve the child in the conversation and/or talk about things that are of interest to the child.

It sounds like the problem here is that the child wasn't asking polite questions, but rather, demanding that the conversation be changed to suit her interests, which I don't think is good.

To answer the question of why the management allowed it to continue was that this was at a fraternal organization and everyone there were members and their families.So most people knew each other. The organization tends to value family relationships. The "president" of the organization was there but he didn't see a problem with it apparently. Or maybe didn't want to rock the boat with new members? That's why I was questioning myself as to if it was rude, because no one else seemed to mind. But I agree that he should have discretely gone up to the mom after it became clear she was staying and asked her to return to her table. Or there was open space in the back behind the tables where she could have danced to her heart's content.

I get this. No one wants to get a reputation as 'the grouchy, kid-hating person'.

Also, if the president had spoken to the mum about removing the child, what are the chances the mum would have listened? I suspect pretty low. It's much more likely she would have pushed back and defended her child, or otherwise caused an unpleasant scene.

- Don't criticise your child's decor - especially if it's something trivial and/or labour-intensive to replace. For example: "Your bathroom tiles are too small and outdated - you need bigger ones!"

- On a similar note, don't sweat the small stuff. If you think your child's fruit bowl is too small, or their salt and pepper shakers are "ugly", please keep it to yourself.

- Please refrain from taking passive-aggressive actions such as leaving the Yellow Pages open on the "bathroom tilers" page, with several companies circled. Or buying a larger fruit bowl, unasked.

- Don't insist on "helping" with the cooking, unless asked. Especially if your child has a small kitchen.

- Make yourself at home, but don't take over the entire house - that is, leaving your stuff all over every surface of the living room.

- Don't suggest that your child needs to buy a house in a "better neighbourhood", especially if they live in a city where the cost of a house is more than 10 times the average wage.

- If your child is working from home, do not (a) barge into their study when they are on a video call - unless it's an emergency. Your inability to figure out how to delete a text message from your phone is not an emergency; (b) sweep or vacuum in the same room when they are trying to concentrate.

- If it's winter, do not go for a 30 minute power walk wearing four layers, re-enter the house, and "suggest" that the heating needs to be turned off because you are feeling warm (take a layer off instead).

(Why yes, I am speaking from personal experience here!)


In all seriousness OP, I think you'll be fine. You sound like a kind and considerate person. Enjoy the visit with your son!