I remember from my childhood and even from my student years, someone always visited my parents’ house. It’s hard to even call it hosting. A brother’s classmate at the military academy brought his wife straight from the maternity hospital. With a baby, of course. For a year, they probably shared shelter with us. However, times have changed, and we are with them.
I remember my father’s front-line comrade from Vyborg, also with his wife. Lived for four months. Their house was demolished, and the new apartment has not yet been rebuilt. A cousin from the village was engaged in employment in Leningrad for several times of the year. This tradition continued for a long time. My wife and I also have friends looking for shelter more than once. For various occasions and reasons.
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- Everything’s gonna be how I wish
Today, the problem of long-term hospitality is not, it seems, relevant, but nevertheless it is familiar to everyone. The same relatives from the provinces, in search of work or study. Friends from abroad. Hotels are expensive, and places in them need to be mined. And they came not only to refresh the landscape in their memory, but to continue communication, which lasted continuously for the first half of their lives.
So what, it would seem? The duty of friendship and humanity. It is a shame to grumble about this. For example, I do not remember the particular constraint and inconvenience from living with guests.
However, times have changed, and so have we. Until I was twenty, for example, I did not have my own room. That I had two or three new people? So and so I prepared for lessons and lectures on the sofa in the passage room. But come on, now the night, in a compartment with a stranger, sometimes turns into a dramatic loss of inner balance.
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- What is social phobia?
All this, of course, from the category of insignificant events, but life, after all, and for the most part, consists of them. If you are used to having a light sandwich with coffee in the morning, and the guest demands a salad and scrambled eggs in bacon, this can be arranged without much damage to both parties. But he chronically mixes up towels in the bathroom, tells jokes on the long-distance telephone at night and laughs like at a wedding, and at six in the morning he turns on the detective at full volume … room for theirs. Cigarettes, of course, are not a pity, but you begin to feel a little like at the station.
To make him a friendly remark or to reconcile in the name of hospitality? So many lofty and touching words have been said about Russian hospitality (about Georgian, by the way, too)! By default, we cherish this as a medal inherited. But why does he leave open butter on the table overnight?
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- So that the holiday does not become stressful
I drew a somewhat anecdotal guest (with close friends, the problem is not so acute, of course), but, being a guest, we ourselves, it is possible, can become the hero of a joke. Yes, and that’s not really the point. Discomfort.
For you, for example, the best time of day is from ten in the evening to two in the morning, and the owners, on the contrary, are “larks” and go to bed at ten. Besides, I have to work tomorrow. Here comes the weekend, and then, of course, they are completely at your disposal. On Monday, however, you already have a plane.
And now, be kind, respect the rules of someone else’s house. Not like music, turning on the light is a problem. You go to the toilet through the corridor, as if through a minefield. An evening bottle of beer is secretly swallowed. You lie with the player and think about the properties of melancholy. Without evening communion, the day refuses to end.
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- “No one invites him (her) to visit”
Well, what do I need then, tell me, Tel Aviv, Plovdiv or Barcelona, if I have to abruptly change my lifestyle for ten days? Is it a joke?
By the way, in recent times there was such a joke: “Feel at home, but do not forget that you are away.” By the way, this is a complex art. So is the art of hospitality. Do not wear yourself into powder for the sake of the guest, but at the same time try to make him feel comfortable in your house. After all, not only habits are different, but, sometimes, cultural skills and home experience. Not for re-education, fate sent him to you. Not only the idol of hospitality, the very essence of human relations, the rules of the hostel tell us to look for a way out. One must somehow feel for the thin wire of a benevolent compromise and walk along it. It’s probably possible. Question: Is it possible to feel comfortable on this wire?