Ok this is nothing to do with pinball but I needed to share something with a group of people who are similarly lacking in social skills.
About two months ago we had a family from Afghanistan move in next to us. We’ve seen them a few times and nod hello. Basic London type greeting.
Anyway about three weeks ago the wife caught Anna outside and mentioned she didn’t know anyone in London and I suspect few people in the country. She then invited her to pop round sometime for food. Lovely offer but we’re on different pages in terms of life stages. We’re 20 years older and the kids are 10-15 years older. As such we kind of tried to kick the offer into the long grass. Felt a bit guilty about it but frankly we haven’t got the band width to make new friends at the moment.
Anyway this afternoon the doorbell rang and the mum and her middle child were there with a tray of food. I had to go outside as the dog was kicking off but we had a very brief conversation in stilted broken English and I thanked her for bringing the food round. A little random but I thought I handled the situation well.
Now this was a lovely thing for someone to do and what happened next is going to sound awful. She had made us something called Kabuli Puligo. Looked lovely. Came in several different dishes. Looked really well cooked and presented. The problem is neither myself or Anna eat meat and the boy is no longer at home. Becca ate some and said it was really tasty. It consisted of lots of lamb and rice etc. However, there’s only so much food a seven stone girl is going to eat.
So we’re discussing upstairs about it being socially awkward. They’ve done a lovely thing and I feel like I’m throwing it back in their face. We need to return the plates etc but do we admit we couldn’t eat it as it contained meat? Also we’re desperate for this not to escalate. We’ll get them a card/flowers to say thanks and maybe Becca can bake a cake in a couple of weeks time but I don’t want to become the only point of contact for them, lovely as they seem.
Worse still we’re now going to have to cook tea downstairs. What do I do if they come round to get their tray and plates and see me cooking 1 hour after they’ve made us food?
So I snuck downstairs, froze what I could for Becca and the dog is looking hopeful. Hit upon the genius idea of pulling down all the blinds and covering the glass in the door and start to make tea.
Just started to cook and Becca came downstairs and said ……
….. “Dad, when you took the tray what did the woman say? Do you think she wanted to come in and eat the food with us?”
FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!
I’m the worst person in the world.
I’ve just stolen someone’s dinner and shut the door in their face. There’s a special place reserved in hell for people like me!
Worse still, I’ve nicked her crockery just to take the **** even further.
So I’m now sitting with uneaten food and neighbours who think I’m a total ****.
Even by my standards this is bad. Naturally Anna and Becca are ****ing themselves at me.
Please tell me I’m not the only person who does stuff like this. I just miss social cues. Last week my line manger was telling me that she had to go to her aunt’s funeral. Her family is short lived and she died at 45. Her mum died at 28 and her brother at 33. My sympathetic response was “so I guess you’re not topping up your pension then”. WTF. Luckily she took that in the spirit that it was meant but seriously I shouldn’t be allowed to interact with people without supervision
About two months ago we had a family from Afghanistan move in next to us. We’ve seen them a few times and nod hello. Basic London type greeting.
Anyway about three weeks ago the wife caught Anna outside and mentioned she didn’t know anyone in London and I suspect few people in the country. She then invited her to pop round sometime for food. Lovely offer but we’re on different pages in terms of life stages. We’re 20 years older and the kids are 10-15 years older. As such we kind of tried to kick the offer into the long grass. Felt a bit guilty about it but frankly we haven’t got the band width to make new friends at the moment.
Anyway this afternoon the doorbell rang and the mum and her middle child were there with a tray of food. I had to go outside as the dog was kicking off but we had a very brief conversation in stilted broken English and I thanked her for bringing the food round. A little random but I thought I handled the situation well.
Now this was a lovely thing for someone to do and what happened next is going to sound awful. She had made us something called Kabuli Puligo. Looked lovely. Came in several different dishes. Looked really well cooked and presented. The problem is neither myself or Anna eat meat and the boy is no longer at home. Becca ate some and said it was really tasty. It consisted of lots of lamb and rice etc. However, there’s only so much food a seven stone girl is going to eat.
So we’re discussing upstairs about it being socially awkward. They’ve done a lovely thing and I feel like I’m throwing it back in their face. We need to return the plates etc but do we admit we couldn’t eat it as it contained meat? Also we’re desperate for this not to escalate. We’ll get them a card/flowers to say thanks and maybe Becca can bake a cake in a couple of weeks time but I don’t want to become the only point of contact for them, lovely as they seem.
Worse still we’re now going to have to cook tea downstairs. What do I do if they come round to get their tray and plates and see me cooking 1 hour after they’ve made us food?
So I snuck downstairs, froze what I could for Becca and the dog is looking hopeful. Hit upon the genius idea of pulling down all the blinds and covering the glass in the door and start to make tea.
Just started to cook and Becca came downstairs and said ……
….. “Dad, when you took the tray what did the woman say? Do you think she wanted to come in and eat the food with us?”
FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!
I’m the worst person in the world.
I’ve just stolen someone’s dinner and shut the door in their face. There’s a special place reserved in hell for people like me!
Worse still, I’ve nicked her crockery just to take the **** even further.
So I’m now sitting with uneaten food and neighbours who think I’m a total ****.
Even by my standards this is bad. Naturally Anna and Becca are ****ing themselves at me.
Please tell me I’m not the only person who does stuff like this. I just miss social cues. Last week my line manger was telling me that she had to go to her aunt’s funeral. Her family is short lived and she died at 45. Her mum died at 28 and her brother at 33. My sympathetic response was “so I guess you’re not topping up your pension then”. WTF. Luckily she took that in the spirit that it was meant but seriously I shouldn’t be allowed to interact with people without supervision
. It’s a good day when only two girls end up in tears about something. Nothing is like an emotional rollercoaster more than a building packed with teenage girls. Bizarrely I’m actually far better at picking up on those emotional signals than I am with adults. 
. 
I can't organise big birthday parties for my kids, due to the Flipper Beast's sensitivity to noise/crowds, so I always share 'serves 12' birthday cake recipes with neighbours 
