I’m fucking sick and tired of my guy friends – some of whom I have known for 30 years or more – having to include their wives/girlfriends/children in any kind of social occasion.
Dudes, there hasn’t been one day in the last 20 years when you couldn’t just hang out as individuals rather than as an appendage to the rest of your family?
Once in a blue moon there’s fucking weekend that isn’t fucking sancrosanct with fucking piano lessons and fucking ballet and fucking swim meets and you can’t just leave them to cope for an afternoon or evening, or, god forbid, one whole day?
Fuck, I hate other people’s children, not because they’re objectionable on a personal level – most of them are perfectly pleasant people – but because they’re always this goddamn presence that can’t ever be dispensed with.
Haha, I definitely understand where you are coming from. It’s awkward to include the whole family for a social gathering. I agree - why can’t people hangout as individuals?
I mean, if you invite your pal over for a barbeque in the early afternoon, I’d sort of ASSUME by kid was invited, too. That’s how it works with my friends.
But when I get invited over to watch a hockey game at a local bar one Saturday night, I don’t bring the kid.
I don’t have kids, but I’m not single. I’m not talking about situations in which someone unexpectedly shows up with people who weren’t invited. I’m talking about the fact that every time there is a discussion about a future event of some kind, it’s assumed that it’s going to be something involving everyone.
Well, if my buddy invited me out for a golf game I’d expect he meant just me. If he invited me over to watch a hockey game, I’d assume my wife was probably invited too.
If it was a “let’s get together next weekend for a BBQ,” I’d assume that the family was invited.
Either way I’d probably get clarification, but what the hell do you have against spouses and kids? We went everywhere with my parents when we were small, and until very recently our kids have gone everywhere with us. I mean, kids are people too.
I don’t have anything against them personally. I like them fine. But they’re not my friends. They’re not my age. They don’t share my interests and tastes. They didn’t grow up with me. They aren’t able to appreciate the kinds of books, movies, and music that I like. They can’t participate in the same topics of conversation that my friend and I like.
Sometimes you just want to have a one-on-one relationship with your friends and you don’t want to have to plan things that accommodate everyone else. When the wife and kids are around, you can’t just spend a couple of hours sitting in a coffee shop or wherever. They’ll get bored, and I don’t blame them.
You can’t go to the movies, unless you can find a movie that 15 million people have to agree on, and that are appropriate for the 13-year-old and the 7-year-old and won’t bore someone to tears. And anyway, I’m sure that the kids – especially the older one – prefer to make her own plans anyway rather than hang out with their father’s friends.
You can’t go to a comedy club, which is not open to minors. You can’t go to a baseball game, because half the people are bored (and fuck, I don’t really care about the game anyway).
If all you want to do is hang out and chat with your old buddy, the kids are going to get bored. And then you have to figure out what his wife is going to do. What if my wife just doesn’t want to come along? What if my wife isn’t particularly interested in being the evening companion for his wife? (Because my wife doesn’t have much in common with her either, not being a stay-at-home mother, and has a hard time understanding her accent.)
When I make plans with my friends, it’s not the call-everyone-up-and-make-an-unanimous-decision-on-what-to-do type deal. We have something in mind, and then throw the invites out. People are free to say “That’s not my cup of tea”, and too bad for them… we’ll just catch each other another time.
So ask “Want to grab a cup of coffee?”
“Want to watch that new dick flick?”
“Interested in going to that new comedy club? It’ll be balls and pussy jokes night!”
“Want to catch the ballgame?”
“Want to come over and chill, just the guys?”
Ask them to do the things you want to do, and if they say no, find people who will say yes. Honestly, it sounds like your complaint is that you know they will say no to these suggestions but you still consider them your friends, so you are trying to accommodate their needs at the expense of your own. You really can’t expect your friends to hang out with you at the coffee house for ten years and not have other priorities come up in the meantime.
Hey, at least you still get to see your guy friends. Women drop off the planet once they start breeding. You might get a luncheon once in a while from a working mom, but once the first sprog comes along… you find yourself hanging out with your single girlfriends who aren’t married yet. Because the married women with kids are busy taking care of their kids while their partners are off watching hockey games and playing golf.
