Can't you just "be really super busy" tonight? Which is why you did the whole thing over email? A fail-safe excuse that I utilized many times.

One one hand, I know how you feel, but on the other hand, I know from experience that presentations go a lot smoother if the team practices together a few times before-hand.

If you're going to be presenting together in person, you probably should meet sometime beforehand to walk through the presentation together. It's a fair request on her part. But you're perfectly free to have the meeting somewhere other than your house and keep it short.

I agree with you about practice, usually, but the thing is, we're co-leading a therapy group. We can't really practice, except in really general terms, because the whole thing is based on responding to what the group members say.

And I'm kind of annoyed because her message said she was working on a long introduction, which I specifically *don't* want, but I feel like since I did all the work in putting together the rest of it, she's doing this (a) out of guilt and (b) out of a misguided sense that when other groups did similar things, it was helpful (it really wasn't).

Bah. I feel like a grumpy five-year-old. "MINE! GO AWAY!" :-)

It's the sort of thing that can be organized over email, and I in fact spent a good hour last week putting together a draft of how it should go

I understand the first part, but I don't necessarily agree with the second part. You spent a good hour last week putting together a draft of how you think it should go. The whole thing about group work, however, is that it ideally draws upon the strengths of all members of the group -- your partner might have some insights about how it could be improved. This could be taken care of over email, but that might actually slow down the process by putting space between your contributions and her reactions, and between your contributions and her reactions.

Here's a compromise: How about the two of you meet in a neutral place at a defined time with a defined time limit? That way, you can walk out of it when the process is finished without feeling like you have to entertain her at your house.

Also, our professor actually described these co-leading exercises as being a way of making us comfortable flying by the seat of our pants; she said ideally she'd love to just be able to randomly pick people each week, but she thought that would make us too nervous so she assigned weeks and partners in advance. But it's not supposed to be a super-smooth thing, it's supposed to be a "learn by doing" thing.

Grump.

On preview: Dammit, people, stop poking at my inner responsible student! :-)

occhi, if there is no way of gracefully backing out (sorry I have plans tonight), could you tell her you have to run an errand in such and such neighborhood. "Since I'll be down that way, can we meet at Coffee Shop at six? I'm afraid I can't stay long because I'm meeting boyfriend for a late dinner." This way you'll only have to spend an hour or so with classmate, and not in your house.

on preview, lleachie suggested the neutral meeting space.

Good luck.

What they said. Meet outside the house, and make sure you have a must-end-time. If she doesn't go for it, let her come over, then kill her. That's how I always handle these things, and the invasions have become fewer and fewer.

Can you do some sort of "oh hai, I'm really busy and it's a pain for me to go to campus (or wherever, aka the 'I don't have my own transportation' excuse), how about we meet up a half hour before/after class?"

That's what I do because I'm an antisocial mofo. Plus I hate driving places just for meetings.

I'm going to buck the trend here and advise you to Just Say No. I mean, seriously! Be irresponsible for once! You deserve it!

Wait, not that saying no would be irresponsible. It just sounds like the whole thing isn't really necessary. Return her call and, before making a plan to meet, outline the project and the work you've each done, then say, "Well, it sounds like we've got it figured out! Awesome! See you in class!"

Then draw the curtains and turn off the lights and pretend you're not home.

Or, water balloons from the window above your front door.

Yes, if you're determined to do the work via e-mail, definitely meet up half an hour before class to iron out final details.

But you could just meet up for an hour tonight in a neutral space, as other suggested. 'Cos, you know, this girl who is planning a long introduction could totally screw up your presentation if you don't nip that in the bud. Just tell her you're in charge, and you're doing it your way. And then tell her your way. And then tell her to do what you say or else.

Then again, when I was in school I was always the mega-bitch group leader. It resulted in A's, but it might not have been the best strategy. Maybe that's why my classmates all hated me???

Tell her you really need this time to work on your boundary issues and you'll email her.

Tell her you really need this time to work on your boundary issues and you'll email her.

That is so brilliant that I am blinded.

And yeah, I'm mainly feeling right now that it is a boundary issue, because we don't need to meet for scholastic purposes (really, this is the second one of these presentations/co-leading things that each of us has done for this class; it's a super-not-big-deal thing), I would be meeting with her simply to make her personally feel better. And she's a massive ball of neediness right now (with other things going on in her life), and I have no emotional energy right now for any of that.

Sigh. Now I feel like a bad student, a bad therapist, and a bad friend. Boundaries! Need boundaries! :-)

I'm with you, occhiblu. By the sounds of it, you are on the right track and there is no need to have a meeting at all, except maybe ten minutes before class to make sure you are both on a similar track. I'm sure you both know your stuff and can make the session work regardless of what comes up, so there's no need for hours of rehearsal. I got really pissed off at a colleague a couple of months ago who scheduled a meeting with all six people who were involved in co-presenting a two-day workshop, because he wanted some feedback on his PowerPoint presentation. My thoughts (and everyone else's, I found later) were "you scheduled a half-hour meeting with six people because you need someone to tell you you're doing a good job? You fucking moron!".

I don't know how you are as a therapist (but I'd bet that you rock). As a student, I'd guarantee that you are awesome and I have seen you be a good friend to people here many times. Everyone needs boundaries - sometimes they make life easier, sometimes harder. Such is life.

It's good that you are telling the truth instead of telling white lies. Making stuff up to get out of things is not good, but I've done it. Not so much in these last few grown-up years of mine. You don't strike me as the kind of person that would lie, occhiblu. Good for you for being honest. Mostly, I try just to avoid and not get myself invited. ;-)

You don't strike me as the kind of person that would lie, occhiblu. Good for you for being honest.

Well, I haven't actually had a chance to call my classmate yet, so we'll see how that goes!

I don't tell big lies. I do tell social white lies. I've been trying to cut down on those, though.

And it actually looks like I've managed to schedule something else that I need to do for class until late tonight, so I may not even have to lie.

Because I know you all were waiting with bated breath for the scintillating outcome of this fascinating situation:

So, I called her and used mudpuppie's "So, I think we're actually ok, we've got X, Y, and Z all figured out" tactic, and she seemed really uncomfortable about not meeting, so I busted out the ol' counselor trick of "What are you really worried about here?" to try to see if there was a way to solve the underlying concern that didn't involve my hosting someone for dinner, and we ended up compromising on doing a phone run-through later in the evening.

Which we did, and it was fairly unnecessary, but she feels better, I feel like I maintained boundaries but was also sensitive to what she needed, and the whole thing took less than a half-hour. So... woo! Thanks, all.