gen x hosting guests
Gen Xers don’t know how to host people anymore, or how to live multigenerationally. It’s so hard to live with them, then even to stay with them as a guest for the holidays.
You take a normal looking cup from the shelf with all the cups - “NO, not my special cup!!”
Is this one okay? “Yes, but no stirring with spoons in them! And no milkfrother hitting the walls!” Okay…
You cook in their kitchen for yourself, as was agreed upon. These people live in a big home with a variety of pots and pans, many duplicates or equals. But of course, they need the exact pot you are currently using soon. You ask what you can refill it into. Anything you point at, they need later. Bitch, what the hell are you cooking that you need all the pots, pans and casserole dish? I find out later it was fondue. You know, the thing where you just cut everything, put it into bowls and cook it on the table as you’re eating???? Could have just cut the stuff next to us, no pot needed.
You clean up after yourself, put the things in the dishwasher, wipe the surfaces, and set out the things to dry that you needed to handwash. In general, you have to ask what things can go on the dishwasher and what can’t because judging from the things in and outside the dishwasher, the rules are completely arbitrary. There are pans on the dishwasher I would only wash by hand, and vice versa. Next to always having to ask where everything is, this is a nightmare.
These clowns repeat your entire cleaning process and reorder the whole dishwasher (where 3/4ths were already put in by themselves) for no reason, just to pretend you didn’t clean up properly. Like, these things weren’t still dirty, visually so, they were out there to dry. Nothing in the dishwasher was upside down, blocking the spray or collecting water, nothing was wasting space or in the wrong area.
This is only because GenXers are control freaks and contamination freaks in their own home, who need to do everything themselves to fulfill their OCD compulsion of it being done “just right”. They can’t let others do the same things and be okay with it. My mother was the same, who rather ripped the sponge, the dish, the vacuum cleaner, etc. from my hands than let me do it because doing it herself was a ritual that reassured her things were done correctly and everything was “safe”. I’m tired of pretending this GenX behavior is not tied to OCD.
I understand having your own rules and ideals in your household, as I also lead one. But for gods sake, when I host someone, I suspend these weird rules and am not a little bitch about my friend who doesn’t know any better accidentally putting the bowl into the wrong kitchen drawer after drying it off. I’ll just quietly correct it and move on, and I let good enough be good enough! If something bothers me I tell them in a normal and friendly way and don’t pretend they should have known, because I know households handle things differently. If something is really important to me, I tell them upfront.
Overnight stays suck too, because you’ll sleep in (as it is a holiday or you slept badly - or you just want to), and you come downstairs to be judged for getting up between 10-11am. I would understand this if we had agreed to have breakfast together at a certain time, but we didn’t. So stop being a bitch for having set the table and waited for hours when no one asked you to. Accept that your guests who took time off from work and drove hours to see you to be there for the holidays want to sleep in. Why can’t you have breakfast on your own early, then a late brunch with us?
NYE was especially funny in this regard this year. I said I’m sorry, we only got home 4:30 and slept at 5, so we woke up late. They said “Umm yeah we were asleep at only 3:30 too and we were up early!” they said, after they came BACK FROM A NAP AT 4pm. Well yeah bitch, you got up early, but apparently it wasn’t enough sleep huh? Is it maybe understandable that we wanna sleep in one chunk for this time? I won’t need a nap now.
And forget GenXers when you are ill! They’ll nitpick about you needing a nap, or you cancelling on activities an hour prior, saying shit like “Didn’t you know this earlier?” No bitch, I didn’t! You can come down with a cold, a migraine, diarrhea, vomiting, back pain, menstrual pain etc. anytime!
You wanna go to your guest room to relax, take a break, play a game, watch stuff, etc? “I don’t know why you’re always in that tiny downstairs guest apartment. I wouldn’t wanna spend my time there!” Meanwhile that’s the area where her DEAD SON used to live (why would you put your disabled son in there if it sucked so much?) and as a good host, why would you put your guests there if it’s terrible, and then even tell them?
And well, at least I have a proper place to sit down comfortably there? That’s the set of in-laws that only let us in their kitchen and dining room when upstairs in their apartment, everything else is off-limits. I have not once been invited into their living room. I can’t sit on a goddamn dining table chair for 6 hours bitch!! And they also don’t wanna play any card or boardgames, even though they have a ton and we offer to play. They just want you to sit at the table for hours intermittently talking. Sorry, that’s not fun! And my social battery isn’t that great either.
I also don’t wanna be interrogated what our plans are exactly. It’s okay to ask casually what we’re up to because that’s polite and caring, but not: “So, what’s the plan today? When are you home? When will you leave the house? When will you be back? Where are you going exactly? Why?” Let us breathe, man. Let us keep you updated. We tell them multiple times not to bother waiting for us because we’ll cook ourselves or eat at other people’s houses or go out to eat, and they’ll still be like “So will you be home for dinner? What should be for dinner?” ?!
When you try to get some answers out of THEM for a change, they’re even more vague and non-committal, so I don’t know what their problem is when we can’t decide yet whether we’ll leave the house at 2pm or 3pm? You’ll ask them “Hey we’re in the area and wanna visit you guys, when’s a good time to come over?” and any normal well-adjusted human being would tell you a slot in their schedule or at least a day, and then we’d accept or make our own suggestions. But no, these clowns will respond with something like “Yes you can come” “We’re mostly home this week” or something like that. Oh my god, just be a bit more specific so it doesn’t go
“Okay, so Monday?” “No that’s when we have swimming” “Even in the evening?” “No that’s okay” “So Monday evening? When should we arrive?” “You decide. We can eat at 6, or at 7, or at 8.”
My best advice to give you is: If you want to see someone, and continue to see someone in the future, make it easy to agree upon a day and time. Because at some point, people will otherwise just avoid this hours long or even days or weeks long game of bullshit just for a date and time that fits everyone. AND GENUINELY FITS EVERYONE! No “Well I cancelled my Italian class for you” ass aggressiveness when we show up! We asked what works for you! If you offer it as an option you agree that you’re free!
You even get equally judged when you don’t have plans and when you do have some, or if you are flexible. They’re mad if you “do nothing” and mad if you’re gone all day to meet other friends and family. Ugh! Our one set of in-laws thankfully is a bit more chill in this and gives us our own key to come and go, but our other set is so controlling about our presence that we are not allowed to take a key with us and we have to ring to be let back in, a measure to know when we come and go like a surveillance system. Only if they’ve already gone to bed, they hide the key outside so we can still get in. Which is nuts; I’d rather give my child the key than leave it outside!
I also don’t like when you visit and stay with family and they use it as leverage to get you to go places with them not in a “Do you wanna come along?” way, but a “We have to visit grandma and because you’re there during that time too you’ll have to come and suffer with us.” Nah. We are 30 now, not teens. Be serious right now. You cannot hold relying on you over our heads like that anymore. Please.
When I host people, I accept that they will “do things wrong” and not let it bother me, because I know how uncomfortable it is to be a guest somewhere and guess all the rules or ask all the time. I know they try their best and don’t wanna be a burden. I want them to be comfortable and relaxed, so they can sleep, take breaks, nap etc. however they want to. They can use everything they want to, even my favorite cup. I know they’re just things meant to be used and get signs of usage, so I’m not protecting some average ass cup from normal wear and tear. I’d rather have my friend be happy drinking a huge cup of tea than have a pristine cup.
I’m tired of being a guest in places that feel like you’re ways overstepping some invisible lines and disappointing people and whose inhabitants have a huge stick up their ass about some things, and act like they wanna catch you in the act of doing something wrong, and who don’t communicate their needs and wants, who’d rather let you make that fauxpas and be mad than preempt it. It’s like they want to be mad and manipulate every situation so they can be mad or make a mean comment.
This is not normal, and not all households are like this. But GenXer households are so often like this and it’s terrible to grow up in and terrible to visit as a guest. Even as a child, you feel like a guest that’s a burden that never meets expectations once you’re out of your designated room, and I’m tired!
The communication is poor, the judgment is passive aggressive, and things get twisted and redone because of their untreated and unacknowledged mental illnesses.
This is a predominantly white western thing, I think. The way Germans, Swedes etc. even kick their child’s friend out for dinner or send it to starve in the child’s room while they eat with their child. It’s a view on hosting and having guests that is so selfish, so focused on having control over guests and not being inconvenienced. I grew up with this and cannot relate to ever wanting to be that way. Elsewhere, this mindset doesn’t fly, and guests are kings you serve and want to have a good time. There is honor and reputation and not embarrassing the family.
The way white western GenXers treat their guests and family would give extreme secondhand embarrassment to other families from cultures all around the world.