Tales about "stingy" guests and hosts.

Just read a hilarious thread on Mumsnet about “stingy” hosts. Tales of guests being invited for “lunch” or “dinner” and given something like one baked potato or a quarter of a pizza unheated. Others invited for a meal and then asked for money afterwards! Or guests who bring a bottle or desert and take it home with them.

Have any of you encountered any examples of extreme stinginess as a guest or host?

Here is my contribution.

Many years ago in uni I became friendly with a woman of similar age on an extra curricular course. We decided to meet later that week but she did not want to travel across Manchester to the rough council estate where I lived. Fair enough.

She invited me to her house for the evening. It was a long cold bus journey in December so I was pretty chilled on arrival. When she went to take my coat I told her I would keep it on as the room seemed very cold. She confessed to not having the heating on “when her lodgers were not there”. Large double fronted house in a naice part of the city.

After about 30 minutes when she still hadn’t offered me as much as a cup of tea or coffee I asked for one, mentioning the long cold journey. She brought me some watery coffee in a mug and told me she “hadn’t got so much as a biscuit” in the house.

“Did I come on the wrong night? We did say Wednesday did we not?”
“Yes why do you ask?”
“Well I may only live in Hulme but I would never invite someone round to sit for hours in an unheated room and I would at least offer them a hot drink when they arrived. Probably nibbles too.”
“Oh I can see where you came from. That’s quite a working class custom isn’t it, feeling obliged to offer people food and drink!
“Well I think its more about basic politeness than social class.”
I didn’t mention that I had brought a bottle of wine. I just left it in my bag.

After an hour and a half I asked if she could call me a cab.
“Oh you can afford taxis on a student grant”
“Well I wont be standing at a bus stop again and travelling across Manchester after freezing my ass of for two hours.”

We never met up again. I don’t think she believed she was being rude or inhospitable. I felt sorry for her lodgers.

The course on which we met was assertiveness training!