An appalling claim of dinner-host 'etiquette'

[michelel72]

Dear Miss Manners: I sent out a dinner invitation to my in-laws. My brother-in-law called my husband to confirm attendance. He added that he will be bringing his boyfriend, and will require certain food accommodations because the boyfriend was just discharged from the hospital a couple of days ago after a major organ transplant surgery.

I decided to cancel the dinner, telling my husband that it is rude and entitled to inconvenience your host. If one is that delicate that he needs special treatment, then he should stay home. My husband says I’m being too sensitive and should just ignore the request. What does Miss Manners think?

That someone should be checking in on the boyfriend who just had a major organ transplant?!

Miss Manners has sympathy for the rampant abuse of hosts when it comes to inviting extra people and dictating menus. But she does not cancel dinners over them — and not for legitimate excuses such as bringing an established partner and asking to accommodate his post-hospitalization diet.

Not only are you being too sensitive, you are being actively insensitive. But you may take comfort in knowing that your husband's idea to ignore the (likely) medically necessary dietary request may actually be worse.

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Comments

[lilysea]

yes, in a world where COVID is running wild, dinner parties with hosts who don't care about other people's well being sounds like a really bad idea

(because do we really trust LW to be taking good COVID precautions, and to cancel dinner if she's been exposed/had symptoms?)

[redbird]

Yes, this, and I didn't even think of it until you pointed it out. The risk of covid is a reason for people to go home from the hospital as soon as practicable, but that's very different from exposing oneself to everyone else's germs.

"Major organ transplant surgery" means immune-suppressing drugs, which make any infection more dangerous.