The Dinner Party
When life gives you lemons… it’s time to whip up a pitcher of sangria. And this, my dear readers, is precisely what I did Monday night. Between the administrative debacle over at Temple, my penchant for messing things up with Date #4 and a host of minor and not-so-minor crises both personal and professional, I’ve landed my fair share of lemons lately (more than my fair share, actually, if I may be so bold). But have sangria will travel, or at the very least, will host, as I’m wont to do whenever my parents are out of town, a dinner party.
Hosting a dinner party is no easy feat. One of my old flat mates and I stopped speaking as the result of a misunderstanding that stemmed, in part, from our efforts to host a dinner party. The guest list is always an issue too. You’ve got to achieve a critical mass with just the right balance of age, gender, sexual orientation, couples and single folk. Another of my old flat mates decided not to host a dinner party for this very reason—she felt it would be rude to invite a few classmates without inviting her entire cohort. I used to think “Stop trying to be Emily Post and just break out the wine!” but in some ways, she was right. Hosting a proper dinner party is an art, and one which I’ve been aspiring to master for some time now.
Given that I’ve spent the majority of my nine months in Philadelphia whining about the fact that I’m not in London, I haven’t exactly cultivated the most happenin’ social life. This is half the reason I joined Match.com in the first place: to meet new people, to befriend them and to invite them over for homemade sangria and peanut satay chicken when the urge to play hostess rears its ugly head. (And I say “ugly” only because I’ve got a mound of dishes piled beside the sink now and as my friends across the pond would say, “I just can’t be arsed.” Or is it “asked?” Or perhaps “assed?” I’ve always wondered about this.)
Unfortunately, an active dating life does not necessarily make for a great dinner party. (“Why Date #2, I’m so glad you could make it! Allow me to introduce my friend, er, Date #6.” Can we say AWKWARD?) Nonetheless, being the thrill seeker that I am, I did invite one of my friendlier Match.com acquaintances. Although he had to take a rain check, I somehow found myself on the roof deck amongst six plates of perfectly grilled peanut satay chicken, six glasses of perfectly marinated sangria and a tray of perfectly delicious chocolate covered strawberries. And as for my guests? Not a Match-dot-comer amongst them (well, okay, aside from the couple that actually met online and I’m not dating either one of them).
The highlight of the evening was when Date #2 called, only to inform me that he had accidentally dialed the wrong number (he’s a serial dater too) but “Hey, while I have you on the phone, I still owe you dinner for your birthday so let’s grab a bite next week!”
And so, with that rather amusing little faux pas, it continues.
Fieldwork in Stilettos 
3 Responses to “The Dinner Party”
you can always make lemon meringue !
It’s arsed – the English just aren’t very good at rs or ks.
[…] to laugh; the last time we saw each other, I was still smarting over Date #4’s refusal to come to my dinner party and obviously a lot’s changed since then. Also, during said dinner party, I had gotten pretty […]