I’d like to have been sitting there when she walked in.

[diamondcutter]

I’d like to have been sitting there when she walked in.

Source: Practical English Usage 89.4, Michael Swan

I don’t quite understand this sentence. I wonder if the speaker didn’t sit there when she walked in and the speaker wished that he/she could have sat there.

 

[jutfrank]

The speaker was not there but they wish (presently) that they had been there.

 

[Phaedrus]

I’d like to have been sitting there when she walked in.

Source: Practical English Usage 89.4, Michael Swan

I don’t quite understand this sentence. I wonder if the speaker didn’t sit there when she walked in and the speaker wished that he/she could have sat there.

Paraphrase: I'd like it if I had been sitting there when she walked in.

Instead of saying I'd like to have been sitting there when she walked in, many people would say I'd have liked to be sitting there when she walked in.

Incidentally, in my (third) edition of Swan's Practical English Usage, I find the sentence in question in section 280.4, on page 255.

 

[5jj]

Instead of saying I'd like to have been sitting there when she walked in, many people would say I'd have liked to be sitting there when she walked in.

Though for pedants like me, There is a difference in meaning between those two.

I'd like to have been sitting there when she walked in. I wish now that I had been there.
I'd have liked to be sitting there when she walked in. I wished at the time that I was there.

As not many people observe this difference, learners don't need to worry about it.

 

[Phaedrus]

Though for pedants like me, There is a difference in meaning between those two.

I didn't mean to suggest that they were identical in meaning.

I perceive the meaning of I'd have liked to be sitting there when she walked in differently. The meaning is: If I had been sitting there then, I'd have liked it.

 

[5jj]

Fine. Your version is closer to the original than mine. I was simply trying to show the overall difference.

 

[Tdol]

I don’t quite understand this sentence. I wonder if the speaker didn’t sit there when she walked in and the speaker wished that he/she could have sat there.

Think of it as a missed opportunity:

I'd like to have been in the crowd when Martin Luther King gave his I Have a Dream speech.