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Do you like having guests at your place?

  • 23-08-2021 10:32am
    #1
    Registered Users Posts: 5,107 ✭✭✭bobbyss


    Down the country it is quite normal to have guests and visitors pop into your house unexpectedly. For a visit. That is fantastic if you like to have guests visit at any time. Do you like to have visitors in your house? Or do guests phone you first to let you know they are coming over? Did you ever pretend you were not in?

    I remember about 3 pm on Christmas Day just as we were about to have the Christmas dinner my uncle and aunt called around for a visit. Unfortunately the dinner went cold.



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Comments

  • Registered Users Posts: 5,243 ✭✭✭Jequ0n


    No.



  • Registered Users Posts: 31 alpha2


    This is exactly how I am! I love the idea of friends calling and staying over but when they're in the house I seem to spend all my time fussing round and I just want them to go away so I can watch Netflix in my pyjamas and not talk to anyone!



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  • Registered Users Posts: 239 ✭✭boardlady


    Alpha 2, I would love to be easy going and spontaneous like friends are, but i'm too tightly wound I think!





  • My home is my castle. Nope. I rarely, if ever, invite people to my home.



  • Moderators, Social & Fun Moderators Posts: 11,878 Mod ✭✭✭✭JupiterKid


    Yes, I like friends and wider family to visit my place - over the past 18 months there have been precious few visitors calling in due to Covid-19 and the restrictions.

    Dropping in for a couple of hours for a cuppa and a chat - and staying a few days with all the attendant hassle and hosting issues - are very different scenarios. I would always appreciate a text or call beforehand, just so I can make sure the place is nice and tidy ahead of their arrival. I have also hosted a couple of dinner parties/film nights with good friends from time to time, pre-Covid.

    I have a neighbour who drops in unannounced the very odd time, but he usually texts or calls beforehand. My OH is a bit less amenable to visitors, as he really likes his complete peace and quiet at home, especially if he is in a low mood and takes to bed.

    With people being busy, working etc. it's very inconvenient for people to have visitors dropping in unannounced, and these days most people do phone or text ahead. Growing up in suburban Dublin in the 1980s we would often have visitors drop in unannounced - my late mum was a great hostess - but those were pre-mobile phone and pre-text days and people had much more time to receive visitors.



  • Registered Users Posts: 8,138 ✭✭✭PsychoPete


    I don't invite people over but people do randomly call in, once it isn't while we're having the dinner



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  • Registered Users Posts: 766 ✭✭✭ger vallely


    Myself and my family lived out the country for 11 years. No one ever called in unexpectedly. Everything was arranged, play dates for the kids and our own social situations. When we moved back to the city 4 years ago I was so looking forward to people popping in unexpectedly. It's happened a few times but not so much that it's an inconvenience. I like it. I keep a clean house but not so precious about it that I would be mortified if a friend turned up out of the blue. My kids have moved out now so it's even nicer to have spur of the moment friendly faces show up as life isn't quite so hectic.



  • Registered Users Posts: 22,031 ✭✭✭✭endacl


    No bother, once they don’t arrive with their hands hangin’!



  • Registered Users Posts: 1,184 ✭✭✭85603


    No text no entry.



  • Registered Users Posts: 12,742 ✭✭✭✭Dial Hard


    House guests and fish. Ben Franklin had it right.





  • People you see regularly is ok but I find it stressful to see a car pull up to the house unannounced and you haven’t seen them in a while.



  • Registered Users Posts: 21,032 ✭✭✭✭retro:electro


    I like having people around for drinks and nibbles and the odd one night stay but I wouldn’t be comfortable with a few night stay. My tolerance is limited and there’s only so much bs I can chat before I just want to retreat back into silence and be a slob in my own home



  • Registered Users Posts: 23,526 ✭✭✭✭Strumms


    I prefer, when meeting friends... a pub, restaurant or cafe... I always struggle if I know when is best to leave, am I overstaying my welcome and imposing or if I’m fast to leave am I looking ungrateful for their hospitality.



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  • Registered Users Posts: 668 ✭✭✭Coopaloop


    This makes me think of this sketch....https://youtu.be/0Swzvm-gXHg

    But no, I hate unannounced guests, my mother in law used to do it, and then stay all day. No call or text, not a thought that we might have had something planned, which we usually always did as she would call on weekends when we always do stufff with the kids, and then proceeds to seem put out when we tell her we actually have plans and are leaving the house very soon (you should have called before you drove an hour to get here).

    It's just rude.



  • Registered Users Posts: 28,980 ✭✭✭✭freshpopcorn


    We hate people calling in advance to day they are calling.

    There's just so much extra pressure to have the house tidy and get stiff in.



  • Registered Users Posts: 1,141 ✭✭✭chrissb8


    Love it. Unlike a pub, restaurant etc. you have loads of options to entertain guests. Mine would be friends exclusively though, and in that way, I like having some people over for some drinks listening to music. Watching something together and getting something to eat or just a few cups of tea and a good natter is great as well. Getting stuck into a video game for hours on end together is a favourite. Love having people over. That said though the people I have over I can easily just say please go now and they would no bother.



  • Moderators, Social & Fun Moderators Posts: 11,878 Mod ✭✭✭✭JupiterKid


    Hmmmm....it seems like the famed traditional Irish hospitality may well becoming a thing of the past. 🤔😕

    It seems there are three types of people - those who really enjoy having guests call around and stay over, those who don't mind people dropping in as long as it's a relatively short visit, they get plenty of advance notice and preferably no overnight stays, and...


    ...those who would rather not have anyone call around at all to their place, at any time. I suspect that Boardsies are quite a bit less accommodating of visitors than the Irish population in general.



  • Registered Users Posts: 2,584 ✭✭✭DoozerT6


    Actually, no I don't, not really. I always feel like I don't have much to say and guests will be bored. I only have one bedroom, so having overnight guests (tbh, 99% of the time it's just my parents) usually means me sleeping on the couch, which is not ideal, and I'm too old for that sh!t tbh. I'm not a great housekeeper by my own admission, so I always have to do a big clean first, so unexpected callers would cause me great stress lol! Because I don't have many guests, I'm not used to cooking for others so I find that stressful too.

    Overall I just find it a hassle and will do anything to get out of hosting anbody.



  • Registered Users Posts: 15,641 ✭✭✭✭Spanish Eyes


    From another angle......I can never understand why some people impose themselves on others by staying over. Maybe it's just me, but there is no way I'd do that. Nothing wrong with friends who live "down the country" at all, lovely people, but I'd feel awkward staying in someone's house. Worry that I have overslept while they are all waiting downstairs for me to have breakfast and are far too polite to give a roar to get me out of the scratcher. Oh and going to the toilet in the middle of the night, am I waking anyone up? Will I meet someone on the landing while in a state of undress? And don't start me on drooling on the pillows.

    I don't mind anyone calling in to see me, it's very nice of them to think of me while passing, but they know by now they have to bring their own biscuits, and if I have something to do, somewhere to go I say it immediately. I would always text before dropping in to see someone if I'm in the area. It's polite to give a heads up.



  • Registered Users Posts: 7,933 ✭✭✭FintanMcluskey


    I am a far better guest than a host



  • Registered Users Posts: 9,248 ✭✭✭John_Rambo


    Love entertaining. Like having guests, like friends & family calling over.



  • Registered Users Posts: 578 ✭✭✭Juran


    I had a female friend in college, she was invited to stay at another friends home down the country for the weekend. This was the mid 90's. The other girl's house was a 1970's house, still 70's decorated, carpets in everyroom.

    They went out on the town on the friday night. My friend woke during the night to go for a pee, not wanting to wake anyone she didnt switch on the bathroom light, she was half asleep, anyways she sat on the toilet and had a pee. Got up feeling wet, switched on the light ... the seat was down and the carpet around the toilet was soaked with pee. None of us was every invited to the other girl's home after that.

    We still laugh at that story.



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  • Registered Users Posts: 8,043 ✭✭✭AllForIt


    Christmas before last I spend xmas with my folks in the country. As dinner was being prepared and almost ready some neighbour of theirs(who I had no clue of), turned up. My Farther then invited him into the house as they were initially talking by the road. My dad then had bits of his xmas dinner in the front room talking to this guy, so basically our xmas family dinner turned out to be like any other day. It was really my farther's fault as he invited him into the house. He wouldn't be into the formalities of xmas dinner, so it looks like he found a way to skip all that. Such a burden for him one day of the year. We were all a bit annoyed as it didn't feel like xmas dinner at all.

    I live in an town apartment at the mo so noone can just rock up but I don't mind if people do generally. But there are times when it's inappropriate and xmas day would be the most obviously inappropriate time to do so.



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