When friends dont reciprocate

[StJudePray4Me]

Here would be my reason to not invite people over to my (imaginary, hypothetical) pool:

Clearly your children are too young to come without you. So I would have to invite all of you, which sound like it would be an all-day kind of thing. Perhaps the other moms feel too overwhelmed to have an all-day pool party for you and your kids.

I never hesitate to have play dates at my home, as that’s pretty easy – the kids all play and I can take care of business as usual. Laundry, cleaning, etc.

Inviting other women over is a little more stressful – I feel the need to grocery shop as not to offer them merely a PB&J (which I would totally offer to kids on a play-date), I would feel compelled to clean my home to “company” standards, and I would have to clear my schedule so that I could be hostess.

Some people enjoy having company and playing host, others don’t.

As an aside, my neighbors have a pool and are often generous in inviting my kids to swim when her kids are going in the pool. I frequently offer to play “lifeguard” so that the mom can do what she needs to do, and I make a point to bring a big bottle of iced tea for myself and the kids, and I always make sure that we bring our own towels, and that we help to pick up before leaving. I suspect this is why we continue to be invited. We are SUPER low-maintenance!

JMO, of course

 

[Sierrah]

Give for the joy of giving without expectation of receiving anything. If you feel someone is taking advantage of your hospitality then don’t invite them to your house. I saw my mother go back and forth on this as to how much who was giving who in family or what friends were inviting them over and who was taking advantage of them. It’s so not worth the worry. I understand you’re hurt but remember people can only hurt you as much as you allow them too.

Let it go and stop inviting them if you feel they don’t appreciate it. They may get the message then.

 

[PatriceA]

unfortunatly it seems some of you who have responded have missed the point of the post.
I am not an over the top “Martha Stewart type” entertainer. nor do these 2 friends have homes that they are embarressed to show off. (these 2 friends live in upscale high end homes).
what I am annoyed about is how all winter long I have invited both the adults and the children to my home. cooked great meals and created great entertainment for the kids. babysat, etc, etc.(i never did any of that for an invitation to their home, it was just to be a good friend) all alongthe parents always leaving our home with the same response " well have you over in the summer since we have the pool". I would always respond with a sounds great give me a call.

now, let me be clear. we have many other friends and relatives with pools. My kids can swim pretty much when ever they want. What I am annoyed about is even once the summer came I was still the host, memorial day we had 1 family over, then I have babysat for the other family.etc, etc.
and the other day my hubby asked me to invite theses 2 familys over for a bbq and thats when I realized how thoughtless is was that I keep hosting and they have not bothered to call us and have us over on a hot day for a dip. Oh, but I did hear about how nice the water felt when we had a heat wave.

That’s much more detail than you gave in your original post. Take the pools out of the equation, forget that these friends even have pools and haven’t invited you over. Are you still willing to extend your hospitality to them? Or do you just feel like you are being taken advantage of all around? If you answer yes to either question, then you have a decision to make about whether you want to continue to entertain theses friends with the knowledge that they will not reciprocate or is it time to cool it and invite the friends that are reciprocating.

And yes friendships come in all sizes, all degrees of closeness. I enjoy the casual conversation with the acquintances, maybe not quite to the degree I do the deep conversations with my bestest girl friend, but still I’m blessed to have those acquintances in my life. And I’ve been invited to neighbors houses or the parents of my daughter’s schoolmates and we may not repay them by inviting them over for a similar get together at our house, but we have reciprocated in other ways by babysitting or inviting their kids to musuems and whatnot so they can have a “date night”. Reciprocating can take all kinds of forms IMO, it doesn’t have to be an eye for an eye kind of thing. Maybe these families have helped you out in other ways that you may have forgotten or overlooked?

 

[lovemyboys]

My policy is this: I will extend an invitation, but then I will wait until the other person extends an invitation to me before I do so again. I will also call someone, but then I will wait for that person to call me before I try again. Then, I never feel taken advantage of (and in case the people don’t really like me that much, I don’t become a pest to them).

 

[Sierrah]

My policy is this: I will extend an invitation, but then I will wait until the other person extends an invitation to me before I do so again. I will also call someone, but then I will wait for that person to call me before I try again. Then, I never feel taken advantage of (and in case the people don’t really like me that much, I don’t become a pest to them).

This is mine too.

 

[Emily2009]

I’m a lifeguard… in my opinion, unless your older kids are fabulous swimmers and the pool is shallow enough for your two year old to stand, I don’t think I would be quick to invite your family over to swim, especially if you’re the only adult. This isn’t to say that I wouldn’t like your family, or wouldn’t want to, it just is rough to watch that many little little kids swimming and not worry. So, if you had another adult, or your kids were all super swimmers, maybe, but with one adult and 4+ kids under age 8, I don’t think I could be comfortable inviting you guys swimming. It’s a lot of responsibility.

 

[gmarie21]

I also think that alot of people are quick to accept invitations but then realize that they aren’t spending enough time as a family. Especially if it’s just the mom and the kids who come over and when they’re home they get to see dad. I know of a couple of people who this is relevant for. They accept all sorts of invitations but rarely have people over because that is their family time.

That’s us. Also, I get very overwhelmed when having people over (and when I’m at someone else’s house/event) and am drained two hours into the visit. I have in-laws who overstay at times and call at the last minute when coming over, my family prefers an invite first. My husband and I work opposite hours and days, so I do savor any time we have together. My family is no longer insulted that we don’t go to everything, his family, however, have major issues with us not going to everything, even to the point of saying that we’re not being good Catholics for not going to every party. Too bad they don’t observe me enough to see how quiet I am about 2 hours into each party (when I’ve reached the overwhelmed part).

 

[Luvs2Learn]

Thanks for all of your responses. Some of you made some really good points. especially about the people who are quick to accept invitations but don’t spend a lot of family time together. this may be the case with 1 of the familys. I didn’t think of that. her family is from another state and they do try to visit them as much as they can over the summer. But I still think the other family just makes a lot of effort to invite friends who they don’t see often over in the summer and pretty much forgets about her other friends ho she sees all school year.go figure:shrug:

 

[bluerose]

DH and I have been married 22 years and live less than 100 miles from my hometown… where I went to school, worked, got married. My family and all my friends from “back in the day” still live there. And every other weekend, DH and I (and our son) go “back home” to visit. Even for just a day.

I can count on one hand, and have a few fingers left over, the number of times in those 22 years, that our friends have made the trip up to visit us. Family, yes, of course, they visit and even stay overnight, but because my parents are quite elderly (Mom is 83, Dad passed away last year at 90) the trip, even though it’s only an hour and a half each way, is tough on them, which is why we make the effort to go visit them. Friends are always welcome to stay overnight… plenty of beds, even a private room with a TV, and lots of food. No takers.

Last time I checked, 100 miles is the same distance when going from Point A to Point B as it is going from Point B to Point A. You would not believe how many friends tell us, “oh, we’d love to come, but it’s so far to drive”! Apparently, it does not occur to them that we make the same distance trip to visit them… and yes, we drive (our private Concorde jet has been in the shop for repairs since the day after our wedding:shrug

SO… we accept that we will always be the ones “going”, always be the ones packing a bag and trying to fit in some of the people who wail that we “never” have time to visit when we’re in town (“gosh, you guys are in town every other week and we never see you!”) in between trying to help my elderly mother with chores like lawn mowing and home maintenance, cooking a few meals and giving my sister and her daughter (who live with mom and are her primary caregivers) a break to go out once in a while. So we continue to throw out the invitations, hoping to someday be shocked by an acceptance, try to accept the ones we can and not feel bad about the ones we can’t, and spend as much time with Mom as God allows us… Believe me, when Dad died, we learned who our friends were… it wasn’t always the ones who were eager to have us over!