Dear Annie: Unwanted houseguest

Editor’s note: Dear Annie is off. This column was originally published in 2018.

Dear Annie: I’m a little chagrined to admit that we can’t come up with a solution to this situation by ourselves, but we are really stumped. We have a friend who has stayed over with us twice. The first time, he brought two others with him, which worked out OK. The second time, he stayed for four days, ate everything in the fridge, as well as meals, and didn’t leave the last day until 9 p.m. Also annoying is the fact that he is an in-your-face talker.

This probably sounds a lot worse than I mean it to, because he is a good-hearted person and he did leave some money for all the food he’d eaten. But since the second visit, he has invited himself over a few times. We have made excuses, such as “we’ll be away” and “we’re just too busy at this time,” but that hurts his feelings. We truly would like to keep this friendship at a less intimate level but can’t figure out how to get that across without breaking his heart. He just sent us another self-invitation yesterday, planning ahead to the spring. How can we tell him no? Thanks for your help. – Stumped in Vermont

Dear Stumped: Don’t be so chagrined that you haven’t come up with a solution yet. As playwright Titus Maccius Plautus wrote, “no guest is so welcome in a friend’s house that he will not become a nuisance after three days” – and that was in 200 B.C. The question of what to do when good friends become bad houseguests has been stumping people for millenniums.

I feel that your friend needs absolute directness, because you’ve generously dropped hints to no avail. Tell him that you’d love to spend time with him but he’ll need to find somewhere else to stay. If your having boundaries “breaks his heart,” that’s his issue.