Etiquette: How To Act When You're No Longer Welcome

I write to you from seat 17F of a JetBlue flight departing Nantucket Memorial Airport, New York-bound on the $12-a-minute flight that makes me question why I didn’t simply charter a Bombardier for the same price. As I said in my last post, I have spent the summer interloping in the East Coast’s summer colonies, from my own enclave of Tuxedo Park to the East End of Long Island to that hydrangeaed wonderland off of Nantucket Sound.

In an earlier essay, I expatiated on how to be likable as a guest.

But what happens when you follow each of my rules and your host still seems to loathe you?

Well, this weekend, I was confronted with that question head-on.

This weekend, I stayed with an old friend at her home in Nantucket, an island I’ve loved since I first set foot on it at the end of the pandemic. It is a deeply emotional place for me, the site of some of the best times of my life thus far. Likewise, the friend is someone whom I have long cherished.

But this weekend was not as spiritually Instagrammable.

At this point, I might disclose that I am by no means a low-maintenance guest. I wake up each morning with approximately 75 pre-breakfast opinions, tell an obscure story from when I was 17 like I’m being interviewed for a Ken Burns documentary, and have yet to come across a tranquil silence that I didn’t feel duty-bound to fill. If hosting were an endurance sport, I would be an Ironman race taking place in the depths of Hell.

Still, one might think they can count on old friends to enjoy their company, despite it all, but this weekend proved me wrong. I am sure that whatever went wrong, I had a hand in it.

I’m not exactly sure where I blundered, though. Nor am I sure how that blunder culminated in my hostess blocking me on Instagram. But we’ll get back to that.

Perhaps it wasn’t any one thing at all, but a thousand at once. A dozen people under one roof, a busy itinerary, little privacy, and exhaustion can make anyone far less urbane than they intend.

I followed all of my own rules:

I made my bed and left my room clean.

Left a Dear Annabelle In Bloom thank-you note.

Lugged flowers and scented candles from the Upper West Side to Sconset.

Thanked my host and her parents sufficiently but not gratuitously.

Displayed excitement and openness to my hostess’s plans.

Only referenced money to say that I’d pay Taylor Swift’s $20 million booking fee for my wedding performance. (And I’d say it again.)

But still, I found myself persona non grata.

Pictured: A dog, constrained by a Jeep in Sconset, reminding me that I, too, was in the doghouse.

Of course, following one’s own etiquette rules only guarantees that one might enjoy their own guestmanship. A guest can pick up his own trash and still occupy the emotional square footage of a family of six.

I should tell you that it is a rarity in recent years that I am not universally loved. I’m not sure if it’s the fact that I’m quite “out there” (in the good way) or simply because I bring the tokenization-potential of an obnoxious, pretentious gay Jew, but I find friends more often than I find foes. Perhaps my friends simply suffer from an irreparable level of Stockholm Syndrome.

This weekend, my hostess had invited eight other friends from various corners of her life to join us, and I thought it was sure to be a fun, social weekend. I told my therapist how excited I was for such an adult experience.

At the outset of the weekend, I was wondering how I could possibly turn what I expected to be such a wonderful weekend into a Substack other than perhaps by expounding upon the Etiquette of Spending a Weekend in a State of Unfettered Joy. But the universe had different plans.

My mother stitched a needlepoint pillow that says, “I’m Not For Everyone.” My version would say, as one of my BFFLs, Alden, once told me: “Not Everyone Is Going to Be Obsessed With Me.” Though it is difficult to imagine, it is true. Not everyone finds my solipsistic, vocal-fried, Instagram-obsessed, racy, intentionally provocative self to be perfectly charming.

And that’s okay.

But when you find yourself trapped on an island with a hostess who seems to be counting the minutes until your departure, that’s of little comfort.

Perhaps there is no greater need for an etiquette guide than for navigating the experiences we have not anticipated.

Here are Gaytiquette’s Five Rules To Surviving Feeling Despised By Your Hostess.

Have Your Best Friend, And Private Story, On Standby.

The entire weekend, I felt like I was going crazy. When my hostess called me a “front-seat addict” as I tried to sit next to her for a 7-minute drive, I immediately texted Mary. After I told my hostess I’d join her in town because I wouldn’t ask her to carry my coffee back alone, and she looked at me as if I was Graham Platner and said, “Okay..well…I wouldn’t have done that anyway,” I immediately informed Sasha.

Normally, I would’ve posted 50,000 of the weekend’s most fun moments to my private story, Prob offensive (if you don’t already know about it, I’m not taking new members), but there was scant content given the emotional strain of the weekend. When Sophie asked me why I had hardly posted anything on Prob offensive in days, I knew I needed to send my people a sign of life. So I informed my viewership of my plight subtly — for example, after dinner on the final night of my stay, I posted a picture of the cheesecake, saying: “I’m stuffed like a cheap prostitute on Valentine’s Day.” Under normal circumstances, I would never admit to eating carbs. Even the most obtuse viewers inquired after my wellbeing.

P.S. — After the recent resignation of a certain hostess from the Prob offensive community, there is an opening for one space. Applications are accepted via Venmo.

I may be ashamed of carbs, but nothing can get between me and a Juice Bar cone.

I would have been mistaken to approach my hostess in front of her other guests or to display my distress; I needed an outlet and chose the most harmless route of lamenting my feelings to my friends who could validate and calm me and keep me from causing a scene on this scenic island. In total, I kept my selective rotation of my 28 closest friends constantly updated via Snapchat, and their moral support sustained me through this awkward and difficult ordeal.

Defuse Persistently, Even When Failure Is Certain.

It was 5 hours into the trip when I realized my hostess might be annoyed. 19 hours when I knew she was. 24 hours when I lost hope. 33 hours when I thought she hated me. 55 hours when I knew she would never speak to me again. Despite realizing that there was no hope with two-thirds of the trip remaining, I continually tried my best to make myself likable and to be the best guest I could be. My friends at home were encouraging me to move up my flight a day earlier, and though I knew that my host would be happy if I did that, I didn’t want to start drama. Remember, this isn’t Temptation Island. It’s Nantucket Island. Go with grace.

One would be acting in poor manners to make the conflict obvious — to say the quiet part out loud. Even if other guests notice the tension between you and your host, there is no upside in playing the part of the Pew Research Center in polling them. When a perceived conflict rests between you and your host, involving others only creates a further source of drama for which you are responsible.

The most mannered suggestion I can make here is to continually do your absolute best to make your remaining time pleasurable for both yourself and your host. In other words, hydrate with rosé.

Don’t Become Someone Else.

I am a social animal. I love making friends and I love my friends. Still, I know that I can be rather intense and perhaps a bit of an acquired taste — though I’d rather be that than generic. I sometimes make jokes that nobody but me realizes are funny. I sometimes make serious statements that everyone thinks are jokes. I sometimes say things that are meant to be intentionally obnoxious without understanding that not everyone picks up on the irony. In all cases, the fault lies with moi.

There was one moment when my hostess flagged me for a comment she found offensive. It was the penultimate day of my visit, days into my certainty that, to her, the mere sound of my breathing was nails on a chalkboard. At the dinner table, we were discussing the necessity — or the lack thereof — of college and the burden of student debt. I had recently read the Wall Street Journal story about a sexagenarian social worker with more than $500,000 worth of student debt, and that many millions of senior citizens are still paying off their school loans. I stated that individuals with crushing student debt entering non-high-paying salaries might “have no life.” My hostess informed me that the statement was “ignorant” and “harmful,” and I apologized profusely.

There are these moments in which words make sense in my mind, such as my usage of “expatiate” above, which my mother said nobody would understand. When I said that about people with student debt, I meant that they would “have no life” other than paying off their debts. It was interpreted as classist and offensive; I didn’t mean it that way by any stretch, and immediately apologized and corrected course within the group.

Other than that, I can’t figure out what I did that was so wrong. And not for lack of ruminating and judging myself and feeling self-conscious. I spent half the trip wracking my brain and replaying every interaction enough times to wonder whether I had committed some obscure Nantucket-specific felony that I had blocked out.

I wondered what side of myself I might have displayed that my hostess wouldn’t previously have been privy to.

I may have shared with her parents that I have a marijuana habit (recreational!), but anyone who reads my Substack knows I’m something of a stoner. Even the most proper adults I know read my Substack, and thus know I’m a stoner. In fact, every single one of my Tuxedo Park friends’ parents has seen me getting stoned at least once.

Most recently, two weeks ago, while my friend’s father rode his Vespa and I exhaled a cloud of white smoke large enough to announce a new pope. Habemus Papam!

I checked, and between Instagram and my private story, I’ve posted 16 times in the seven days before the trip about marijuana. I made a joke comparing street corn to drugs. I’ve really said much worse; I think that any adult in my life would find me both polite and charming, and simultaneously, quite a bit “out there.” These are not mutually exclusive. There is no shame in my game.

At a certain point, one must know who they are dealing with and what to expect. If Satan’s salad is distressing, don’t invite someone who has been stoned almost every time you have hung out with him.

Perhaps, this is anti-etiquette: Don’t change who you are. Your host invited you. If your host has invited a polite but outspoken, obnoxious gay Jew from New York City, then you need to be that same polite but outspoken, obnoxious, gay Jew from New York City. If your host wishes she had invited Chad Queerbankston III, then she should’ve.

Don’t Turn Feudal.

In my estrangement from the group, there were several moments that I wanted to ask the other guests, “Is she being weird with me?” or “Do you think she’s mad at me?” But you must remember that, as a guest, you are in the sovereign territory of your host. Trying to build coalitions or discuss your host is not only in poor taste; it is also treasonous. Others present in the situation are most likely to stay out of it, even if they notice it — and to create an undue burden by even subtly asking them to pick a side will only further your alienation. Allow others to arrive at their own conclusions and depart from the situation gracefully. If the others validate you mentally after departure, wonderful! If not, you still have avoided turning a cold war into a nuclear wasteland.

Leave Graciously, And Without A Postmortem.

The greatest temptation, after 72 hours of social frostbite, is to demand an explanation while boarding your flight home. Resist. My hostess had already rendered her verdict, and as I realized throughout the weekend, she had little interest in changing her mind. I thought maybe I should pull my hostess aside prior to my departure and ask what I had done wrong, but an exit interview is unlikely to be an acquittal.

After leaving, I sent a text to my host expressing my gratitude for her hospitality and regretted if I had upset her in any way. She told me that I had been crass around her friends and family and that I had been off-putting. I apologized and told her I wish she’d said something sooner. When I asked for specific examples of wrongdoing, she never replied.

Even afterward, I couldn’t reconcile that conclusion with the weekend I’d experienced. Aside from one dinner-table remark that I had already apologized for, I kept searching for the moments I’d apparently missed. I reread our texts, looked back through my photos, and replayed conversations in my head, wondering whether I’d monopolized discussions or missed cues to quiet down. Nothing ever stood out.

Perhaps there was no one moment. I’ll never know.

I did not reach out again, except, of course, to inquire after the Nantucket-made blueberry vodka that I purchased on the Island and left at her house. In retrospect, that’s a little bit embarrassing for me.

But the entire point of this post is to value the analysis of my own behavior in a frayed situation — the good, the bad, and even the thirsty.

The message went unacknowledged, and then, I was blocked.

Oh, and not just me. She also blocked my 17-year-old baby sister — on Instagram. To quote my eloquent lil sis, “What the fuck did I do to her?”

(My sister is in for the ride of her life if she doesn’t yet know that she is an opp-by-association to all of my opps.)

You cannot control the actions of others. If I had been able to choose the outcome of the weekend, perhaps I would’ve hoped that my hostess would have pulled me aside at the onset of her grievance and informed me specifically of what rubbed her wrong, and how I might have corrected course. That opportunity seemed to evade my time as her guest.

In retrospect, that is an important lesson for guests, hosts, and even friends on the equal playing field of a mere hangout — if you are upset or annoyed by something, you have two choices: State specifically what is wrong in a proper and private setting and ask for redress, or keep it to yourself and act like everything is normal. It is not terribly beneficial, regardless of the situation or circumstance, to treat someone as if they’ve been convicted of hunting with seven dogs (very illegal in Nantucket!), without first giving them the opportunity to mend the situation.

There’s little more that needs to be said. Etiquette is not about extracting emotional closure, but preserving dignity and appearances without a fireworks showdown of melodrama and Shakespearean fury. I could not make my hostess love me — clearly — but at the very least, I made the best of our vicissitudes and let her remember me as well-meaning in the face of her disdain. Sometimes, that’s the best you can do, and begging for an explanation will leave you wishing you hadn’t.

But these rules go beyond a difficult trip — keeping these notions of etiquette in mind allowed me to remain in control of myself, and thus, to avoid the situation’s potential acrimony.

All in all, I am grateful to my hostess, and lacking such gratitude would be the greatest violation of etiquette. At the end of the day, she opened her home to me and invited me to Nantucket. Despite the relative catastrophe of it all, I remain grateful for the invitation — and for the self-reflection the weekend ultimately prompted. We live and we learn.

So even if you’re waiting, terrified, for the door to kick you on your way out, try to take it all in, smell the hydrangeas, follow these rules, and next summer, splurge on a hotel room.

Love,

Ari

P.S., as of 7/31/26 — The point of this piece isn’t to hate on anyone! I appreciate the discourse in the comments, including the comments which are less favorable towards me. But my hostess hasn’t shared her side of the story, which might begin by pointing out that she hosted me in Nantucket and in return, I wrote this post about her. Thank you for reading and commenting but there’s really no benefit to speaking ill of my hostess, and that would be against all notions of etiquette anyhow.