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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Comment
Polly Hudson

Party season is coming – and I am the tense, sweaty, shrill hostess with the leastess

A group of friends having a great time at a Christmas party
‘The problem is that you go to somebody else’s bash and get lulled into a false sense of security because they make it look so easy.’ Photograph: Posed by models; vladans/Getty Images

Being a bad friend is presumably like being a narcissist – wondering whether you are one probably means that you’re not. However, a writer for the US magazine People questioned this topic just this week, with an article asking if she was letting down her mates by refusing to host Friendsgiving. (For the unfamilar, this is Thanksgiving you spend with friends rather than family, and is increasingly popular in the UK.) She has a good reason though. “I simply don’t want people in my house.”

After mentioning “the foot traffic, the proximity to my stuff, the general vibes of it all”, she admitted, “there is a rhythm and reason to the way my fruit bowl is organised, how my coffee table books are placed and how my cushions lie on the sofa. I would hate to be half-cooking, half-monitoring my guests to make sure no one has their feet on my coffee table and everyone is using coasters. (I’ve seen those types of hosts, and they are the type guests talk about on their way back home!).”

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