People coming over

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I really dislike the idea of having people at my house/apartment, I know that they are going to move things around, change the position of the pillows on my couch, leave their cups or whatever. It's everything about it that is so annoying. Does anyone have the same problem?
And how to explain to them that I don't want them around without hurting their feelings?

PS. I dislike going to other people's place too.

My family and friends usually tell me that my home is like "a small museum, where everything is positioned perfectly."

Well, I don't have children, pets or roommates, so why shouldn't I have a nice home? I don't get too upset when others visit, but, the wreckage that I find after they leave, sparks am hour of cleaning and resetting. Oh well, price of having friends, I guess.

I've been like this ever since I can remember. When I was a child my mother used to invite her friends' kids over to play with me, and I still remember the sense of distress I felt when those kids later went home leaving a complete mess in my room. My toys, which I usually had neatly arranged either on display or in a drawer, were now strewn all over the floor. Just the sight of it made me close to meltdown, because I hated the sheer disorder, and the fact that whatever child it was that week, whom I didn't even know well or like, had just come into my home, made a mess, wasn't even enjoyable for me to "play with" anyway, and then left me to clean up the mess.

As an adult I've tried to control the feelings of resentment at messes left by having a friend over, which has been slightly easier to do since I started making my own friends whom I actually liked enough to counterbalance any disadvantages about the mess they might leave. But I can still relate to that feeling of just having been invaded by a mess-making intruder. I can't stand to see someone grab my remote control with greasy pizza fingers, or set a sweating cold drink down on my wood table without a coaster, or pee down the outside of my toilet. I take it more in my stride these days but the feeling is still there deep inside.

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I used to have only 2 chairs. Not having enough seating can be effective.

Haha! Well played, justkillingtime!

I really hate it when my alcoholic uncle shows up at my house without calling ahead of time. Whenever he visits, he often asks me if I have a GF and my sister if she has a BF. My uncle doesn't seem to understand/care that my sister doesn't want a BF and that I currently do not have a GF.

He also likes to offer me and my sister alcohol. My sister and I can't drink alcohol because we both are on medication and yet, my uncle still doesn't seem to care. He also makes really dumb fart jokes that my sister and I are really tired of.

Does my uncle go to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings? When he visited about a week ago, he said yes, but now that he's about 100 LBS overweight, I think he was just BS-ing me and my family because he treats his alcoholism like it's a joke.

I don't mind things getting moved around and messed up. I have four kids, and I'm not exactly the neatest person anyway, and I really don't care.

I do mind, very much, having company. I HATE it. I hate "entertaining," and worrying about whether I have the right things to eat/drink, and being judged on the basis of my decorating choices and housekeeping and whether I've weeded my flower beds well and how tall my grass is and if I missed a dog turd in the yard and whether I'm a thoughtful and amusing enough hostess... and... and... and...

It's difficult enough to socialize at someone else's house, or on neutral ground somewhere-- but at least there, all I have to pay attention to is my own behavior and conversational choices and what my kids do (matching expectations and discipline to other parents, et cetera et cetera). I don't have to worry about whether there are enough pictures on the walls to "look normal" and if I mowed the grass recently enough and if I'm offering drinks often enough and whether I put the religion and mental health books away and if the cat pan might smell (and God forbid the sink shitter should "go" while company is over) and 10,000,000 other things.

I DO NOT LIKE COMPANY.

My home is supposed to be my safe place, not 1500 more square feet that I must constantly monitor or face judgment.

Whenever my sister's friend or my neighbor shows up, I don't mind. But whenever any of my mom's friends show up, that ticks me off because my mom's friends tend to treat me and my sister like my sister and I are still little kids!

That is the best thing I've heard for years Thanks! When I move I'm putting my chairs into storage.

I feel the same way. And to make things extra stressful, I have my house on the market and have to let utter strangers in whenever they feel like it!

I despise people coming over! It's like I can hear them wherever I am in the house. It just stresses me out just to know that there is someone there who doesn't belong there. They're going to touch things, move things around, take things, etc. You can always tell when someone's been over, too. Thank goodness we don't buy cookies anymore. There's going to be cups of coffee lying around, and worse, sometimes a pastry or something that I was saving for the next day's breakfast will be gone! Then they'd eat them. I mean, once my brother and his wife came over. I love my brother, just his wife is just like, well, gum. She's always with him. We have a table with four chairs, right. We always eat like that, because we're three. Everyone sits in their own chair. Would you believe apart from taking my mom's place at the table, we needed an extra chair, and then everyone was so crowded, even noisy. I just preferred not to eat. I also don't really like going to other people's houses.

ways - that is one where clearly I don't. I very much like retreating to my own space quite frequently. But I'm actually pretty messy and I do like visitors - at least the ones whose company I enjoy - as long as I can still have a place to retreat to when I start to feel overloaded.

Having said that, I have had exactly one actual social visitor to my apartment in the past year - not counting the dogs.

I don't like having company, either. In fact, I usually don't even answer the door when someone rings unless I know who it is and want them there. Really, there's no reason for people to just drop in unannounced when they can call or text first. I would never just drop in on anyone uninvited or unannounced. If they call and I don't want to deal with them being at my crib I just say I'm not home or at work and don't expect to be home anytime soon and offer to meet them somewhere for a bite to eat or whatever later on.
What's annoying about company is that too many of them are self proclaimed home improvement experts or interior decorators and feel they have to share their unsolicited expertise. That, and I simply just like having the place totally to myself without having to deal with anyone else.

Honestly, my house is my "safe spot" where I do not have to worry about pretentions, or acting like I understand social cues blah blah blah.. so I hate when people come over. Esp when it is unannounced. I swear to you all that if someone just knocks on the door (with no warning or whatnot) that I will not answer. I literally will just sit on the couch/ continue whatever I am doing until they leave. If it is important, they can leave a message or something. Usually though, it is solicitors (which is why we put up a "No solicitation" sign but apparently they don't know how to read) And I am the same about phone calls. If I do not recognize the number, I will not answer. If they don't leave a voicemail, then I assume that it was not important. If you really want to get a hold of me, then you will but for the most part, solicitors don't really want to get a hold of me (personally) and so they don't actually try.

Yes, I do that same thing of just sitting quietly and waiting for them to leave if someone knocks on my door and I'm not expecting anyone. I hate the unexpected disruption of having to deal with or talk to someone that I wasn't prepared to deal with. My apartment is my sanctuary and I don't want the world intruding.

Unfortunately the building I now live in is horrendous for someone like me. For some evil reason I have had more disturbances, knocks on my door, interruptions here than any other place I've lived, ever. It used to be for pensioners only and they had wardens living here to help out with the pensioners in an assisted living kind of deal. Though they changed the age of the people allowed to have a place here, they still have the wardens, and the number of times they or one of my neighbors have knocked on my door for one reason or another -----AAAAGGGHHH.

I hate it. I can't move because it's the cheapest rent anywhere in the whole city unless I want to live in a run-down place. But I have major issues with how intrusive things are here. I wish I could ask the management for a special request of not being disturbed unduly, but I don't want it to be a big thing...

I wonder if it would be OK to put a sign on the door with "Please Do Not Disturb. Leave a note, instead." and have paper and a pencil/pen on a string on the door.