Since the house has been on the market (Yes, it's another one of those "I'm selling my house, and I'm going to talk about it forever" posts. Sorry.) we've had three sets of potential buyers come to take a look at it. Now, this was a part of the process I'd been absolutely dreading. I HATED the thought of having to follow The Others around my house, listening to them list all of the things they hate about it, and repeatedly answering the question "But what do you DO with all the SHOOZ?" (Note to self: remember to make up smart comeback to this, so you don't keep on having to go, "Er, I wear them? On my feet? Am I doing it wrong?"), so I was really pleased when our estate agent told us we didn't need to be there when they show people around. This works for me: I don't have to deal with the awkwardness (I have the ability to make even normal situations awkward, so I really hate to think how badly I could screw up a situation that is inherently awkward anyway...), and the prospective buyers don't have to pretend they're going to buy our house, just out of politeness. (Which is what I tend to do when I look at houses and the people are in them at the time. If Terry wasn't there to stop me, I'd probably make an offer on the spot, and end up buying a house I absolutely hated, just because I couldn't think of a polite way to end the conversation.) There's a good side and a bad side to this, though...