A Letter from the Host.It often begins, as so many unfortunate things do, with a group chat.
“Shall we all get together?”
Lovely. You like these people. You would enjoy seeing them. You reply, “Yes!”
A small administrative error.
Within twenty-four hours, you are comparing menus, cross-referencing six diaries and investigating whether a restaurant’s definition of “central” includes somewhere nobody lives near. One person cannot do Thursdays. Another has become gluten-free since you last saw her. Someone says she is “easy”, then rejects the first three suggestions.
You are no longer attending dinner. You are producing it.
When everyone finally arrives, somebody says, “We should do this more often!”
You smile. You have just completed the equivalent of a minor diplomatic summit and would like to see how the evening goes first.
Congratulations. This is now your job.
Nobody meant for this to happen. You were simply the first person to suggest a date rather than saying “definitely soon” until one of you retired.
But competence leaves a trail.
You find a lovely holiday rental once. Now you are the travel agent. You choose a good birthday present. Now, every June, someone asks, “What are we getting Mum?” with the relaxed confidence of a person who has already delegated the answer.
At work, you sort out something that technically belongs to three other departments. A colleague emails to say, “You’re a lifesaver!”
You would have preferred them to learn how to do it, but the exclamation mark is nice.
The curious thing about being good at something is how quickly it stops being a thing you did and becomes a thing you are responsible for.
Do it badly and someone might take it off your hands. Do it beautifully and congratulations, you’ve secured a permanent position.
There will be no interview. You have been demonstrating suitability for years.
The woman who is “easy”
Of course, we contribute to the situation.
“Don’t worry, I’ll sort it.”
Five small words. Such an agreeable little sentence. Out it comes before we have checked our diary, our energy or whether we actually want to sort it.
Sometimes we mean it. There is pleasure in making things happen. Finding the perfect place. Remembering the detail that makes someone feel special. Turning six vague intentions into an actual evening with actual people.
Sometimes, though, we say it because the alternative involves watching everyone discuss the problem until it develops a second problem.
And we have things to do.
So we take over. Efficiently. Pleasantly. Possibly while muttering something quite unpleasant at the kettle.
Then we wonder why everyone thinks we enjoy being in charge.
It is a difficult misunderstanding to correct when you have just sent them a spreadsheet.
Help has some questions
Eventually, someone notices you look tired.
“You do too much,” they say, which is encouraging until you realise they are waiting for you to do something about that as well.
They offer to help.
“Just tell me what you need.”
You appreciate the offer. Truly. But what you need, at this particular moment, is to be briefly relieved of knowing.
You do not want to allocate a task. You do not want to explain where the information lives. You do not want to answer a quick question which becomes four quick questions and a photograph of two almost identical products in a supermarket.
“Which one?”
Either one. Whichever one allows this interaction to conclude.
This is the part that can be surprisingly hard to describe. The visible job might take ten minutes. The invisible job follows you into the shower.
You are washing your hair when you remember the form. In bed when you remember the birthday. Halfway through a film when you realise nobody has confirmed the booking.
The romantic lead is making an impassioned speech. You are wondering whether the deposit is refundable.
Please don’t tell me I’m amazing
There comes a point when being admired for handling everything loses some of its charm.
“I don’t know how you do it.”
Neither do you, particularly. You suspect caffeine and an inability to disappoint people have formed an alliance, but you haven’t had time to investigate.
“You’re so strong.”
Thank you. Would you mind carrying something?
The compliments are usually sincere. People see what you manage, and they are impressed. It can feel good to be recognised.
But being impressive is not always the experience you were hoping for. Sometimes you would quite like to be the woman sitting at the table, drinking the wine, with no idea what time the taxi is coming.
Imagine.
If someone asked, you could say, “I don’t know.”
Then continue drinking the wine.
An evening without a job title
Perhaps that is the little fantasy beneath all this. An evening in which you are expected, considered and thoroughly welcome, but required to organise absolutely nothing.
Someone has chosen the restaurant. They have checked that it is open. There is a booking in their name and they appear confident that the booking exists.
You arrive. They are pleased to see you.
For a moment, you reach for your phone. Surely there is something you should be checking.
There isn’t.
The conversation moves on. You listen properly. You notice the room. You remember that you are quite funny when half your mind isn’t occupied by logistics.
At the end of the evening, somebody asks whether you enjoyed yourself.
You did. More than you expected, actually.
“We should do this again,” you say.
And then, with considerable personal restraint, you leave it there.
From our house to yours.