Dear Queenie,
I live far away from where I grew up and have a lot of friends and relatives back there. I keep in touch with them by email and Facebook and when I go back there to visit they want to get together with me, but it’s a long expensive trip and when I get there I just want to take it easy and be with the people I’m staying with.
When the others find out I’m there or if they find out after I’ve gone home, some of them complain about me not letting them know I am/was there so we could get together.
Queenie, what’s a polite way to tell them I don’t want to spend my vacation time with them? Or should I give them some time too?—Tired Traveller
Dear Tired Traveller,
Why not arrange for some kind of get-together with the whole group of “others” while you are there on vacation?
If you do not want to do that, just pay no attention to their complaining, or explain (briefly and politely) that you needed to rest up from the long trip there and for the equally long trip home, and just did not have much time for socialising.
