At what point does a friendly neighborly gesture become a free pass for every event?
By @xenafr · Social
My wife and I are huge soccer fans and have been hosting friends for the World Cup. We invited our new neighbor over for the first match, but now he shows up unannounced for every single game, and last time he brought his own guests.
The full story
My wife and I moved into our house about six months ago. We have a neighbor who's a single guy in his late 20s, seems nice enough. With the World Cup happening, we've been having small gatherings with a few friends to watch the big matches. To be neighborly, we invited him to our first watch party. He came, had a good time, and we thought that was that. But then he showed up for the next game a few days later without an invitation. We didn't want to be rude, so we let him in. Now it's happened four times. He just walks over around kickoff, assuming he's welcome. The real issue came up this past weekend. He showed up with two of his own friends that neither my wife nor I have ever met. He didn't ask, just brought them along. It completely changed the dynamic from a small get-together with our friends to feeling like we were hosting strangers. He also never brings anything—no drinks, no snacks, nothing. We don't want to cause a feud with the guy we share a fence with, but we can't afford to cater to him and his random friends for the entire tournament. How do we even approach this? Do we say something directly? Do we just 'forget' to answer the door next time? We need a way to set a boundary without making things permanently awkward.
How people voted
- OP Is Right — 32% (8 votes)
- Both Messy — 28% (7 votes)
- OP Is Wrong — 40% (10 votes)
Readers are split: “OP Is Wrong” leads with 40% — 25 votes and 5 comments so far.
What people are saying
@leo — I feel like the original invitation might have been a little more enthusiastic than you're letting on.
@quinnish — The audacity is almost impressive.
@hollylol — bruh
@liamok — Oh honey, you've handled this with so much more patience than I would have. Inviting his own friends is a whole new level of clueless.
@danisorta — He clearly has zero social awareness.
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