Manners

Q. My beloved wife has been studying Chinese metaphysics for 18 months. Our house and garden have been badly neglected as a result — as have her husband, and nine-year-old daughter! She claims she needs the mental stimulation, but how can we detach her from her obsession? —F.O., Dorset A. You could outwit your wife by developing your own obsession: namely how she can monetise her new interest by giving lessons to acquaintances and neighbours with intellectual pretensions and time on their hands. There are always plenty of empty heads ready to be filled and the study of Chinese metaphysics could easily fit the bill — ‘bill’ being the operative word, since the snob appeal could allow her to charge fancy prices.

Q. I live in a row of town houses with a communal strip of garden in front. Three of the eight houses leave their gardens in a mess. These are not poor people — a dentist, a lawyer and a dermatologist — but they seem to lack any sense of community duty. If they had any notion of the eyesore the front of their houses presents, they could hire a garden service. It is galling that I have to clean up their gardens myself or leave the mess. How should I get them to clean up their act? — D.W., Toronto A. The problem may be linked to lethargy rather than micro-aggression. It is likely that the offenders keep meaning to get someone in to tackle the mess but simply don’t know how to go about it.

Q. The other night, while hosting a house party, I was one of only three people still chatting by the fire after midnight. I reasoned that if I said goodnight, the one remaining guest, who was still very much enjoying talking to my wife, would feel this was a cue for her to go to bed too. Consequently I made a French exit. The next morning, my wife told me that my having slipped off without saying anything meant that the two of them had been waiting in uncertainty for me to come back, and had stayed up for around half an hour more than they would have done if I had made my own intentions clear. My wife claims you should never make a French exit leaving only two in a room. Can you clarify the protocol, Mary? — M.B., Stanton St Bernard, Wilts A. Your wife is correct.

Q. Last night I went to dinner with people I had never met before. Because the host was a friend of my mother, I had to move next to her on a small sofa to send a photo home. We were then left in an awkward situation where we were sitting shoulder-to-shoulder for the rest of the evening. How could I have migrated away without seeming rude, Mary? — R.H., London SW1 A. You might have escaped by asking your host to join you in looking more closely at, for example, a painting which intrigued you and gradually enlisted the views of others while you marvelled. Soon you would have been free to casually drift apart. Next time a conversational cul-de-sac beckons, leave your drink where you were.

Q. We have moved house from north to south London. For me one of the chief pluses is that we no longer need to employ the same cleaner who has blighted my life for years by being useless. My wife, who is a soft touch, could never bring herself to sack the woman for fear of ‘hurting her feelings’. How can we avoid repeating the mistake (with going rates as much as £15 an hour)? We don’t know any of our new neighbours to ask for recommendations. — B.B., London SW17 A. Advertise in a newsagent’s window. It is important to mention the hourly rate you are prepared to pay as potential cleaners will not make contact otherwise.

Q. At a lunch party, I was getting on so well with someone I had not met before. She knew my work (I’m a designer) and loves it — so much so that she suggested I contact friends of hers who own a design company and are looking to fill a post. I told her that, coincidentally, I had just been for an interview at that very company but, despite shared aesthetic sensibilities, had not (inexplicably to my mind) been offered the job. At this point my interlocutor cried: ‘Oh, how ridiculous. You would have been perfect. I had forgotten what terrible snobs they are.’ Mary, I am still asking myself what it is about me that my new acquaintance so clearly saw could ‘trigger’ snobbery.

Last week, a 20-year-old student came into my office, looking for work experience this summer. He was so polite — in a shy, understated, non-oily way — that I was very keen to help him. It was like meeting a time-traveller from the 1950s: no showing-off, just a gentle display of intelligence teased out from behind his veil of self-effacement. He even washed up his cup after I’d told him he didn’t need to. I must introduce a Teacup Test for future interviewees, to see what they do with the cup at the end of the interview. It’s inspired by the Escalator Test, invented by a colleague at the Evening Standard a few years ago. He would watch interviewees leave our office by the down escalator in Northcliffe House, Kensington.

Q. We have been invited to a virtual wedding. Is it correct form to send a present?— P.F., Barrow Street, Wilts A. Virtual weddings are so new that the rules of etiquette have yet to be drawn up. Setting aside the large sums of money you will not need to shell out for transport and accommodation to attend a physical wedding, you should go by what you would like friends and family to do were you in the same position as the marrying couple. Since it would be sad to be marrying without the full cast of supportive well-wishers who would have been there were it not for Covid uncertainty, then material objects, in the form of wedding presents, to ‘represent’ these missing persons would be doubly valued and you should happily shell out. Q.

Q. I’ve recently been approached by a very good friend who — with genuinely admirable candour and tact — pointed out that my fiancée ‘eats with her mouth open’, and that I ought to mention it to her to prevent future embarrassment. I suppose I have occasionally noticed this habit in the context of pizzas and wine on the sofa, but now that my friend has addressed it I can’t help but see — and indeed hear — his concern daily. Mary, how can I approach this rather unedifying conversation about a very unedifying habit with my otherwise cultured thirty-something fiancée, without causing embarrassment? — Name and address withheld A.

Q. I am placed in a social dilemma due to a proposed visit on the last weekend of June by an American friend who has been hospitable to me. She is great fun. However, it is also the weekend (planned far ahead) when I have staying a recent widow who has been even more hospitable, having had me to visit three times overseas at her seaside house, providing there delicious meals, tourist attractions and delightful company in the form of her other house guests. She is bringing to me a mutual friend, a charming elderly widower. She and he are taking me out to dinner on the Saturday night. But what do I do about the unexpected American? I don’t want to put them in the position of paying for her, too.

Q. Since the relaxation of lockdown, my brother and his wife have started coming to our garden for takeaway meals. My sister-in-law always says she isn’t going to eat at all, so we mustn’t order anything for her. But when the food arrives, she gets a fork and enthusiastically begins picking off everyone else’s plate. Sometimes she just uses her fingers. I do like her very much but, as they married just before Covid, I feel I don’t know her well enough yet to comment or to suggest she orders something for herself. I am always left feeling slightly hungry and a bit irritable, as the whole time I am anxiously anticipating what she will help herself to next. My brother clearly doesn’t mind and my husband, who has perfect manners, pretends he doesn’t.

Q. My husband and I have started receiving invitations to large summer events scheduled for after 21 June. We have been shielding for the past year and, although happy to meet up with small groups of friends out of doors, for the time being we are fearful to commit to indoor unventilated parties. Obviously our hosts require responses to these kind invitations, but we don’t know how to refuse without being thought of as ‘wimps’. Mary, can you help?— P.Z., London SW7 A. There is no need to supply a reason for a party refusal. Indeed traditional etiquette decrees that you should not. You need only say you will be unable to attend. Your hosts will be far too busy planning their parties to bother challenging you for an explanation. Q.

Q. I have just been invited to a wedding where the groom will be the only person I know. Much as I like the groom, I don’t really want to go, because the wedding is on New Year’s Eve, in Glasgow. However, he has asked me so far in advance that I can’t think of a reason to say no. Mary, what should I do?— Name and address withheld A. Accept immediately with great enthusiasm and the proviso that there is a very small chance there may be a work thing at that time which you can’t talk about but would definitely pre-empt your coming. Send a generous wedding present soon (think how much you will be saving in travel and accommodation costs) and nearer the time cancel, as you feared you might have to.

Q. I have been working (from home) for a TV comedy production company for a year. My job is scouting for scripts. In my spare time I have been co-writing a comedy script with a friend. Had I not been its co-author, I would have judged it perfect for the company I work for — but I have only met my bosses in real life once and didn’t pitch it for fear of embarrassing them if they didn’t like it, or making them question my judgment in assessing other scripts for them. Now my co-writer has interest from another production company and I’m worried that if they made a success of it, my bosses would be annoyed that I failed to offer it to them first. Mary, what do I do?— A.J., London SW8 A. Wait until the rival company makes a definite move.

Q. Before Covid, I was staying with friends in the country every other weekend. As a single man living in London, I am more than keen to resume my social life. However invitations are starting to come in again, specifically for July and August, yet none have come from my closest friends who tend to be less organised than my ‘second division’ ones. These invitations require an answer but I don’t want to find that by the time my favourites get around to inviting me again, I will have to say no because my diary is full. I realise I may be coming across as an arrogant sponger when in fact the reverse is the case. Mary, what should I do?— Name and address withheld A. Make a tentative plan to go up to Scotland for the whole of July and August.

Q. I hesitate to bring you this problem, but I suspect it is not that uncommon. Early in our very successful marriage we privately took photographs of each other which neither of us would like our children, or indeed anyone else, to see. They were intended for our old age and now that has arrived we take the greatest pleasure in them; indeed they did much to enliven our most recent Christmas spent on our own. Those of my wife I find quite enchanting: she was extremely attractive in her youth and remains very good-looking to this day. It would be such a shame to destroy them prematurely but at some stage we will surely have to deprive ourselves. Or is there a solution you can suggest, Mary?— R., Watlington A.

Q. Recently an old acquaintance, notorious for never penning a ‘thank you’ note, emailed me telling me he was being nominated for an honour and asking would I support the nomination. Immediately I emailed back my agreement. Subsequently I was contacted by his sponsor and I sent the requested letter of support by return. To my disappointment, I have received no thanks nor even an acknowledgement from nominee or sponsor. Mary, how should I give them a tap on the shoulder to alert them to their bad manners?— Name and address withheld A. As you should know — having been honoured yourself — the person being nominated should theoretically not know of his or her nomination, and practically should pretend not to know.

Q. My mother, aged 87, has taken to forwarding me by email slightly risqué jokes. Her carer is the recipient of the jokes and reads them aloud to my mother, who then suggests she forwards them to me. I think this is an exercise in connecting but it has had the reverse effect as, due to the inappropriate content of these jokes, I am not sure how to react. Mary, what should I do?— C.D., Lavenham, Suffolk A. Next time you speak to the carer, apologise for not having acknowledged these communications. Sadly your computer is oversensitive to anything that seems like spam and puts it straight into the junk folder. Then ask to speak to your mother and share some more appropriate jokes with her. Q.