HY. My Sunday Lovers,

another Sunday, another dear diary moment. This time, we’re leaving the dead bodies aside.

But we are back to a Friday night.

This time I was hosting a dinner party with my closest friends and their partners. Our friendship group had a tradition of taking turns hosting dinner. This particular Friday was my turn.

And as always… it did not turn out how I imagined.

To get this out of the way: I love hosting. I love planning the food and putting together menus. But what I love most is the staging. The little focal points. Creating the mood and ambience. The feeling of a luxurious restaurant.

And I don’t mean luxury like glittery, overpriced gold nonsense. I mean a vibe that instantly invites you to relax. A vibe that makes you feel at home, only somehow elevated. Like you naturally sit up straighter and become your best self.

I invited four friends and their partners. One of my (at the time) closest friends brought his boyfriend, and because they traveled from another city, they needed a place to sleep. I offered them my bedroom.

Because honestly… Two grown men need their beauty sleep on fresh sheets and a fancy new mattress (I guess). Who was I to stand in the way of that? So I volunteered to sleep on the air mattress in the living room. I’m single. I’m adaptable. I’m a good friend and a good host.

THE BEDROOM RULE

Here’s the detail that matters: I had renovated my bedroom literally a week before. Fresh paint. New furniture. The whole thing felt untouched and perfect. I was obsessed.

So yes, I asked my best friend before for one very specific favor. Please keep your hands off each other in my brand-new bed, in my brand-new sheets. I hadn’t even had sex in that bed yet. And it was my bed.

The rest of the day I cooked and decorated like I was competing on a cooking show. Three courses: a starter salad, a roast with sides for the main, and chocolate soufflé for dessert.

Half an hour before dinner, my overnight guests - my friend and his boyfriend - arrived. I showed them the bedroom, reminded them of The Rule, and let them know I wanted to be the first person to “break in” my own bed.

Sober, with a handshake, they promised. They told me not to worry.

THE TIMELINE THAT NEVER STOOD A CHANCE

My timing for the night was perfectly planned:

6:00 pm welcome drinks and small talk.

7:00 pm first course.

Then roast. Then dessert.

I had even built in buffer time, which should’ve been my first clue that the universe was about to humble me.

Everyone arrived on time… except one couple. My friend and her boyfriend.

She texted that they’d be late, and that he might not come because they were fighting and he had done “something bad.”

Eventually they showed up around 8 pm. Together. But not as a couple. You could tell from the energy that the whole relationship was hanging by a thread.

“I’m so glad you made it,” I said.

She smiled like a threat and said, “We’ll see.”

That was the starting gun for the downfall of the evening.

Not only had they arrived almost two hours late, throwing off the entire evening, but my friend stormed in like a thundercloud with explosive potential and started dragging her boyfriend at every possible opportunity.

And we all did the classic polite thing. We tried not to let it ruin the mood. We ignored the little jabs. That was fatal. That was our mistake.

THE MOMENT SHE DROPPED IT

We finally made it to the first course, starving and already behind schedule. My roast was already overcooked. Tough. Burnt in places. And I was honestly furious, because we tried to eat “on time,” like one of those TV cooking shows where everything looks effortless and nobody is crying inside. I planned the timing perfectly for the cooking process.

While we ate, my friend chewed in ominous silence.. And I was genuinely scared of what would happen when her plate was empty.

My fear was justified.

She put down her fork and said, very calmly, in a voice that demanded a courtroom:

“My boyfriend snorted cocaine off a stripper’s ass last night. And he didn’t come home until 5 am.”

It went dead silent. Nobody moved. Eyes darted around the table like we were all trying to find an emergency exit.

I slammed my fork onto the plate. Very loud. Very pissed. Not because what he did was admirable (well, maybe), but because my friend had just detonated the entire evening in the middle of my dining room. And now, of course, my roast would continue to die a second death in the kitchen.

Her eyes were demanding something from all of us. She wanted us to judge him. She wanted a verdict.

The problem was: the verdict didn’t arrive.

Was it great behavior? No.

Was it our job to sentence him? Also no.

Most people at that table had done their fair share of dumb, wild, too-much nights. Almost everyone had tried something at some point. Nobody was sitting there as a pure angel.

So two minutes passed. It felt like forever. Everyone tried to calculate the correct response: supportive, but not enabling. Honest, but not interfering. Nobody wanted to become a side character in someone else’s relationship war.

And honestly? I have to say this: her boyfriend was kinda… brave (I guess). He sat there and endured being publicly humiliated in front of his girlfriend’s friends. He knew what was coming. He still showed up.

Later, he told me he hadn’t wanted to be rude because he knew how much work goes into a dinner party.

(He was right. Hosting is a sport.)

My friend across the table spoke first, but not in the way my angry friend wanted. He tried to soften the situation instead of escalating it. He basically said: we’re not innocent either.

That made my friend even angrier.

She stormed out.

THE SILENCE YOU CAN CHEW

While she was gone, I tried to rescue my burnt roast like it was a wounded soldier. Twenty minutes later, we were sitting down to the main course in a silence so loud it had a sound.

I broke it in the only way I know how: head-on.

I looked at the boyfriend and asked, dead serious, “So… what does a gram of coke cost these days?”

(For legal reasons… never tried it, never will.)

He laughed. Everyone laughed.

Except her.

He didn’t answer the question. But I swear he wanted to. We all wanted him to. And yes, we also wanted to know what the stripper had cost.

And the deeper question that stayed with me for days was this: do you slaughter your partner in front of your friends, or do you keep it at home? What makes someone want to discredit their partner so publicly?

 

BREAKFAST WITH A SURPRISE

Later that night the stripper-coke-drama died down. Eventually, only my overnight guests remained. We cleaned up. Then it was bedtime.

As a good hostess, I gave them my bedroom (freshly renovated, as you know), and I slept in the living room on the air mattress like the single friend I am.

The next morning I made coffee and put together a small breakfast tray. I walked to the bedroom and knocked. A sleepy “come in” came back.

I opened the door and saw two happy men lying in my bed.

And then I saw it.

Right in front of me. So obvious I almost dropped the tray.

A white, milky film on the wall above their heads. Slightly smeared. On my brand-new dark blue wall.

They saw my face and immediately swore it was Nivea Cream.

But why would Nivea Cream be on the wall at the head of my bed?

For the sake of my soulmate friendship, I left the room and told myself it was cream. Of course I tried to wipe it off, which made it even worse. I asked my friend multiple times what it really was. I didn’t even care about the “thing” as much as I cared about honesty. I’ve always valued honesty more than the situation itself.

He insisted it was Nivea. Two years later, he admitted it was semen. From his boyfriend. I slept for two years with another man’s semen above my head. And yes: they were the first ones to use my new bed for that kind of activity.

Since then, that wall has a name: “THE WALL OF THE LOST BOYS”. We never hosted our friendship dinners again.

Sometime later, Mr. Cocaine-and-Strip-Club and Mr. Sperm Donor disappeared, and my friends were single again. Shortly after, I left the group too. I deserved better. Was it all worth it? Would I do it again?

Probably.

But next time, I’m hosting with truffle fries on a silver tray, Crémant with my name on it, and abso-fucking-lutely zero expectations.

Happy Sunday! x

Victoria