I really enjoyed Terry’s article “Hosting as an Expat in Europe (Updated): The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of Dealing with Guests.” We live in Lisbon, Portugal, so we often find ourselves double-booked with visitors from abroad. Terry made me laugh out loud – I honestly thought I was the only one dealing with my fair share of maddening guests.
That said, I also think Terry had it relatively easy, despite the obvious shamelessness of some of his visitors. So I decided to challenge him to a competition: Who has hosted the worst guests? And I’m fairly certain I’m winning.
Here’s why:
The critical guest
It’s not just that these guests don’t cook or buy any food – they also sit there and complain that something you, the host, prepared for them isn’t up to their expectations. The girlfriend of a friend once remarked that something my husband cooked was “too dry,” and he’d made it for us in the middle of an incredibly busy workweek. I was later told that it was “cultural,” and that people from that part of Europe (I won’t say where, but it’s an easy guess) can be a bit too frank!
Another friend complained that we weren’t changing her pillowcase often enough. When I pointed out that we couldn’t reasonably replace it every single day, she became genuinely worried that we were ruining her skincare routine.
The “I’ll Break Your Stuff and Not Replace It” guest
Putting something in the microwave that isn’t microwave-safe is an honest mistake anyone could make. But what is it with people who don’t replace the things they ruin? Like one guest who melted something valuable and said nothing!
Then there are the Millennial parents who believe that their toddlers need to be “convinced” not to destroy the house, rather than simply being told to stop – very different from how we Millennials were raised. Why should a friend’s toddler be allowed to wander around smashing things? But because this new generation of parents is following a completely different philosophy, “convincing” the toddler to stop being destructive was apparently the only strategy his dad felt he could use.
The beyond “useless” guest
And now we come to the Arab family. It’s no secret that many Middle Eastern cultures are famously warm and welcoming. We’re great hosts! But there’s another side to that warmth: the same people who are incredibly generous hosts can become, well … a bit burdensome as guests.
These are the guests who find it less than generous of you to expect them to pay for anything – even if you’re hosting them for more than 10 days. They’ll never make themselves breakfast because they are your “guests.”
You’re expected to do everything: the cooking, the cleaning, the sightseeing plans.
Meanwhile, they might just sit on the sofa watching you work, wondering why you’re not entertaining them right now. And it’s not that they wouldn’t do the same if they were hosting – it’s that you’d never let them do all of that for you when you’re the guest. You’d think they’d take the hint when the roles are reversed. But … nope.
This sense of hospitality also comes with the expectation that you’ll host them on short notice – because you never say no to family.
The ones who disappear afterwards
We once hosted an old friend – well, not really a friend anymore, since he disappeared from our lives afterward. He’s perfectly fine; we still see him on social media partying and living it up. A few years ago, he wanted to come to Lisbon to work on his “art.” He planned to stay for a month, so we couldn’t host him ourselves. Instead, we found him a great deal on a studio apartment. We also connected him with art projects and studios to help him build a network for when he arrived.
When he finally came, we showed him around, introduced him to people, invited him over for dinner – the whole thing. Then, during the last two weeks of his stay, he basically vanished. And after he left, we never heard from him again.
At times it feels like living in Lisbon has turned us into part of the tourism industry – just without ever getting paid.
And as Terry, we are also grateful for other guests …
There are those guests who arrive carrying the warm scent of home – who remind us of what we deeply miss while living abroad and who shower us with the love and companionship we truly need. They’re the ones who appreciate your company and your hospitality above all else. They’re also independent, they don’t need babysitting, and they’ll bring you something you genuinely miss from home rather than a fridge magnet. They aren’t always family; sometimes they’re friends who fly all the way just to spend time with you.
And a final confession
Despite the many difficult guests we’ve had, I still find it hard to limit hosting to the easy-going ones. It’s tough to resist Lisbon’s popularity. Maybe next time we’ll move somewhere a little less interesting.
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Read more about Lisbon here in Dispatches’ archives.
Sarah Nagaty has a PhD in cultural studies, She’s lived in Portugal for six years.
As a student of cultural studies, Sarah is drawn to what connects people from different backgrounds to new cultures and places, how they relate to their new surroundings and what kind of activities they could engage with in their new hometowns.
