I developed a habit of distaste towards having a lot of visitors in my house because my parents were always having dinner parties at our house.
Their friends would get drunk and would try to engage my siblings and I verbally, often belligerently.
Since our parents were drinking as well, they didn’t step in to intervene at any point. This was frustrating on nights when I needed to do homework or had an important test to study for. Sometimes I would beg my parents to cancel plans with their friends when it was a random Wednesday night, but my parents put their socialization hour ahead of their children every single time we had the never to ask. Now that I own my house and get to choose how to actually enter my home, I’m extremely guarded about get togethers or parties where I’m entertaining others. Unfortunately, my wife doesn’t see eye to eye with me on this position. She likes having small cocktail parties with our friends and work associates. The other day we had a party and I nearly freaked out when our party guests knocked over the space heater in the living room and started a small fire. I jumped into action with my fire extinguisher and put out the blaze. The space heater has a tip over switch on it, but the heating element was still hot and managed to ignite the corner of a piece of furniture. That was the last time I ever put out space heaters around guests, because I know the situation is too easy to replicate. It’s even worse when alcohol is involved.