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Some of my friends are married with kids, some are married without kids, and some are single. My wife strongly prefers hosting couples and not my indidividual friends, so they dinners are my friend plus his wife/gf who no one knows as well, and I never really like that awkward dynamic where he and I are the only people who really know each other. But she understandably doesn't like 3rd-wheeling it with just me and the friend alone. So we mostly only ever have friends over who are married, unless it's someone we're both friends with.
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I think there's this huge gap coming with age. Nobody does that spaghetti thing anymore, good friends after finishing school move elsewhere, responsibilities in many new fields increase and the opportunities to meet hundred candidates decrease exponentially. So even if you'd continue doing the spaghetti, I doubt you'd have too many to feed...
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- "Sorry, but I'm on a low-carb diet, no carbs and especially not after 3pm"

- "Do you use gluten-free pasta? I think I have a gluten allergy."

- "Why always ethnic food like pasta? What's wrong with white people food, like Cheeseburgers?"

People have become too complicated.

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Filtering these people is a feature not a bug.
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You mean it brings together friends and filters out annoying people? You're pointing out a feature, not a bug.
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My best friends are all annoying in various ways.
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I don't mind accommodating best friends' diets.
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Yeah, serving a lot of dishes is part of the fun.
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> - "Why always ethnic food like pasta? What's wrong with white people food, like Cheeseburgers?"

You respond with "that's what I'm making, you're welcome to bring anything yourself to add to it".

Covers dietary issues along with a decent dose of "STFU and show up". People are complicated but you also give too much of a shit.

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I don't know anyone in the US who thinks of spaghetti as ethnic food. Maybe in 1930.
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"Doughnuts? I told you, I don't like ethnic food!"
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And again since 2016
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Nobody has changed their views on spaghetti. Maybe tacos...
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Alternatively, one could hold a social interaction not centered around some form of consumption, and then you don't have to worry about satisfying people's consumptive preferences
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there's lots of people out there who will be more than happy to eat free food at a friend's house. You are overthinking it.
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I think figuring out how to make everybody happy is fun. You end up exploring options you never otherwise would.
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"Eh" (the Larry David "eh")
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Ironically Larry David always seems to be at dinner parties in Curb. Maybe it's a wealthy person activity or maybe it's just comedy gold coming up with a new reason why he pisses off the host and gets kicked out again.
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