Every Typical Person You Will Meet at a BBQ

It’s approaching that time of year again when everyone dresses in their finest BBQ attire and sits in someone’s garden enjoying cremated chicken and ignoring the salad. There's nothing better then a BBQ in the summer, but to enjoy it you also have to endure awkward chit chat, loud children and every cliché person in the book. Maybe you know what we mean with some of these people you are bound to meet at every BBQ this summer…

The guy who made a salad and expects an award

This guy likes to make it known that this isn’t any ordinary salad, this is one of his “special salads”. It usually consists of a lot of rocket, tomatoes and maybe an olive or two, but he insists it's his “secret recipe”. The salad always comes in large quantities, in a large receptacle. The salad might taste rubbish but it’s all about “the process”.

Wannabe stud

These are easy to spot – they're always wearing their tightest polo shirt, rear hugging chinos and over gels their hair. This is to remind everyone that yes, they do go to the gym and yes, they have still “got it”. You'll also see him lifting children (usually other people's) above his head just to show how strong he is.

Halloumi Girl

Here she comes with her delicious yet incredibly difficult to manage cheese. “Is there any room for this?”. Whoever's in charge of the the cooking inexplicably has to please this woman to prove that they really can barbecue anything. They spend unnecessary amounts of time trying to balance badly cut slices of halloumi so that they don’t fall into the charcoal, and it still turns out black and rubbery.

The chaotic family with the crazy children

They arrive looking stressed and shout at each other across the garden. The kids will most likely squirt you with a water gun so you drop your burger, and parents will just ignore it because they're “off duty”.

The bored vegan

It's a well known fact that 70% of barbecues tend to be talking about meat, which vegans yawn their way through before they answer for to 100^th time that afternoon why they don’t eat meat. And no, they don't eat halloumi either. They give up all hope of eating anything when the head griller cheerfully slings their bean burgers on the greasy residue from those perfectly cooked steaks.

Barbecue hog

“Let me do it, I’ve got one of these babies at home” he will say, as if he's finally found his purpose in life. This person usually ignores all advice, dietary issues and cooking requests, because he knows best. And when he burns everything it won’t be his fault, it will be the ‘constant interruptions’ he had to put up with.Then he goes off in a huff and the original chef has to start again from scratch.

I think you’ll find

This guy isn’t in big groups very often and so try’s to make conversation by proving everyone wrong. If you've seen the news, he will have read an entire report on it. If you have an opinion, he will have a new take on it. He's then confused as to why he's by himself at the end of the evening...

The bachelor who stays for 10 minutes

You glare at him in envy as he glides around the garden with a breezy charm that seems to win everyone over but he can only do because he knows he doesn’t have to stay for the duration. He swings round the crazy children, pretends to be interested in everyone’s lives and then refuses food because he “can’t stay but he didn’t want to miss out on seeing everyone”. Once he’s gone the party seems so much duller and it’s only 1:30 but you know you are stuck there until it gets dark.

The empty handed

The classic “oh god I feel awful we didn’t bring anything “ line. Not awful enough to nip to the shop down the road, and you can always guarantee they eat the most!

The adventurer

That guy that brings the fish you've never heard of and obscure meats like rabbit. He wants to wrap everything in foil and pre-cook them in the tagine that he brought along. As lovely as his food is, you have spent all week craving the cheap burgers and sausages that you thought were going to be there.