So my partner and I recently moved to a new area and we made some friends with the dog walkers at the local park. This has been really good for our dog, who gets to play with the same doggy friends every day.
One of the dog walkers is an older man (70s). Over the last few months he’s been really kind to us. He brings us dog treats and sometimes weird things he finds on sale that he thinks we’ll like. We’ve grown quite fond of him.
Last week he invited us over for tea at his house, and as an opportunity to meet his wife. We were quite excited. This was my first time having a serious dinner with other adults (I’d only been to the kind of gathering where everyone gets drunk or wears fancy dress).
So we show up and proceed to have the most uncomfortable and awkward dinner I have ever experienced.
First off, we meet his wife and she is lovely. What we didn’t expect was that he would openly and proudly treat her like a child? He would order her to fetch stuff or clean stuff for us, and when she said she wasn’t happy with the way he was speaking to her, he told her to stop embarrassing him and to do as she was told. Any time she tried to speak he shut her down. I would ask her questions, bring her into the conversation and he would answer for her.
I felt like I had stepped back in time. It was really not okay. And I had no idea how to navigate that kind of situation.
And then they served dinner. To me and my partner. But not to themselves.
They invited us over to feed us, but didn’t want to share the meal. So they sat across from us and watched us eat. I tried to make conversation over the meal, but each attempt died because the older man kept answering in short one word answers.
And so I am sitting at this table. Hands shaking. Forcing myself to eat this meal because I don’t want to be rude. While they sit there and stare at me while I eat. In silence.
It was awful. The whole experience was just awful.
And I don’t know how to move forwards since I’ve seen how he treats his wife. I don’t really want anything to do with him anymore.
It’s going to be so awkward seeing him at the park.
Comments
> Any time she tried to speak he shut her down.
Unfortunately seen this before.
> So they sat across from us and watched us eat.
Well that’s a new one. Surprised you’re here writing this, I assume you’re not missing a kidney?
If you had 1 day left on Earth, how would you have interacted at dinner? How would you interact moving forward?
You seem like a kind person – being nice to assholes is not a law you have to abide by.
It’s very difficult and breaks a lot of social contracts we’re used to but I think it would go a long way to say next time you see him/contact him “thank you for inviting us to dinner but I felt uncomfortable with how you treat your partner, it doesn’t align with my values”. Clearly he doesn’t care about his wife but he does care about the opinions of others and wants you to like him, if he ever changes his behaviour (unlikely but worth a try) it would be social shame that pushes him
Now, that would have been super awkward them not having dinner. I’m glad you’re still alive to tell the story. I thought they’d poison you both while they watched you eat.
Strange. So what happens when you have them over for dinner? Better off going out to eat, poor wife won’t be humiliated.
Reminds me of a time my husband and I met a couple on our normal walking route. They invited us for dinner and all they did was fight and tell each other how shit the other one was while trying to get us to take sides. In the end the husband got so drunk he puked into his pesto and then proceeded to eat it anyway. We changed our route after that