So as I said last time, on Saturday we invited Susan's boyfriend Ryan over to lunch, as well as another poly couple that she knew from online, Erik and Angie. In return, they invited us to their place along with other people. Now, to be fair, it was one of those cases where the hosts just invited anyone they knew and see who responded. They way it got filtered to me, though, was that there was a couple of people invited from Angie's support group (she has medical stuff on the side), and several poly couples.
I was somewhat leery of going anyways; I (and Susan as well) are completely drug free, and neither of us smoke tobacco either. Angie actually has legitimate medical reasons that allow her to procure and smoke pot, and has to do so quite regularly. Because, and only because, of the medical stuff, I was willing to give it a pass in the pursuit of friendship...had she been a recreational user, I wouldn't have been willing to go that far.
The food was good. I'll give them that much. They also did do a lot to clean up and de-funkify their place from the pot smoke as well as the cat they have. Neither was very noticeable when we got there, so yay. And since kids were along, double-yay. Unfortunately, that was about the extent of the good side of things. We got to talk a very little bit about poly before the other guest arrived (notice the lack of a plural there), and we did get warned that the other attendee was one of the med group people, who was known to chatter about their shared problems.
In the end, Angie and the other guest talked nearly non-stop about their issues, which in some ways is understandable...it's their lives, after all. But any attempt we made to try to steer the conversation to neutral territory was swiftly shifted back on the course of medical stuff, and in the end we were glad that the kids were along. By the time we finished eating, the kids were both all over our laps, and we were able to use them as an excuse to bail.
Of course, once we got home we realized how much pot smoke was still in their place, because we'd taken a fair amount with us, ingrained into our hair and clothes. We ended up having to give our older kid a quick shower before her bedtime, and Susan had to get up extra early to make sure the younger got the same before school in the morning. All the clothes we were wearing, as well as the younger kid's sheets had to take a double trip through the wash.
In the end, while Erik and Susan get along fairly well online, I don't think we'll be going over to their place anymore. We may invite them to us, but the atmosphere of their place is just not viable for us. Both of us were also rather disappointed as well; we were hoping to make more contact with local-ish poly people, and it ended up being a total bust. Back to the drawing board, it seems.
I was somewhat leery of going anyways; I (and Susan as well) are completely drug free, and neither of us smoke tobacco either. Angie actually has legitimate medical reasons that allow her to procure and smoke pot, and has to do so quite regularly. Because, and only because, of the medical stuff, I was willing to give it a pass in the pursuit of friendship...had she been a recreational user, I wouldn't have been willing to go that far.
The food was good. I'll give them that much. They also did do a lot to clean up and de-funkify their place from the pot smoke as well as the cat they have. Neither was very noticeable when we got there, so yay. And since kids were along, double-yay. Unfortunately, that was about the extent of the good side of things. We got to talk a very little bit about poly before the other guest arrived (notice the lack of a plural there), and we did get warned that the other attendee was one of the med group people, who was known to chatter about their shared problems.
In the end, Angie and the other guest talked nearly non-stop about their issues, which in some ways is understandable...it's their lives, after all. But any attempt we made to try to steer the conversation to neutral territory was swiftly shifted back on the course of medical stuff, and in the end we were glad that the kids were along. By the time we finished eating, the kids were both all over our laps, and we were able to use them as an excuse to bail.
Of course, once we got home we realized how much pot smoke was still in their place, because we'd taken a fair amount with us, ingrained into our hair and clothes. We ended up having to give our older kid a quick shower before her bedtime, and Susan had to get up extra early to make sure the younger got the same before school in the morning. All the clothes we were wearing, as well as the younger kid's sheets had to take a double trip through the wash.
In the end, while Erik and Susan get along fairly well online, I don't think we'll be going over to their place anymore. We may invite them to us, but the atmosphere of their place is just not viable for us. Both of us were also rather disappointed as well; we were hoping to make more contact with local-ish poly people, and it ended up being a total bust. Back to the drawing board, it seems.
