Annoyed with dinner guest

I’d be very disappointed, and hurt, if my dinner guests had already eaten after accepting my invitation. Maybe, in future, tell them beforehand that you’ll be cooking up a feast, so make sure you arrive hungry. ?

I wouldn’t invite them again they are rude and not worthy of the effort you made.

I think that's rude TBH. It's never happened to me but I do get very irritated when dinner guests arrive late.

Bad manners ! Nothing more to say , I would be furious.

It's very rude.

I feel your pain Beswitched. I've stopped cooking for people now. I've never enjoyed it, never been any good at it and it's blooming hard work. Everyone I know seems so picky about food - on a diet, only eating carbs or some such, no cheese, no cucumber, on a diet, no dairy, no mushrooms, no peas - PEAS I ask you!!

It seems we're all meant to love 'entertaining' or even worse 'hosting' now...but it's a chore for me. Hasten to add I turn down invitations to eat at other's houses too. If I eat with friends we eat out.

Rude definitely I d be very disappointed

It’s very rude. I would be very disappointed and would think twice about inviting them for a meal again.

Very upsetting after all the trouble you had gone to. We tend to meet friends out now we can, I was finding so many people were on diets or making choices not to eat various foods, now it is the restaurants problem and more relaxing. For entertaining at home it is now coffee/tea and cake.

I love cooking for people. It makes me happy. If someone turned up saying that they had already eaten I would be a bit annoyed. Ultimately I would say "All the more for the rest of us!" And ignore it. I've had it happen once or twice but I don't let it affect our friendship.

So rude! When invited for dinner, lunch or whatever, clearly that person has gone to some trouble in buying and preparing the food, so to turn up and say "not hungry" is so inconsiderate. Disappointing behaviour, I'd think twice about going to any trouble if I were inviting her/them again.

It is very rude.
It’s as if they think they are doing you a favour by eating your beautifully and thoughtfully prepared meal.
It be hacked off too

Yes I agree that is rude. I thought a good guest was meant to make an effort to enjoy what had been cooked for them. I do usually ask beforehand if there are any food issues I need to take note of but to be honest I rarely have any dinner guests now as I moved house I dont really know anyone here wel enough to ask them to dinner.
On the peas thing Scones my 17 year old grandson has taken an aversion to peas based on their shape! Whole grain mustard is the same - its the shape! Good job I love him to bits.

Very rude, people lose all normality when it comes to grandchildren.

Eat dinner with them so she doesn’t want yours, cancel the meet-up because a grandchild wants to come round instead, leave halfway through the holiday because the grandchild is missing them, bring them to the adult dinner party because the grandchild made a fuss.

(Sorry, I’m a bit jaundiced)?

No OP you are not the only one - it was very rude! I think she could have sat with the grandchildren whilst they ate but didn't need to eat anything herself.

Invite hungry people next time and why just them? If I go to trouble cooking, I always make it a dinner party.
A friend called unexpectedly on Monday night. DD and I were about to sit down to fish fingers and oven chips with DGC and suddenly we added a salad, some proper fish and a bottle of wine and hey presto instant party.
4yr old was determined to try the very garlicky dressing too.

I would feel really annoyed, and would have had a job to hide it. Certainly wouldn’t rush to invite her again.

She should have told the GC that granny was going out for a meal with friends and needed to not spoil her appetite,

I invited friends over once and cooked an Italian style meal, they seemed to struggle to eat it. I only found out later that they had already eaten, I wasn’t very happy as I had gone to a lot of trouble!

That’s happened to me a few times, and it’s so rude, I agree. Would put me off doing it again I’m afraid.

The other thing I’ve had once or twice, is guests eat alright, but have to rush off for some reason afterwards, because something had happened earlier in the day that needed attention. Why did they just cancel?

Very rude and bad mannered.

I love cooking but for similar reasons I am very careful who I invite. Otherwise we go out for a meal. I have no issues if someone has genuine health reasons but I would hope they would tell me beforehand.

It's very rude, especially if the invite was not made on that specific day.

I invited friends to a BBQ a while ago. They had a week's notice. He was a vegetarian so I bought loads of things specifically to suit him.

When they got to us they said they weren't that hungry as they had called at the chippy on the way to our house. They lived about an hours drive away. I couldn't believe it .

Wow that is so rude PinkCosmos. What on earth were they thinking?

You have reminded me - years ago when being vegan was a rarity , this couple came to stay.
I knew they were vegetarians so made my usual repertoire of quiches and lasagnes etc.
When they arrived they announced they were now vegan and seemed to be able to eat only boiled barley!
I was very miffed at not having been warned.
It has left me with a jaundiced view of Vegans which I find hard to lose.

Incidentally she became ill a few years later and was prescribed fish for the omega3 as her immune system couldn't cope on her too undernourishing diet.

I am a pescatarian now

This is very rude, no excuses for this sort of behaviour at all.

I remember many years ago being invited to someone's house one evening. We thought we were just going for drinks, but had misunderstood the invitation, and found ourselves sitting down to a three-course dinner. We had already eaten at home and had to politely plough our way through the meal without letting on!