I have a friend Lana who loves animals. She volunteers for the ASPCA and has two cats and two dogs. She also thinks that everyone should have pets. I have no desire to have a pet. I have nothing against animals, but I don't want one. I'm allergic to most of them, DH travels a lot so the responsibility would mostly fall on me, and we also travel once or twice a month, which would mean either kenneling or finding someone to take care of our pet while we are gone.
Lana had asked before why we didn't have pets. Instead of getting into all the reasons, I told her that our apartment was too small (I realize in hindsight this was probably a bad idea, but it was the easiest way to get her to stop talking about it).
We recently moved to a house. Lana was invited along with a group of our mutual friends to a housewarming party. She asked again when we were getting a pet. I bean-dipped her, but she would not drop the subject. She even went up to DS (who's three) and told him that wouldn't it be nice to have a dog or a cat. For the next week DS wanted to know if we were getting a cat or a dog, but fortunately forgot about it after a week of DH and me constantly telling him no.
From my experience with her, I wouldn't put it past her to continue bothering us about it. Any ideas on what to say? Should I bother raising it with her now or wait until the next time she brings it up? She's part of a close group of friends who we socialize with on a semi-regular basis, and I really want her to stop talking about it, especially in front of DS.