stories:
Table Manners
 |
Ditching an Annoying GuestShe came last year, must she again? |
Dear Helena,
I host an annual event: A parade passes by my apartment and friends gather to watch the festivities. Last year a regular guest (my neighbor) asked if she could bring a friend. This friend happens to be loud, obnoxious, and does not mix well with others. Last year I reluctantly told my neighbor she could bring her friend, and now she’s asked if she can invite her again this year.
Saying no could even be a little awkward if my neighbor chooses not to come and instead watches the parade from her apartment with her annoying friend—with all of us right upstairs. How do I tactfully say no? Should I say no? —Hostess Between a Rock and a Hard Place
Dear Hostess Between a Rock and a Hard Place,
When a guest asks to bring someone else, it’s OK to refuse if the occasion is a dinner party or other intimate event. You can simply claim not to have enough chairs, wineglasses, or steaks. But if you’re inviting more than a dozen people over and one of them asks to bring someone, lack of space is not a good excuse. A party of more than 12 is like a crowded subway car: There’s always room for one more.
Plus, as you’ve pointed out, this guest attended the party last year, so excluding her will smack of personal insult. Invite the annoying friend along, but follow these steps to minimize her negative impact:
Play hot potato. Introduce the annoying person to one of your friends and drift away so they can talk for a few minutes. Your friend will probably attempt to ditch her. If your friend gets trapped, swoop in and introduce the woman to another guest, allowing the first victim to escape. Don’t feel guilty about forcing the annoying person on your friends, any more than you would feel guilty about asking them to set out chips and dip: Either way, it’s fine to ask your guests to contribute five minutes of their party time.
Acknowledge intent, not content. According to Dr. Rick Brinkman, coauthor of Dealing with People You Can’t Stand, when someone says something really annoying, instead of getting caught up in reacting to her words, you should acknowledge her positive intention. (It doesn’t matter whether the intention is positive or not, just act like you think it is.) For instance, if someone goes on a disagreeable political rant, you say: “I appreciate that you have a lot of passion on this subject.” If the annoying person is the passive-aggressive type and notes that you look tired, say: “It’s nice of you to care about my health and well-being.” Since the person is probably used to irritating people, a compliment will surprise and momentarily silence her. Then you can seize the chance to change the subject, says Brinkman. Or foist her on someone else.
Pair them off. It might seem counterintuitive, but the best way to neutralize an annoying guest is to invite another one. Then they can hang out together. One of your friends’ friends might do, or perhaps a co-worker. Kimberly Alyn, coauthor of How to Deal with Annoying People, says if you introduce one “extroverted, obnoxious person” to another, “They will get involved in comparing stories.” They might also get involved in an argument, or bore each other senseless, but who cares? All that matters is that no one else has to talk to them. Besides, you don’t want an annoying guest to enjoy herself too much—otherwise she’ll want to come round again.
oh come on. pussyfooting? just say, " no, i'm sorry. we're limiting the party."
Seriously. I don't bust my butt for a party to be pushed into having people over who will kill the atmosphere. I think "limiting the party" is perfectly fine. As someone who has to ride the NYC subway every day during rush hour, I have frequently contemplated shoving that "room for one more" person out of the train back onto the platform. Every centimeter counts!
"You can simply claim not to have enough chairs, wineglasses, or steaks."
So Helena still encourages lying - wow, I thought she would have learned from last year's columns. Helena, it's not good etiquette to lie. I repeat - it's NOT GOOD ETIQUETTE TO LIE.
As for the neigbor's annoying friend, it's simple. Say: I don't mean to hurt anyone's feelings, but she rubbed a lot of people, including me, the wrong way last year. I'd rather not invite her." If your neighbor is a sane person, she'll understand - as long you are telling her the truth. Of course, Alkapal's advice is good too.
So, I need to have people in my home even if I don't like them? Not gonna happen.
I'd be honest and tell my neighbor why I don't want the friend back and then leave it up to her whether or not she hosts her own gathering, comes alone, or skips it all together. I'm not responsible for everyone on the planet, especially rude people.
Lies lead to more lies and it will come up again. Best to just cut to the chase and avoid the awkwardness later down the line.
mwliechty said, "Say: 'I don't mean to hurt anyone's feelings, but she rubbed a lot of people, including me, the wrong way last year. I'd rather not invite her.' If your neighbor is a sane person, she'll understand - as long you are telling her the truth."
Brilliant. Truthful.
If you wanted to soften it a little more and ease the awkwardness, you could allow the guest of your invited neighbor to attend one more time - but ask your neighbor to speak to her about her behavior first. If your neighbor's guest behaves badly again, your neighbor should know better than to ever ask you again.
Perhaps no one ever told the loud and obnoxious person that they should tone it down a bit?
It's ridiculous to say that it is good manners to coddle obnoxious people. The entire point of etiquette is to create a society where the things an individual does don't bother most other individuals. So what if this obnoxious guest is offended? Should everyone else have to be offended so that the offensive individual isn't? That's the antithesis of etiquette. Maybe if obnoxious people are offended by being excluded often enough, they'll reassess their own behavior. Social skills are learned, not innate. People can't learn "right" if "wrong" is repeatedly reinforced . Imagine going through life thinking people really like you, when you only get invited to parties because people are too afraid of offended you. That's like being the kid in middle school that hasn't yet figured out the need to wear deodorant, only worse, because real life, unlike middle school, doesn't have health teachers and guidance counselors to pull you aside and politely tell you that you stink.
Good grief. That's two in a row with horrendous advice.
Better advice please.
On the positive side, she's already working on next years what I screwed up column.
Life is too short to deal with people you don't like. There is no way I would sacrifice everyone else's happiness just to make a friend of a freind happy. Be tactful but save yourself and your friends from another bad time.
Horrible advice. Really, horrible.
A perfect example of how bad etiquette leads to more bad etiquette. An invitation is for the person invited and not all their friends and associates. If the neighbor had followed that rule in the first place, then the second situation would never have come up. Also, who cares if it's a little awkward if the neighbor and her friend know they weren't invited to your party? It's your party, you have a right to invite whom you want, and inviting people once doesn't obligate you to invite them in perpetuity.
This is funny. The obnoxious guest is so horrific that you should introduce them to everyone else as though they're the guest of honour. Make sure you add in "you remember (obnoxitron) from last year, don't you? Why don't you catch up!" (before fleeing for your life).
please read the comments to this post, which tackles a closely related topic (How to tactfully avoid inviting others):
http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/589079
Wouldn't this column be so boring if Helena actually gave good advice?
OK, maybe I'll be the first to say it--I don't think Helena's advice is completely off.
I live in a city where it's common to bring a non-romantic plus-one to certain types of informal parties. I would never expect extra guests at a formal dinner party, but for the type of informal party described here, it is typical (but guests check first). I'm not sure if that's a cultural thing or an age thing--most of my friends are ~30, unmarried apartment-dwellers; a friend from Madrid said it's the same there. Helena, I believe, also lives here.
That said, I agree with Ruth that one invitation does not beget subsequent invitations in perpetuity; on the other hand, if I'd had just that one bad experience with the guest, I'd be inclined to extend the offer, behave like a gracious hostess, and expect that my guests would behave graciously in return.
We all have off nights, and the idea of bumping into those two people alone at their "party"--because I've said they are not welcome at mine--makes me think my uber-hostess grandma would be ashamed.
I agree with pane. I think Helena's advice is probably good, but it all depends on the relationships the two neighbors have.
It's a cost/benefit situation....which is worse:
Dealing w/ annoying friend but maintaining a good relationship w/ your neighbor.....
or
Not having neighbor come w/ annoying friend, but risk making relationship w/ neighbor awkward.
If it were me, I'd probably follow Helena's advice, assuming I actually like my neighbor. It doesn't sound like an occasion that I'd care enough about to risk a friendship.
I understand where pane is coming from, however, the problem with informal etiquette is that it spirals out of control. You might not bring someone to a formal dinner party, but a friend of mine knows someone who did just that -- actually brought two other people to a formal dinner party -- which upset the hostess (in addition to it being just plain rude, she didn't have enough chairs or food) ruined the evening for everyone, and caused the people there to take sides about who had behaved badly and what they should have done.
Formal etiquette has a very useful function: it allows people to know exactly what is and is not acceptable in a given situation and to avoid behaviors that ruin occasions and even friendships. Informal etiquette only works when everyone has agreed in advance on what behavior is okay, and under what circumstances (like dropping in on someone, as hotly debated in another column).
On the subject of "ditching" the obnoxious guest, I really have to come down on the side that you're a horrible hostess if you foist that person off on your other guests. Don't they deserve at least as much consideration as the neighbor you don't want to offend?
There's a lovely woman in my circle of friends who unfortunately has a partner who is almost universally loathed as a boor. I finally banned him from my house after he verbally attacked another of my guests (a charming gentleman almost twice his age), and I know other people who don't invite this couple, or don't invite them as often as they might, because none of them want to risk his behavior.
It's my duty as a hostess to protect my other guests from boors, not to deliberately inflict them on them!
Another great topic Helena! I am following a thread on chowhound right now that is very similar to this situation. I think the fact that the host's neighbor is involved makes this really tricky. I have lived in a lot of different places and trouble with neighbors is one of the circles of hell. You really don't want to go there. It seems in life some people are hosts and some are guests. It would be nice if the whole reciprocation thing worked more often. Once I was forced to have a quasi-relative in my home for a party. I sucked it up to keep the peace but I gave up having big parties partly because of it. The guy I was forced to invite later cleaned out the joint checking account he had with his poor wife, and fled to mexico. Hmm, maybe now I can have a party again!!! :)
I think the neighbor's friend should NOT be invited. Period. The "friend of a freind" clearly was not just having a bad day when he/she offended others the first year. I am sure the neighbor is aware that her friend may rub others the wrong way sometimes.
Honestly I would think that if you wanted to have the friend back, you would have told your neighbor, "Oh, and please invite so-and-so." Is it typical for your guests to bring their own guests? It may not be a dinner party, but going from 20 guests to 40 in an apartment can get crowded pretty quickly.
If saying that you are limiting the guest list to some extent isn't reason enough for the neighbor (you don't have to specify exactly how/why) I would just recommend telling her, "I don't really think my friends are her sort of crowd." That should politely make the point.
oh my, who had the bright idea to allow comments on an advice column?
Dave MP - What you're saying is absolutely true. However, that is social politics, not etiquette. This column is supposed to give advice on good and bad etiquette (though, unlike most commenters, I usually think Helena's advice is pretty decent).
I have to make an amendment to my previous statement: if this is the SO of the neighbor, then it's treated as such and one has to either invite them as a couple, or not at all.
I'm continuing to lobby to take over Helena's column. Unfortunately, I'm not well connected. In this case (Helena being the columnist) the old adage "It's not what you know, but who you know" has to be applicable considering the horrendous advice and opinions she's given.
Why do I read, you may ask? Because I can do a better job. Just give me a chance.
I think Caralien is headed in the right direction. If this is the SO of the neighbor, you almost have to invite the person. If this is a very good friend of the neighbor, and you value the neighbors friendship highly, then you are caught between a rock and a hard place. I think you would have to give some consideration to saying yes. Unlike the column in Chowhound, this is a once a year event, we are not condemning the host to weeks on end of putting up with a boor. Sometimes good etiquette demands we put up with something we would rather not.
On the other hand, the neighbor may be asking you just so he/she has a way out of bringing someone who may be unwelcome. I see nothing wrong with saying that you are limiting the guest list this year. White lies are not always bad etiquette, in fact they are sometimes a necessity.
Like most things in life, this is not a black-and-white situation. The amt. of people who will be at your house plays a big role. We've had gatherings ranging from 6 to 60+ people at our place, and when you go above a certain number, no one is likely to notice--or even care--that someone is obnoxious.
As KaimukiMan pointed out, it's also a different story when the person you don't want at your gatherings is the SO of a neighbor whom you like and socialize with often. This applies to me. I love one of my neighbors and would invite her to everything. Her husband, not so much. While there is nothing really "bad" about him, he has a tendency to, if the TV is on (like when we were watching the ball drop one New Year's Eve), grab and control the remote control and then change channels w/o asking others if that's okay. Then to top it off, he leaves early at most parties w/o so much saying goodbye to us. To keep the peace, I try to have as much "girls' nights in" with my neighbor. But I have decided that to keep the peace and our friendship (both of which I very much want to maintain), I just have to bear it when it's a social gathering that involves both sexes. It's not going to kill me, and in the scheme of things, it's not really a big deal.
The implication in the original post is that the obnoxious person is NOT a significant other - just a friend.
The fact that OP's neighbor is nice enough to ask each time (rather than just show up with the offending "friend" on subsequent occasions) says that perhaps the neighbor realizes that their friend is less than desireable company. Given the opportunity to say no, OP should do just that.
I agree with alot of people who've stated that it depends on the relationship to the original invitee. If they are a very close friend, and this is a SO...well it's difficult....who HASN'T been in that situation....also if it is a close friend who wants to invite another non-romantic but obnoxious acquaintance, you should be close enough to say something about it. On the flipside, I agree that if the invitee is simply an acquaintance, they sort of lose the right to have tag-alongs to your party...but a precedence has already been set here.
I TOTALLY disagree with the whole foisting this person on another guest, the "hot potato" thing. Crappy advice ! Why should your guests have to suffer because you've agreed to having this person at your house? As far as i'm concerned it's either up to the friend or the host to deal with the obnoxious at this point, not your other well-behaved guests.
I think the easiest way to handle this is to just say something like "I have decided this year to have a smaller party just with my closer friends"; That is honest and gets the message across without having to tell the neigbhor that her friend is a jerk.
I agree with mwliechty, was going post nearly word-for-word the same message. That never happens!
But having paged down I like SFDude's answer as well.
Or maybe you can cross them and say "I think it got pretty crowded with her/him here last year".
As for "pairing up" the obnoxious with someone else, why not pair them with...the person who wants to bring them--in her own apt. I can't see why the OP thinks that would be so awkward.
Hey, what happened to the plain truth? "Ya know, you brought this gal last year, and she rubbed everyone the wrong way, including me. I hope you understand that I'd prefer that she not show up." Subtlety is wasted on some people.
I wouldn't pussyfoot around the subject. I'd tell the neighbor that I love his or her company, but I found your friend a bit obnoxious and annoying and reiterate that they are more than welcome but their friend is not.
Why would you want to have somebody obnoxious annoying the crap out of your friends?
Usually I've found that the "obnoxious annoying people" you speak of are drunks. They are hard to deal with and seem to get louder as the evening wears on. The best thing to do is get them outside and away from thr rest of the partygoers. Sometimes this can be hard, and stern measures must be taken. You have to put your foot down in the middle of the party and call them out on their bad behavior. Sometimes right in front of everybody at the party. Give them an ultimatum to behave themselves or they can leave, chances are they calm down for a little bit then get loud again. Then you kick them out, your guests will admire you for handling the problem tactfully and with assertivenss. Put them in a cab or send them downstairs.
I'm with Ruth. Formal etiquette avoids such situations with the choice between bad, worse, and worst outcomes. Informal etiquette puts us in these positions, but a few fundamental rules still apply:
1) Good etiquette means putting your own needs after the happiness and comfort of others
2) Unwanted introductions should always be avoided
3) Snubs, as polite as possible, are sometimes required to limit the damage in a situation.
In this case, I would place the comfort and happiness of all the other guests ahead of the one guest who is trying to invite him or herself.
As for the unwanted introductions, this situation started with an unwanted introduction the previous year; it's the height of bad manners for you to foist this person off on other guests in a series of further unwanted introductions. The words, "Ms. X, may I introduce you to Mr. Y?" have meaning: you should never utter them if you think Ms. X wouldn't want to meet Mr. Y.
Stop the bad cycle: admit that some people aren't your cup of tea, and make it clear in a straight forward way that you didn't think the extra person mixed well with the group the previous year.
Let's see... A "friend" asks to bring an obnoxious person to your gathering? Ummm... Unless the obnoxious person is an out-of-town guest, there is no excuse for asking to expand YOUR guest list!
Then there is the old rule of thumb that if one guest is late for dinner, you don't hold off seating and feeding the other guests for more than tan or fifteen minutes because to do so would be extremely rude to a LOT more people than the late guest! In the same line of thought, if you have allowed the friend to bring Ms Obnoxious once, thereby forcing your other guests to endure her, why on earth would you do it a second time?
NO ONE has a right to enter your home when you don't want them to. So what's wrong with the neighbor and her obnoxious friend sitting on the neighbor's balcony upstairs to watch the parade? The only problem I can foresee is the Ms Obnoxious' voice and laugh may trickle down from time to time. Well, that's when you just roll your eyes and thank your lucky stars.
Helena dear, have you thought about a career selling shoes?
I had an annual party that sort of grew beyond what I wanted it to. I simply told my friends I was taking a year off and the next year only invited a few people.
I have a similar situation and would love to get some comments.
There are half a doz. people who walk dogs together every evening so we've gotten to now each other pretty well. The group gets together informally for a pot luck every so often, maybe 6 or 8 times a year. I had the group over a couple of months ago (six of us) and one couple (fifty-ish) brought along their daughter (thirty-ish) uninvited (she doesn't live at home). Now that is clearly rude where I'm concerned, but hey she was there so, so what. Not a big deal. The only reason I even mention it is because she is an immature bore. Everything said by another person requires a comment from her, about her. I find this *really* tedious. The reason I mentioned age earlier is that the rest of us are 50 or so.
The last dinner was held at another neighbor's and the daughter was also there. Now I don't know if she was invited or not.
I should also mention that when she was here at my house I had enough chairs/dishes and stuff for six. I had prepared a nice appetizer course (I was a chef in a former life) which was above the pot-luck norm and there was no way to add water to the soup so it was sorta' awkward.
I'm sure you can see where I'm going with this ~~ yup they are due here again (I don't mind doing the cooking and making something nice, ie not p-l) but I really would like to exclude her without hurting feelings. They are after all close neighbors and nice people, but the daughter, not so much.
I think I've beaten this to death enough. Would like to hear your thoughts. Thanks
Not only from an etiquette point of view but from a real estate point of view it IS important to have an plausible, albeit thin, excuse. It sounds as if the urban environment where the writer lives means that good apartments are hard to find and good apartments with good neighboors are likely to be even harder to locate. Partying hard upstaris while the two sulk downstairs is a sure fire recipe to finding a real estate agent. And don't even think about geting a pass the next time you hold a party that is the tinest bit loud or goes on a bit longer than you realize.
While it is tempting to be brutally or even gently honest with the neighbor, it is kinder both to her and the uninvited boor to give them a kind but firm rebuff. Chances are high that the good neighbor is fully aware of the issue and needs only an indirect and kind excuse to put off the interloper. Be a good neighbor and loan her one.
The best way out would be to make sure you invite a few more people to the guest list that you would actually be happy if they could come, but you probably won't see. Then when neighbor "X" asks about extending an invite to the undesirable guest you can in all honesty beg off with the excuse that you "had" to expand your guest list this year (you don't voluhnteer why you HAD to) and you're afraid that your apartment simply won't safely hold any more and you're not entirely confident about the drinkware or your ability to coordinate appetizers for that many, etc. and that you're sure they understand and hope they do still come. If the new one or two "bright sparklies," as Miss Manner's calls them come, you've got an added bonus. If they ditch your party for a brighter, sparklier one, you aren't out anything but a less than desirable guest. You tell the truth, you maintain the friendship with the neighbor who in all probability was guilted into making the request by the bad guest because, let's face it, the bad guest must obviously not get many repeat invites and as an added bonus you may get one or two new, amazing, guests at a party.
Alternatively, Ike04 had an excellent suggestion, take a year off and regroup the next year with a new and improved guest list. Or reconfigure the party to be less come as you are and a bit more formal by slimming the guest list quite a bit. Again, you can plead change of guest list as the cause.
Good manners and absolute honesty are frequently incompatible character traits. Some of the most horrible guests I've ever encountered were those who quite prided themselve on their brutal honesty.