Dinners, Part 1

A few weeks ago, Ted and I invited two of our neighbors over for dinner. It was something I had wanted to do for weeks, but whether it was conflicts with scheduling or not catching each other on the street at the right time, it had taken awhile to make it happen.

Tuesday, at 6pm, we had the table set beautifully in fall colors, and a favorite recipe of ours was just finishing on the stove. We waited, and waited for our neighbors to come, but… nothing happened. No one came! At 6:30 I decided to call one of the expected guests and she said, “oh yeah, I can’t make it!” Apparently the other neighbor was nowhere to be found… but our friend said, “You know, Thursday would really be better for me anyways.” Ok, so we were okay with trying for Thursday instead – but I knew to be a little more prepared for the unexpected... (Thankfully, our friends next door were home that night and in need of dinner, so we carried the food over and ate together :)

Two days later, Thursday, we had a somewhat simpler meal prepared to serve. Was anyone going to show up this night? We thought they might come at 6, but by 6:30… no one had come. I called the same neighbor and she was clearly not at home, and the other neighbor was nowhere to be found, again. So, we invited another friend to come by but he did not answer his phone. Finally we dug into the food ourselves and had great leftovers for the following week.

Ha! Sounds so strange, right? Well it may not be so uncommon, as our friends next door made clear after our first “no show” dinner. They have had similar experiences to ours, and they don’t think it necessarily indicates that people aren’t interested in getting to know us better. Having people over for dinner may not be a common part of the culture in our neighborhood—at least not in the form we expect it.