We’ve all dealt with them before.

It could be an old friend who you still have fond memories of but has really changed and let you down over time – yet you just don’t have the heart to break things off or say “enough”. It could be an acquaintance or even a family member who you just have to deal with from time to time and you figure that if you make the best of it, it won’t be all that bad and eventually it will all be over. It could be someone who isn’t a bad person who has just let you down over time but you still have a soft spot for. Or, it could be someone who tags along with a friend and you’re now stuck with them.

Right at the outset, you know that it could possibly go badly, so you are tentative and walking on eggshells – just waiting for the other shoe to drop. It could be them asking for money yet again, even though they owe you from the last time and the time before. And although you promised yourself (and maybe others) that you wouldn’t give in and do it again, you are just too good natured.

Or you don’t want to “make waves”.

Maybe it isn’t a money thing. Maybe it is just the fact that you were hoping for a nice quiet evening and now it is hours (or days) later and you are still “entertaining” those who you never really wanted there in the first place. Or, you may remember the last time that you caught them snooping through your private papers and didn’t think it was a big deal because “you probably didn’t have anything to hide anyway”.

It could have been something completely different from all of that. Maybe you recall the time that they destroyed your collection of vintage GI Joes but didn’t admit that they were actually destroyed. Either way, you sit and wonder if your guest will happen to find the collection of old baseball cards and start defacing them “just like we used to do in college”.

At some point, you start to realize that your view of your (former) friend or current guest is even worse than what you originally thought. And then you may wonder if it is also you – why are you putting yourself in that position? Can you do anything to get your guest to leave? Can you cut off ties and possibly repair your relationships with others who refuse to associate with you when your “guest” comes around? Or has your guest poisoned your relationships and tainted their views of anyone who still associates themselves with your guest?

Inevitably, it is not the guest who changes or suddenly sees the abhorrent, crude and insensitive behavior that turns so many people off. Certainly, if the guest is used to being the rude obnoxious loud mouth bully. It has to be the host – the one who constantly is accommodating that must realize that either his/her behavior and just as importantly, hopes and expectations have to change.

For everyone’s sake – otherwise it could get very lonely and frustrating.