Everyone's had dinner parties to which they've invited people or colleagues they did not know that well. There are ways in which a dinner party guest can behave, which would ensure that there would never be a repeat invitation. Not ever, not in a million years.
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In short, certain ways of behaving will be sure to turn any dinner party into a complete disaster.
If your dancing card has been particularly empty for the last few months, take a good hard look at yourself and see whether you recognise yourself in any of the following behaviours:
Kids' critic. Guests who have no children of their own, have no right to give advice regarding the disciplining of the children of their host. If things are unbearable, lie about having a headache and leave. Wait five years before resuming this friendship. Criticising peoples' children will not endear you to them. In fact, it is enough to get you off invitation lists for any future dinner parties they might consider having.
Vegetarian villain. Being vegetarian is certainly not villainous in itself, but what is, is only informing your hostess or host of your vegetarian status as he/she carries the roast to the table. If you don't eat meat, tell your dinner party hosts well in advance, or make provisions for taking your own food. Making others around the table feel guilty for eating meat is also a no-no.
Poison Peter. This is the guest who has a bee in his bonnet about something and likes to get involved in serious and potentially explosive arguments with other guests about politics, religion, women's rights or some such topic. Making everyone's hackles rise will not endear you to your hosts. The hosts wanted a pleasant and peaceful dinner party – if they wanted to listen to aggressive debating, they would have fetched takeways and watched TV. Moreover, if you can manage to make one of the other guests leave early in a huff, you will never be invited again.
Boozing Belinda. Someone else's dinner party is not the place to experiment with hitting the bottle. Especially if you drink double the amount of wine that you brought with you. A slurring dinner guest that lurches around the room is not only unattractive and intimidating, but is also often the only one who finds his/her own jokes screamingly funny. If you have ever passed out at someone's dinner party, don't be surprised if your social life grinds to a halt. Future weekends could mean grocery shopping and watching TV until your eyes pop out.
Racist repartee. Making racist remarks of any kind at a dinner party will not only cause offence, but also reveal your ignorance and unwillingness to get with the programme. Blind prejudice is always unattractive, makes other guests edgy, and makes the hosts wonder why they bothered to spend all the time and money on this dinner party rather than on simply going out for supper – on their own.
Pet problems. People's pets are dear to their hearts. While it is the hosts' responsibility to stop the Alsatian from licking you in the face or trying to hump your leg, do not express intense dislike of all representatives of the animal kingdom. It will not increase your popularity stakes. Take an antihistamine if you are allergic to cats. Whatever you do, don't sit around looking at the animals as if they have leprosy or are radioactive.
Uninvited hordes. Bringing uninvited people to a dinner party is so socially unacceptable, it is scary. The least you can do if your cousin Joe is staying with you, is to phone and ask if you can bring him along. Simply arriving with uninvited hordes (and this includes arriving with your children or your pets, or even worse, photograph albums of them) will not only create a catering problem, it is downright rude. And you will never be asked to come round again. Promise.
Superior suggestions. Making suggestions regarding interior decoration, renovation or recipes for the exact same dish your hostess has carefully prepared, will not make them like you. Never give advice or make suggestions unless you are specifically asked for your opinion – and even then tread carefully. It is so easy to insult people. And if people wanted to be insulted, they would have invited the in-laws to come round, not you.
Eat-and-run. Unless you have stated your intention to leave early when you were invited, it is simply rude to leave right after dinner. Do this, and it will look as if you really did not enjoy the evening, the company, the food. Even if this were true, stay for at least half an hour after the meal has finished. And think up a good excuse next time you get invited. Such as a contagious eye-infection or your sister's three children spending the weekend.
Available Andrew. Andrew sees dinner parties as pickup joints. He tries his luck with every woman on the party – available and unavailable – and doesn't stop short of trying his luck in the kitchen with his visibly pregnant and very much married hostess. In fact, the host suspects if he put a dress on the broomstick, Andrew would show interest. This is a tiresome guest, whose social life is sure to become less and less active as time goes by.And his chances of getting hooked up with someone are more remote than finding tyrannosaurus rex alive and well and living on Mars.
Allergy Alec. If you have a list of allergies the length of your right arm, you have my sympathy. But don't make it your host's problem. It's not difficult for the host to avoid, say, carrots, or kiwi fruit or walnuts when choosing recipes for the evening, but a generalized wheat or dairy allergy could be problematic. Accept the invitation, but take your own food. The last thing you or your hosts feel like is ending the evening's festivities in the local trauma unit, with you busy wheezing and coming up in hives.
Dramatic dresser. This is the person who sees the dinner party as an opportunity to make a fashion statement – and often it is one you would rather have preferred not to witness. Revealing necklines, 'funny' ties or fancy dress of some sort (when it isn't a fancy dress party) is usually not regarded as sexy or funny by anyone except the wearer. Don't go there, especially if you don't know your hosts very well.
Health fanatic. No one wants to know the caloric value of the dessert they're busy eating. Similarly, blurting out the terrible damage being done by the fizzy drinks everyone is having, is a real party pooper. It's fine to be health conscious, but don't stuff it down other people's throats while they're trying to enjoy themselves. Similarly, if you're on a diet, don't make it everyone else's problem and spoil the party for them. Other people don't want to know about your efforts to shed those extra kilos. Keep it to yourself.
Gossiping Gus. This is the guest whose only conversation consists of other people and their antics – usually scandalous. This is a boring topic of conversation, especially if the people under discussion are not known to everyone around the table. Furthermore, constant malicious gossip about others has a tendency to make other guests nervous, as they quite rightly wonder what you are going to say about them when they leave the room.
Chatterbox Cherie. A conversation with this one is an experience akin to standing under the Augrabies waterfall. The deluge of words that comes pouring from her mouth leaves no one else with a gap to say anything. This is downright rude and exhausting for everyone else around the table. People who talk constantly without listening to anyone else, are basically sending out the message that they don't think what anyone else says is of any remote importance. And have you noticed that people who chatter non-stop, have a tendency not to break their flood of speech at natural pauses, like commas or full stops? They rush over them and breathe in the middle of sentences, forcing you to interrupt them if you want to say anything at all.
Freeloading Fred. Fred is the guest who always arrives empty-handed and who does not leave until every scrap of booze in the house is finished. Fred sees dinner parties not as social occasions, but as freebie fests. He eats so much (and so fast) you wonder whether he has an eating disorder – and he drinks so much that you know he has a drinking problem. He stays until three in the morning and never will issue a return invitation. By the way he carries on, anyone would swear he was off to prison for a seven-year stint the following day.
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