Posted by Medusa on February 12, 2004, at 12:16:34
In reply to Re: table manners ... obsession? » Medusa, posted by Kath on February 10, 2004, at 8:51:14
> I have a sneaky little feeling that good manners (in this case, the host's) were sprinkled with the necessary portion of common sense & practicality.
>And I've learned some things about practicality - like, as I think Elle suggested, put a layer of plastic between the tablecloth and the table. Before guest arrives, hide anything (or as much as possible) you don't want used.
> How old is this person? 7?yeah, times 5. But raised as middle of 5 boys by a single mom, and then attended a series of mostly-male academic institutions. I think he was really, really uncomfortable while here, and knew that co-host and I were relatively picky.
> How long are they staying?He was here a week, left yesterday morning. I took him to the train station, and an hour later the cleaning lady arrived. I had to do a sweep of the toilet-room first ... she's told other people that our toilet is the cleanest she's ever seen where a man lives, and the state the toilet and the floor were in would have blown that record.
> Good luck in not becoming homicidal! (sp?)Thanks. Sunday afternoon I saw my rhetoric-coach person for something else, and as an aside I asked her how to handle something like this. (Specifically his conversation style, which I haven't described here.) She said there are various possibilities - one is to mention the behavior in a neutral way, since they might not realize they're doing X, Y or Z ... another is to tell them what effect the given behavior has on you. I tried these a few times, and the results were positive.
Co-host is big on bringing host gifts /never arriving empty-handed (nothing big, just a gesture), so he was tickled when on the last night of Guest's stay, Guest handed him a pen and said "I thought you might like this." Well, it wasn't a gift - Guest literally just thought that co-host might like the pen.
Guest complained about a few different things while he was here (e.g. the dishwasher 'runs constantly', we got up 'before it was light', we 'really tore through that tea' that I bought because he said he liked it and so on), so several times I suggested he send us a list of things we could do to improve our hosting. I look forward to seeing his list.
poster:Medusa
thread:310432
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20040209/msgs/312460.html