Weekly Lesson: The House Guest

For study until 6th of October 2024

Subject: The House Guest

Audio: On usual social media platforms.

When I heard that a friend was coming to visit for a few days, my heart sank. As a typical British man, I know that friends staying over, usually causes a lot of stress. I had no particular beef with the person himself, but I knew that a guest staying would throw a spanner into the works of my daily routine. These days, British people are not so hospitable. All of us want our “personal space” so staying at hotels usually allows us more time to do what we want instead of being tied down to particular moments such as eating with the host family etc.

As I am married to someone from South America, I’ve had to get used to this idea of family and guests coming and going with no fixed arrival or departure date but the most frustrating thing is the expectation that I will change my routine and socialise with them.  There is some opinion that I should free up my days to entertain, socialise and find myself sitting in coffee shops speaking bad Spanish or pidgin English for them to understand while slowly walking around the town. “We do, for family” is a common idiom used for people who hold family values, and it is an idiom which I am reminded of from time to time. It simply means that we make an effort “to do”, to make actions to help them.

Despite the politeness of British people, few of us want guests. We give a lot of lip service to people using phrases like “call again”, “drop by anytime”, “lovely to see you” yet there is a dark side to the English mind, we rarely say how we really feel. Guarding our personal space is extremely important yet so is our required politeness.  Also, as Britain spirals into a nation of cell phone tappers, communicating only through Whatsapp or Facebook, we seem to be losing our basic social skills.

 British people tend to be uptight, especially with appointments, living space and personal space.  We can be sociable but only within limits which often need to be predetermined and arranged well in advance.  

I am not completely opposed to people coming to stay in our home but I do expect to maintain my personal space, this is a kind of a basic requirement for British people. I love entertaining, cooking for and generally being available for guests but unless you live in a very large place, it is impossible to guard your personal space.  I felt like this visit was an obligation, not a joyful meeting. Perhaps if I had kids when I was younger, I would be more open minded, having been wrenched into changing my habits by kids screaming.

Upon his arrival we had the usual Latin “hugs and kisses”  and greetings which lasted at least five minutes with that strange dance thing they do by holding hands and rotating a few times. My cat had the right idea  –  he hissed then vanished for a few hours. Whereas my very British cold “hello” holding out a hand to be shaken was met with a little confusion.  It didn’t seem warm, even I felt that and it kind of set the tone for the rest of the visit. This was my sense of welcome though,  I really didn’t know what else to do. Should I have crossed the line and initiated a hug?

Of course like many people today our guest shared with me struggles about his mental health, I was reminded that I always seem to attract people with low self esteem into my life. Just like Skype really.

 “I don’t know why I’m often surrounded by people like this… my mental health is perfectly ok” I assured myself. 

As our guest made himself at home, he wandered around pressing notes on my piano.

“I wish he wouldn’t touch that” I thought to myself, I tried to force a smile but it looked more like a snarl. It wasn’t until he gained custody of the TV remote control that I really had to force myself to shut up.

“You have a lovely place” he snorted in perfect Spanish “I just had to get away from home for a few days” he muttered before launching into a tirade about how stressed-out life is for him.  He didn’t seem to realise just how stressed he was making me but as a family member, I had to remember “We do… for family”.

For the next week, I started wondering how I could actually avoid him. I got up early enough to make podcasts and  aimed at getting out of the house before he surfaced. I was fairly successful most days only returning when it was time to start work online. I looked back at times gone by when getting to know people seemed easier, but this person I felt I didn’t know well and that made me uncomfortable despite having been in his company many times.

 It did make me question a few things about myself, British culture, the speed of our lives and why we are not really very open to hospitality anymore.  After all, I want to be hospitable, I remember the endless, countless days of living in other countries where there was such a sense of welcome in people’s lives. We all just seemed happier somehow and I was able to escape my British cynicism. My parents and grandparents also seemed to have a very strong sense of welcome and joy in a very British eccentric kind of a way.

I came up with a couple of reasons:

Firstly, I think there are clear cultural differences between the British and others across the world who could be perceived as rude within English culture. I remember my Grandmother commenting after a trip to Spain how “Continental manners were rather rude”. Continental in this case means people who live on the mainland continent of Europe. Remembering of course  Britain is an island. This guy had a voice like a foghorn. I didn’t appreciate that. His voice is still ringing in my ears.

British people, we don’t show our feelings, and  I think that is the main part of the problem. We prefer to wait until it’s all over and then make podcasts about our experiences. We don’t reveal our feelings, we wait to be asked and that sometimes just doesn’t happen, leading to a great feeling of dismay or melancholy.

Secondly, for whatever reason, perhaps because of post-Covid, we are all different people and society is changing, people are not quite so comfortable with others as before.

Thirdly, and I think this is the most important one, I think I was robbed of my choice to say “No”. In hindsight, I would have preferred if he simply wasn’t here or at least was able to somehow respect my personal space but that would have required a very difficult conversation which would have not been in the spirit of hospitality. The conflicted view about how you really like the person staying but at the same time, you don’t like them staying and how it’s great to see them but actually it’s really not great to see them in fact it’s very annoying.  I found myself biting my tongue a few times to avoid conversations like this. There is also the issue of personal space, which as far as I can tell is a British thing and often not celebrated by other cultures.

I was left with a strange question:

“I love hospitality and have a celebratory sense of welcome or do I?”