Say you have a friend who lives about a half-hour, maybe 45 minutes travel time away from you. You enjoy each other’s company a lot, and try to see each other at least every couple weeks.
Given your true preference, would you rather usually be the one hosting them, or be the one going to visit them?
Poll coming!
Doesn’t much matter. It’s nice to not have to leave the house, but OTOH it’s nice to get out of the house.
Meet her at the pub.
I have to go with option 4, because I think that, generally, it should be balanced. Obviously, concessions should be made if there’s other circumstances (eg, lacking transportation). Oddly enough though, it seems like most of the time I end up having to do the traveling, even if I’m the one that’s less enthusiastic about meeting up. The only exceptions for me seem to be when other people want something from me enough that they’ll come to be, but that sort of doesn’t really seem to count in the context of the OP.
It’s nice when someone visits because it forces me to clean. But I’d rather not be forced to clean.
My house is pretty clean and I still prefer to visit. My home is my castle and I really don’t like to let people in, on the whole.
I chose option 4 because I’m anti-social and prefer neither.
I chose option 2 not because I wish to avoid hosting, but rather that I enjoy being out and about.
I associate my home with my alone time or family time. I associate other places as places to be with friends. I think it comes from never being allowed to have friends over because the house was too messy, and I could only have friends over if I cleaned up. It was never worth it–too this day I hate cleaning up clutter.
I like to host. I love to cook, so it’s fun to have people to cook for, and if we’re at home, both my husband and I can drink as much as we want and not worry about driving! Good times all around.
I have a few friends who are on the very short list of those who can drop by unannounced. Otherwise, visitors mean massive cleaning, monitoring of dogs, and diminished options for ending the visit. I’d rather go there.
#4 My wife feels like she has to clean whenever anyone comes over and my dog is a big jerk to most people. So it’s usually easier to go elsewhere except for a few people my wife and dog know well.
My place, their place, or out some place. All are equally good, and yep, it happens a lot for us.
Actually, I don’t think of 45 minutes are really being “travelling”. We hop in the car to go that far to try out a new restaurant or to go to a specialty store at least once a week. I used to drive farther than that daily, to get to work.
I prefer to go visit, for an odd reason: I need to have an out. I have social batteries and they deplete quite rapidly. I get antsy after a few hours. If I drive somewhere, I can leave whenever I want, and if I go to someone’s house, I avoid the awkwardness of trying to get people out of mine early.
If that’s an odd reason, I’m odd too. I do have some friends I will have over here, but they’re good enough friends that when I lose energy I can just tell them to go! I also like my home being my private space. I definitely don’t like having people to stay overnight.
I love having parties and people its so much easier then having to be a guest in someone else’s home. I don’t have to worry about home much to drink when I need to eave to be alert for the drive home, wondering in the dog is ok, making sure I’m not creating messes they’ll have to clean up. It’s never as much fun at someone else house except in a couple of cases.
Meet somewhere.
I gave a very slight edge to visiting. I can get tired of company after a while, but I hate kicking people out of my home. I find it far easier to say that I’m heading out when I’m at someone else’s place.
If I had read the entire thread first, I would have just quoted your post.
I don’t like having people in my house, even family members. I live alone, and my whole place is set up pretty much for one person. I cannot fathom having people over to my house for, like, dinner or something. That’s just crazy talk.
I love going to my friends’ houses, though.