It’s the season of visiting which means it is the season of guests. 

There is an old saying:  “Guests are like fish.  They go off after three days.”  Whilst that may be true in general, there are some guests who are such good guests that you can imagine moving them in and shipping your family out.  Similarly, there are some guests who go off after only a few hours.  For the host, the objective of having a guest is to enjoy the company of a new person, temporarily inserted into you home and your life, and to chalk up karmic points so that you too get invited to be a guest at some point in the future.  For the guest, the objective of staying with somebody is to enjoy their company and see into their lives a bit, to save the money that a hotel and eating out three times a day would cost, and to get invited back.  But, how does the guest achieve that?  What makes the perfect guest?

The perfect guest makes a positive contribution to the house in which they are staying.  To that end (and this is my short list after much thought) they are good company, appreciative, generous, and tidy.

Good company

A good guest is a cheerful, happy member of the household who is positive about absolutely everything, enjoys all of the food set in front of them and all of the activities that go on during the waking hours.  They make witty conversation, collect pamphlets and programmes from the places they visit and bring them back to the host.  They make an effort to join in, exchange pleasantries in the morning, the evening, and when they see the host after an absence (when either guest or host has been out all day, for example) and have exemplary table manners.  They take very short showers.

Appreciative

A good guest appreciates absolutely everything the host does to ensure their comfort.  They go overboard with please and thank you.  They compliment the host on the comfort of the bed, the softness of the towels, the heat of the water, the view from the window, the quality and quantity of the food and so on.  They make the host feel as if the effort it has taken to receive the guest and make them happy has been worth while.   They write a thank you letter when they return home, waxing lyrical about their stay and extolling the host’s virtues. 

Generous

A good guest is generous.  They bring a little gift when they arrive and, if it is a consumable (chocolates, wine, a piece of delicious cheese, jar of home made jam, or loaf of bread) they do not consume it unless it is offered to them, and even then they should say no.  If they are on an orgy of spending themselves, having not forked out for a hotel or three meels a day, they buy the host a little something to acknowledge the host’s role in the fact that they have more money than they otherwise would have and/or take them out for a meal and/or offer to provide and cook a meal at home.  A good guest is also generous in spirit.  They offer to help cook, wash up and tidy.  They do not wait to be asked to do so.  They do not hang up or fold their own laundry and leave everyone else’s in the machine or on the line.  Even if the host says no 50 times, they are relentless in their offers of help either in the home or in performing little errands for the host when they are out of the home (picking up milk, posting letters, taking laundry to the dry cleaners…).

Tidy

A good guest is tidy.  There should be almost no evidence that a guest is staying at all.  A good guest does not leave their belongings lying around the common areas of the house (not even in the bathroom unless it is for the express use of the guest in which case they leave it spotless).  A good guest tidies their room, puts things away, hangs things up and and makes their bed.  They do these things in the host’s house even if they do not do it at home because – get it – they are not at home.  They are a guest.

And their objective is to be invited back.