Middle-class worries

Categories: uncategorized

Date: 16 February 2006 17:28:25

Having moved from London to a small town (well, it's technically a city too) I find I have moved into the world of Reciprocal Dinner Parties.

I don't think we are doing very well at them... we've been invited to two formal "knowing in advance" dinners, one where one couple invited us and another couple, and one where a third couple invited just us. We've invited back the first couple, but haven't managed to find a date to invite the third couple, which is complicated by the fact that they live an hour away... and would rather stay over... and the second couple we invited with the first couple haven't invited us back... but they are quite young, and haven't got much money, and are planning their wedding, so are they in the category of people we take pity on (in a nice way), and don't expect a return invitation before we invite them back again?
And there are other people we'd love to invite, but they (and we) are too busy to find a mutually convenient date... one colleague had us for a scratch dinner after we'd spent the afternoon here, but his partner is not too well at the moment, and they have her dad living with them, so would a dinner invitation be extra stress, or a welcome respite? and then there's L, who may (or may not) be still seeing the bloke she was seeing before Christmas, and if she is, would she still want to bring him by the time the dinner came around?

It's so complicated! Can I go back to London, where you live so far from your friends that you have to meet in restaurants anyway?