Auntie SparkNotes: No Sleep Til...

Dear Auntie,
I've got problems. Lots of 'em. I've learned to cope for the most part, though, and work around my issues. But I have this friend named "Tracy". Tracy is a big, annoying roadblock.

Every single weekend, Tracy asks me to spend the night at her house. One of my aforementioned problems is the extreme dislike of staying at people's houses. I have a little separation anxiety from my bed and just plain hatred of wasting an entire weekend being stuck at her house playing Mario Party (though I have nothing against Mario Party, it's a pretty good game). I always give her an excuse and I figured by now she'd get the hint; I'm not interested. But every time she sees me, Tracy tells me to ask my mom if I can stay over. That's all she talks about. Seriously.

I don't want to hurt her feelings. She considers me one of her best friends and just wants to spend time with me. Tracy doesn't realize that I'm a contented antisocial and would much rather sit at home and read some good ol' Harry Potter each weekend. How do I get the message through to her that I don't want to spend the night without being too blunt about it and make her stop asking so much?

You're in luck, Sparkler! Because there are many, many more Tools Of Hint-Dropping Subtlety at your disposal! For instance, you could start blasting "All By Myself" on a pair of miniature speakers whenever Tracy walks into a room. Or start wearing a rotation of t-shirts that say, "I Heart My Bed," "Introvert 4 Life," and "Mario Party Can Bite My Buttocks." Or get your mom to tell her best friend to tell her best friend to tell the checkout guy at the grocery store to tell the local vet to tell Tracy's dog to tell Tracy that sleepovers are your personal idea of hell.

See? You've got tons of opportunities for non-direct message-sending! Which is great! Because as you've pointed out, it seems to be working out for you so well.

Okay, so really? Right now, you're pretty much a living example of that old saw about the definition of insanity, a.k.a. doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results. She invites, you decline, she invites again, and on and on it goes—and of all the logical fallacies I've ever seen, this line of yours is one of my favorites.

"I always give her an excuse and I figured by now she'd get the hint; I'm not interested."

Oh, is that what you figured? Because I'd kinda hoped you'd realized by now that giving an excuse is, in fact, the exact polar opposite of saying, "I'm not interested." And while it's absolutely true that a more incisive person might have discerned that your excuses are just cover for a general hatred of sleepovers, Tracy is clearly not an incisive person. She's taking you at your word. And even if she's a big, fat, credulous dummy, you still need to make at least one good-faith effort to send her a message that isn't written in Fear-of-confrontation-ese.

So please, stop making excuses or dropping hints and just say, out loud, that you're not a big sleepover person. I mean, say it right now: "I'm not really a sleepover person." There! Didn't that feel great?! And the best part is, when you say this out loud to someone else, that person will not only stop asking you to sleep over, but also happily accept your preference for your own bed as the totally inoffensive personal idiosyncrasy that it is. All you need is thirty seconds and a modicum of nerve, so that the next time Tracy asks you to sleep over, you can smile and say, "Thanks so much for inviting me, but I just don't do well at sleepovers. It's nothing personal, I like hanging out with you, I just get really anxious at other people's houses. But do you want to get together tomorrow/next week/insert-acceptable-future-friend-date-here?"

Oh, and one more thing: go easy on Tracy, would you? Because she's not actually a big, annoying roadblock; she's a well-meaning girl who enjoys your company and hasn't a clue that you're a sleepover-hating bag of neuroses. It's not her fault that you've never been straight with her. And while there's always a chance that she'll be a jerk about this (in which case, come back and we'll have a little seminar on Boundary-Setting 101), it's far more likely that she'll be fine with the truth about who you are.

Except for wishing you'd just told her sooner.

Sleepovers: love 'em or hate 'em? Tell us in the comments! And to get advice from Auntie, email her at advice@sparknotes.com.

Related post: How to Have a Totally Awesome One-Person Slumber Party