![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Which partner should I invite to dinner?
Dec. 5th, 2015 03:02 pmPlease note: I didn't ask any of the partners before writing this, so they might have different ideas, although I think I talked about it with all of them in vague terms when the question first arose.
I think the main thing is, we all like to be considered! But of course, everyone has limited table space. And at the moment, I don't get invited out a lot* and when I do it tends to be daytime when only the children and I are avaiable. Or it's a big party, and the host invites all of us that they know. These are both excellent invitations for which we are grateful, and I think the right answer. Thank you.
For smaller occasions, a small invitation to dinner, it gets quite awkward now because my small children are boisterous and picky eaters, so not the most restful of dinner guests. A has attempted to invite himself on precisely this basis 'I don't eat anything, so I won't be any trouble'. But I can quite see how someone might want just the people who are going to eat nicely, thank the host graciously, and talk about stuff.
In general, if you have a burning desire to see me and one of my partners, that's who you should invite. For example, I have 'invite x + y to dinner' in my todo list right now, and although they are part of a polycule any one of whom I'd love to come to dinner, those names are there because I feel I haven't spent enough time with them recently. You might feel that you see C&J a reasonable amount but haven't seen R for ages, for example, or you might feel that you know J best, so would like to see him most, or whatever reason. That's fine.
If what you really want to do is invite ghoti+1, you can either phrase it like that, or choose someone in the quad. Probably the easiest from the pov of me & C is to invite C & R or J and me & R or J rather than together; so long as you don't ignore any of us without good reason, we won't mind. We understand that there are lots of us and we take up a lot of space and energy.
If in doubt, choose a random quad member, and try not to ignore any other partners of mine you know, is a good rule of thumb.
As for Tom, I am happy to eat dinner with him any time you wish, so if you were going to invite Tom and thought it might be nice to have me as well, that's probably the right circumstance to choose Tom.
*at this point, at least one of my readership is going to be thinking 'I would have but you got there first!' Thank you.
I think the main thing is, we all like to be considered! But of course, everyone has limited table space. And at the moment, I don't get invited out a lot* and when I do it tends to be daytime when only the children and I are avaiable. Or it's a big party, and the host invites all of us that they know. These are both excellent invitations for which we are grateful, and I think the right answer. Thank you.
For smaller occasions, a small invitation to dinner, it gets quite awkward now because my small children are boisterous and picky eaters, so not the most restful of dinner guests. A has attempted to invite himself on precisely this basis 'I don't eat anything, so I won't be any trouble'. But I can quite see how someone might want just the people who are going to eat nicely, thank the host graciously, and talk about stuff.
In general, if you have a burning desire to see me and one of my partners, that's who you should invite. For example, I have 'invite x + y to dinner' in my todo list right now, and although they are part of a polycule any one of whom I'd love to come to dinner, those names are there because I feel I haven't spent enough time with them recently. You might feel that you see C&J a reasonable amount but haven't seen R for ages, for example, or you might feel that you know J best, so would like to see him most, or whatever reason. That's fine.
If what you really want to do is invite ghoti+1, you can either phrase it like that, or choose someone in the quad. Probably the easiest from the pov of me & C is to invite C & R or J and me & R or J rather than together; so long as you don't ignore any of us without good reason, we won't mind. We understand that there are lots of us and we take up a lot of space and energy.
If in doubt, choose a random quad member, and try not to ignore any other partners of mine you know, is a good rule of thumb.
As for Tom, I am happy to eat dinner with him any time you wish, so if you were going to invite Tom and thought it might be nice to have me as well, that's probably the right circumstance to choose Tom.
*at this point, at least one of my readership is going to be thinking 'I would have but you got there first!' Thank you.
