I have a family dilemma that I’d like advice from random strangers on. OK, I guess you’re not random, but many of you are strange.
Some background: When I was in junior high, ages 11-14 or thereabouts, I was fairly good friends with my cousin Chip. His family would drive 6 hours each year to visit for the big Thanksgiving get together at an aunt’s house, and there was a group of 6 cousins who were thick as thieves during the long weekend. We’d write letters back and forth the rest of the year, and in general thought of ourselves as pretty good friends. We all stopped being in frequent contact during high school, and finally we all pretty much lost touch during college. Flash forward 20 years to a family funeral and I ran into my cousin Chip, and we chatted a bit and decided we’d talk more online to catch up.
While we were interacting on Facebook, Chip managed to invite himself to visit my husband and me. I wasn’t sure how to say no, and I was optimistic that we’d have a pleasant visit. After all, we’d been friends when we were young, right?
Turns out we have nothing in common, and I found interacting with him actively unpleasant. We are at the opposite ends of the spectrum when it comes to social and philosophical views. One example - Chip is a devout Christian and a biblical literalist (is that the term I am looking for?) and I am agnostic and a firm believer in evolution and science. I wouldn’t have a problem with his beliefs except that he just wouldn’t shut up about them, even after I said that I didn’t want to debate evolution vs. creation vs. intelligent design. I said we’d have to agree to disagree and choose another topic of conversation. Repeat a couple of times a day for three days. Sigh. Add to this the fact that personality-wise we are just not compatible - everything about him grated on my nerves. Plus he made a few comments that were overtly racist.
There were also conflicts between his ideas of appropriate behavior as a guest in someone’s home, vs. my ideas of the same. These I am struggling to simply chalk up to cultural differences, and not use as my sole basis for avoiding any future visits. (e.g. he used the peanut butter knife in the jelly jar and left behind a lot of peanut butter ; he never used a plate the whole weekend - he preferred to use paper towels as plates and used up a whole roll ; he used my computer constantly - literally every minute we were at home he had youtube videos of christian music playing - I decided not to address that since I had said he could use the computer to check his email if he needed to - I just wasn’t picturing a constant “we love you Jesus” soundtrack or his obsessive game-playing on Facebook).
The original plan for his visit was he would arrive Friday early afternoon, and depart Sunday at 2pm or 3pm. Once he arrived Chip started saying he might stay 'til Monday or later because he had a flexible schedule. I put the kibosh on that, telling him I needed to stick with the original plan, that I am not a “go with the flow” kind of person. Even so I pretty much had to pack his things and push him out the door on Sunday at 9 pm.
The first night he was here my husband picked up the check at dinner - and then Chip never reached for a check or offered to chip in the whole rest of the weekend. We absolutely should have been more assertive, but were shocked by his freeloading ways.
The last day of his visit we went to the Museum of Fine Arts (we have a membership and could bring a guest), where he proceeded to take photos of every art work we saw (we verified with the info desk that non-flash photography was permitted). His highest praise for any work was that it was big, or for a painting that it “looked like a photograph.” These annoyances are probably just me being a snob. But they still annoyed me.
He now wants to bring his whole family to visit - wife and three kids - because visiting Boston is “so cheap!” He actually said that all they’d need to pay for would be lunches because they could eat at our house the rest of the time. Gah! I am not interested in feeding 3 teenagers I’ve never met, and 2 adults. Also we don’t have room for 5 people. We have a condo with one and only one guest bed. And though we have memberships at several museums, admission for 5 extra people will NOT be covered; they generally allow us to bring 1 or 2 guests, not 5.
Sorry for the rambling - now for the advice request.
How do I gently but firmly let him know that there will be no more visits to Chez Motorgirl? Without really telling him the unvarnished truth? I am apprehensive about how persistent he’ll be and whether he can take a hint. Since he left 2 days ago he has phoned me 7 times. I will be very firmly telling him to knock that off the next time he calls. I hate talking on the phone, which is the truth.
Help with wording of what to say would be very helpful.
