6 Ways(To Avoid) How Not To Ruin A Perfectly Good Dinner
#2 Complaining about everything.
Imagine being invited to a dinner, by a proud and accomplished Karen. Whose feats speak volumes of how she battled poverty and became the successful woman that she is. She invites you and your family to celebrate a festive day. You are happy to accept as you consider her a friend. And as a party of five people, you meet on the day all ready to enjoy the feast.
But as life is unpredictable, so are the circumstances that come without knocking when it comes to the most uncomfortable of situations. Especially when you put on your happy face to acknowledge and accept someone’s offer in unison.
I remember that night perfectly, my mother and father were invited to join their acquaintance who was hosting a celebration party on a festive day. It is called Eid-al-Fitr. As the fasting month of Ramadan came to an end, Eid is celebrated known as the festival of the month of Ramadan. It is celebrated for three days at the end of the month. Eid is like the “Christmas” for Muslims. It is celebrated by all, and everyone as it welcomes unison, warmth and celebration under one roof.
Some feasts continue for three days, and people come together to share and enjoy the festivities as it sends a welcoming message for all peoples. So you can imagine after a month of spiritual practices, fasting and prayer. People aim to aspire to enjoy the feast with full zest.
But as they say, God tests you in different ways — there was but another test we had to experience and that too on the day of festivities. How about that? Am I right. I think we along, with a few other people, were invited to join the host of the party on the festive trip.
I believe we went to so many restaurants because the host had a problem with everything and everyone. Furthermore, her sons lacked in the decency and attitude department towards other people. They had a higher sense of self that was intoxicating to hear the entire time we sat across the table.
The following are the 6 things that I learned to avoid when hosting a dinner party or any celebration for that matter — through my excruciatingly painful experience that continued for an entire day.
1. Being a terrible host.
First things first — if you are aiming to throw a celebration on a festive day. You should learn the etiquettes to properly host a dinner. Because it matters if you want to create an environment of safety and celebration. We all have a desire to feel safe to express and experience.
Thus opting a kinder tone and a humble attitude can go leaps and bounds in creating a space where everyone feels safe. Festive days allow people of all perspectives to come together. Being a host that proffers kindness can help people open up and create an environment of harmony where everyone can feel that they belong.
Now in the advent that you do not exercise caution and go without preparation thinking, that you are high and mighty can derail any event. Thus my advice would be to exercise kindness when hosting a dinner party or celebration for that matter. Because you and everyone you know deserves to treated with kindness, love, and respect.
2. Complaining about everything.
This is an obvious no-no. Nothing is perfect having a consciousness of grandeur. It will only cause problems for you and everyone around you. I know there can be a billion things wrong with every establishment. But remember to try seeing the right ones as well.
As kindness can allow even the wrong things to become ordinary things. There isn’t a perfect place to sit. There are millions of microbes and germs in the air — yet you’re still here. It is okay to be not okay. Acceptance allows you to mitigate many things that might cause you discomfort. And having discomfort, with everything is a problem you need to fix before you come in front of people when hosting a dinner.
You have to focus on the things you can control. Exercise caution, but don’t overdo things. These are never meant to be taken seriously. Now a small spill of water on the dinner table can’t be classified sanitary is an example of what to avoid. Look there, can be any number of things that can happen knowingly or unknowingly. People become anxious, and accidents happen.
The best thing to do in such a scenario is to practice an attitude of acceptance and kindness. Allowing yourself to become calm and relaxed will also help other people around to feel peace too. It is a given sentiment that when you are calm, the energy around helps other people to become calm as well.
Thus try to practice this as much as you can before you aim to find that one black spot in everybody’s soup. It might be the case, the fly in the soup was meant to be there. Order another one, just like that. Don’t let people feel conflicted by their mistakes instead allow them to feel that they can improve rather than feeling helpless.
3. Being obscenely rude to the staff (waiter).
Remember the waiter, valet, the chef, and even the security guards standing there in those restaurants on that festive day might have families to feed. Who in their right mind, would be doing a job on a festive day? I have a great, answer for you, someone who plans to earn to make their loved ones & themself happy. If they show courtesy and kindness — value these sentiments, and them as well.
Everybody can make mistakes. But the best way to go about things is to always practise forgiveness & zest. Remember that zest is that one quality that allows people who’ve made mistakes to feel much more responsible in mitigating the next time.
If you become rude to the person especially, on a day of celebration — you would just be doing wrong to other people and yourself. She was really rude to the people in the restaurants. I know you might be thinking that you’re some bigshot but at the end of the day, be respectful towards people who do low wage jobs. It is every person’s right to feel valued and feels that they belong.
If you tried valuing these people, those low wages seem nothing compared to the feeling of being loved and belonging they feel. We are here in this world together. If only we allow ourselves, to share the joy instead of malice. We can definitely coexist in harmony.
Imagine a waiter who cries in the pantry, whenever a customer and the manager is rude to them. Imagine the feeling of worthlessness one feels when they experience something so wrong. It happens, and I have seen it. But in such times, if you allow yourself to extend a hand to the other person assuring them that it’s okay. Things can turn out much better for everyone at the end of the day.
4. Pompously talking about your accomplishments.
Remember, it is not about you — its about time for everyone to feel valued and not just your feeble self. It gets tiring to hear about your struggles when you can’t seem to acknowledge someone else’s who is in your position right now. One of the things that definitely pissed me of that night was her attitude towards other workers. I mean I don’t know them although it doesn’t mean I am going to treat them like trash. Like they don’t matter.
Who wants to listen to a person ramble, and ramble until the patience runs out — no one. The best way to engage your guests is to acknowledge each and everyone you invite. That their presence is indeed welcoming and you’re grateful that they could make it.
This helps you to allow others to feel welcomed, that they too have a place to belong. It helped others to experience tranquillity. Even if their day was not going well, they can now relax and enjoy along with you.
You have to create an environment of cheerfulness, that’s what festivities are all about. It helps you forget about your misery and despair. For once you can lay back and enjoy the fireworks with everyone else as well in harmony.
That is the essence of unison, and it makes everyone’s lives better than what it was before you found them. If that isn’t the greatest thing one can do, I don’t know what is.
5. Being an asshole to your guests.
What kind of a person treats another like shit? — Who is basically in their shoes, is experiencing the same strife and hardship that they once experienced?
I don’t know, but I do know they are those who never learn the importance of values is the one who devalues others based on their mistakes and struggles. Criticism can be performed in a humane manner, not in an antagonizing manner. I think all those previous experiences with her finally took its toll on my senses. I just told her to shut up. Though she was way older than me, I couldn’t fathom her being an incessant asshole to everyone just for the sake of it.
Her children were in the same boat as well. The shut-up call I gave was perhaps to her son, who was being continuously rude to the waiters. I told him to watch your manners. Certainly, he didn’t know the difference in being decent or indecent. If he’d known the difference. He’d been a much likeable gentleman than the version sitting before us.
I think I was the first one who spoke. My aunt was the second person who told her to mind her manners. Like, talking so obnoxiously since the afternoon — I think both of us had our fill of her and her family. I think anyone in our situation would if they go through such a humiliating and dehumanizing experience.
Even she is accomplished, it doesn’t give her the right to dehumanize another just because they have less authority. I dislike such people and stay away from them. If it wasn’t for my father sitting on the dinner table, my attitude towards her son would have been much stricter. Though I don’t become violent that easily. But I’d say that asshole(her son) dared to call that kind fellow waiter — who apologized three times to him, a cunt.
If I was another paying guest, there and my father wasn’t there. I’d have personally picked that runt up, and asked him courteously to apologize to the teenage waiter, who was just doing his job.
Like if you have a problem with the atmosphere, the people, the menu, the food — just leave. She did just that after roaming us around the restaurant after restaurant. Now finally, we found one that met her “standards.” Her sons have a problem with the staff. What in the hell are they trying to pull on all of us? Was something that crossed my mind as I spoke to her son “will you please shut up!? Thank you.”
Though they didn’t take it so well as I had imagined. I believe I spoke at the right time, I told the waiter — there’s no problem, could you follow us up on the order, please. He smiled at me and nodded in respect. I asked him to give us the starter, and then follow up on the order with everybody else.
Word of advice is to be kind and respectful to your guests as well as the people who serve you. The key trick is to not have your head so far up your arse, that you can’t come out to smell the roses. Patience, humour and humility are key in entertaining your guests in having a great time and not the other way around.
6. Ordering to the extreme and then leaving the dinner table in a fit.
Lastly, what more can a person with a pretentious sense of self do — well, there are many things they could do. They can demoralize you as well as the people who are serving you. They can order the most expensive stuff on the menu, things you and I can never eat in one sitting. They can humiliate you in front of other people. And if you earnestly talk back to correct their behaviour, they become angry and violent at you.
Throughout the whole experience, I had just had enough. Her incessant behaviour against other people and the previous experiences that led me to speak against her attitude was worth it. Though I didn’t communicate the way she did, what I said was to object her attitude towards other people and perhaps using a courteous tone as they are hard-working people as well as making a living.
I think she couldn’t fathom an 18-year-old boy talked back to her — telling her how to be gentle and kind to others. This perhaps blew her fuse, and then perhaps I was thrashed across the dinner table with fury.
Though still calm and relaxed while my family watched as she used all the abusive words in the dictionary book. Everybody was quiet until my aunt told her, perhaps she should tune her tone down a bit. Then for a while, she kind of said really harsh things to my father. He was quiet & my mother told me to stay calm — don’t do anything rash. I was calm, as I watched her act like a crazy person.
After whispering, to herself in a fit of rage — she told her sons, we’re leaving. Well, how about that for smudging dirt in my eyes? as revenge. My father obliged her to stay — she didn’t listen. She stormed out of the restaurant, with her two assholes just like that. It was humiliating for all of us at the dinner table.
Imagine the host is so immature, that because of a prompt of a “child.” You leave the dinner table after ordering an expensive array of dishes that I would never dare to eat, let alone buy because it was that bad. It was as much as I hate to admit it.
But all of us sat there, my father still looking at me in disbelief at what had just happened. Our relationship with her toxic personality was severed. I ate quietly, to my sister, I whispered in the front row — “at least the fries taste good.”
All of us ate with the other two families who were with us. We paid for the bill and apologized to the staff on our behalf. The manager came to me when my family was about to leave. He apologized to me for experiencing such an experience on that grand day.
We left, afterwards and haven’t had been in contact with her since. Though I was blamed for my speaking up when we arrived back home. But my aunt was proud of me, that I showed her the mirror for the monster she’d become. The only one who thought I spoke the right words. At least, someone had to say it and I’m still glad it was me. As I took it all with but a smile and my wit. Astonished at how little self-esteem she actually had, when she got triggered from the words of a child.
Epilogue
Imagine experiencing such a dinner on the day that is considered one of the most festive days of the world. Where people come together to celebrate in unison. Where everyone allows themself to feel happy and let go of the things that make them blue.
Imagine experiencing disgust, hatred, hate speech and mistreatment on such a day. Where you’d made your mind that today you will be your best self, and allow yourself to smile. Imagine taking that joy from someone who has made such an oath to themselves.
Imagine ruining such a day for everyone involved. That was the experience I went through along with so many others from an entirely intoxicating self-centred personality. And If I had never stood up and said those few words — I would have never been able to look at myself ever. If I would have never put a stop to their downright awful behaviour. These toxic assholes are not good for anyone but themselves.
Those people were perhaps the worst experience you can ever experience. After moving around from one place to another, every place had problems and complaining about everything. My advice would be never to accept an invitation from someone who behaves as they do. When inviting people to celebrate something leave your differences & petty attitudes at the door.
No one wants to experience such a humiliating event especially when they are celebrating a festive day.
Advice: You should leave your differences aside at the door and opt for a perspective that welcomes another. Practice gratefulness and kindness towards other people in your life.
Allow others to feel that they belong, and that is how you host a perfectly good dinner. And if by any chance, you seem to have the same attitude as my dear host. Then may God guide you and the people you engage with in unison.
Peace, Thank you so much for reading. Stay safe and take care!