Make Yourself A Welcome Guest

For the benefit of anyone who is spending vacation time staying with friends, Miss Manners would like to explain the difference between a private residence and a hotel.

That’s right, bills. People you know who let you stay with them don’t present bills. They don’t even ask for an impression of your credit card. Hotels do. Therefore, staying with someone saves you money.

You noticed that, did you?

Some of you are not above drawing this advantage to the attention of your hosts - as the hosts, in turn, have drawn your observation to Miss Manners’ attention. They are not as delighted with your frank charm as you must suppose when you call up and say, “We don’t want to pay for a hotel, so we thought we’d stay with you.”

Announcing that you want a room at the cheapest rate possible is not the only habit that goes over better at hotels than with friends. Hotel manners, even good hotel manners such as tipping for service and leaving the guest bathrobe lying around to make it clear you didn’t pack it, do not apply to people’s homes.

You’re not supposed to volunteer your availability to relatives, let alone friends. In-laws and intimates can pose this as a question (“Would it be convenient for us to be there on the second weekend in August?”), but others can do no more than hint (“We’ll be out your way in midAugust and would love to see you”). Even if this produces an invitation, they are required to be coy (“Do you mean it? Because we wouldn’t want to put you to any trouble”) before accepting.

(But there is nothing rude about a targeted host’s replying instead, “Oh, what a shame, we have plans for then” or “We’d love to see you, too. Where will you be staying?” The would-be guest is honor-bound to take this unflinchingly.)

An accepted guest is obliged to maintain throughout the visit the stance that his or her real interest is not in saving money but in gaining the host’s company while avoiding being waited upon.

In other words - those very words that bitter hosts inevitably use - they are not to treat the place like a hotel.

In a hotel you don’t need to make the bed, mop up the bathroom, put away incidental dishes you use and offer to help with the chores. As a houseguest, you do.

In a hotel, you can announce in advance what you want and complain if you don’t get it. As a houseguest, you can only own up to preferences if the host makes repeated attempts to extract them, and whatever happens you have to keep swearing that everything is just as you like it.

In a hotel, you can come and go as you please. As a houseguest, you have to arrange your plans around your hosts’ schedule and give them the opportunity to accompany you when you go elsewhere, without making it sound like their duty.

In addition, you are expected to be alert enough to their wishes to avoid overdoing any of this, refraining from helping with chores they prefer to do alone or from appearing to want to be with them so much that they never have a minute to themselves.

And all that is required as payment for their hospitality is an effusive letter, a thoughtful present and a reciprocal invitation (not counting the invitation to dine out in their own town).

Some people might think it cheaper to pay bills. And Miss Manners is afraid that some hosts, fed up with guests who do not follow the above rules, are threatening to present them.

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The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Judith Martin United Features Syndicate