I received a text from my cousin’s cousin in Montreal letting me know that he’d be in town for work for the next week and a half, and he’d like to meet up if possible. He asked if I could let his cousin, our mutual cousin, in Brooklyn know (don’t wonder why they don’t have each others’ contact information but I have both), so as a courtesy, I did. I let our cousin know we’d be meeting up Sunday late afternoon and evening for dinner. Our cousin’s response was predictable.

“That doesn’t work because <my toddler son’s> music class is at 4:30, and then he has to go to bed at 8:30. So if Andrew wants to see us, he’ll need to come to our neighborhood (in Bensonhurst, really the boonies of outer Brooklyn where no hipsters exist just yet) and have dinner with us,” our cousin responded via text to me.

This is exactly what happened when Andrew’s sister and her family were visiting New York this time last year. Our cousin wanted his entire life accommodated and asked for his cousins to travel over an hour to his neighborhood in Bensonhurst to have dinner, and I rejected it. We should be accommodating them, I said then. They are visiting. You don’t make visitors go to places visitors don’t ever want to go to. Their lives do not revolve around yours. And your life is really boring, so why would they want their lives to accommodate yours?

In this case, I said I would see Andrew on Sunday, and if he wanted to see Andrew, he’d need to connect with him directly and arrange another time.

Some people never change.