Houseguest Misery. Staying with friends can often feel…
By: Brenda Stimpson
Tags: Neurosis, Friendship, Aging, Women, Houseguest Misery

Staying with friends often feels awkward. Sometimes it even carries unintended consequences.

Image by Klaus Dellerer from Pixabay

My daughter had just won a round of Sequence — a board game that never fails to unveil our family’s “competitive spirit.” Before we began another session, she placed her half-full glass of red wine on the antique rug and headed to the kitchen.

My daughter’s boyfriend is six foot five, and at twenty-two, he is still gangly and random like a colt. He stood up and promptly kicked over the glass of wine.

Image is the author’s own.

Behold the Crime Scene

The antique rug and the Italian linen skirt on the adjacent bespoke sofa absorbed the burgundy splatter with the efficiency of surgical gauze.

The room fell silent for several seconds before restrained panic set in.

“Google red wine stains,” someone said.

“Get salt,” someone else instructed.

“No, it’s white wine. You’re supposed to pour white wine on the stain.”

“Google says blot with warm soapy water and then salt.”

A queasy, cortisol-fuelled despair enveloped me. I knew that the best outcome we could expect from red wine on ecru linen was rehabilitating the massacre to a permanent bruise.

But the most disturbing thing was that it was not my house, my bespoke Italian linen sofa, or my antique rug. We were houseguests, with two awkward nights remaining of a five-night stay.

A Terrible Idea

This incident solidified an evolving belief I have that being a houseguest, and often hosting them, is a terrible idea. If this were a hotel room, I would feel horrible, but at least the arms-length commercial transaction ‘rules’ would apply, whereas this will potentially be a parasite on our friendship for years.

How can one be a perfect houseguest? It is fraught with personalities and expectations and invasion of privacy and tiptoeing around — as well as the potential for irreversible wear and tear.

What Is Proper Houseguest Behaviour?

Should one offer to cook a meal, or is that in some way insulting? Am I hanging around too much, or making myself too scarce? Do the hosts feel like I’m treating their place like a hotel? What wine should I buy? (I know the answer to that now). Do they drink Sauvignon Blanc or Cabernet? What time is it polite to get up in the morning? Should I lie in and give the hosts some privacy, or will that make me seem like a slob? Should I attempt relentless acts of conversation or retreat to the corner with a book to allow some breathing room?

Undoubtedly this internal dialog is textbook neurosis, but it doesn’t make it any less real. And the more I share these thoughts with others, the more I hear, “Yes! I feel the same way. Staying with people is so awkward.” Sentiments expressed with what sounds like relief that there are other “crazies” in the world. So, if this is neurotic, then the club has a healthy membership (which in no way implies that it isn’t, still, neurotic).

I suspect how one feels about being a houseguest is related to how one thinks about hosting houseguests. And, for me, that depends upon the guest in question: Family is okay. Certain good friends are a delight to host. But I can count on one hand the people outside of family who I can truly relax with or want in my house for longer than an overnight — one hand with two fingers amputated.

My husband, on the other, fully intact hand, doesn’t have a neurotic bone in his body. He loves to stay with friends and frets not one iota about any of this — although he will acknowledge that wine-ageddon was a low point.

The Compromise

So, how do we settle this? Since my husband is someone who will go to the opening of a wound, and I am someone whose idea of a good night out is a book and glass of wine on the patio, then we have tacitly gravitated to that ever-annoying space we call compromise. Sometimes I can negotiate a hotel, and sometimes we stay with friends––but only if their furniture is at least as crappy as ours.