Dear Miss Manners: Perhaps I am just too much of a feminist, but I really hate it when men hold the door for me or let me get on/off the elevator first.
Long ago, I realized it was a losing battle to try to stop this demeaning practice. But it has become even more annoying since, a year ago, I hurt my knee and have difficulty with stairs. There is a short flight of stairs and about 20 feet of space leading to the front door of my office building. I have to go slowly up these stairs. It’s not a problem, as long as I go slow and hold on to the railing.
But many times, if a man is at the door, he will stand there holding it open for me as I hobble up the stairs. There is nothing wrong with my arms, and I am totally capable of opening a door on my own, even though I am just a woman. I cannot hurry up for these well-meaning but patronizing men, and they end up standing there for quite some time since I cannot walk up stairs as fast as a normal person.
How can I politely wave them off? I have tried “Please go ahead,” only to have them stand there like their life depends on holding the door for the “weaker sex.” I am tempted to just stop and stand until they finally go through the door!
Gentle Reader: Please stop trying to pass off your unbecoming hostility as feminism. That attitude is responsible for seated passengers pretending not to notice expectant mothers swaying on their feet out of fear that common courtesy will be met with insult.
You disdain the Ladies First system of precedence, which is now something of an anachronism, properly practiced only in the general social realm. You also disdain its replacement, favoring those in apparent need. Both have been offered to you, and you need only say “No, thank you, I’m fine” to acknowledge the courtesy but reject the advantage.
Do you have another system to suggest? In the absence of one, it becomes Me First and Might Makes Right. Before Ladies First, ladies were shoved aside, and even during its heyday, so were females who were not considered to be ladies. The disabled were supposed to keep out of sight.
Miss Manners wonders whether you think that there is so much consideration of others in our society that you need to disparage those who offer it. You would serve the cause of feminism better by widening the application of courtesies, not squelching them.
Dear Miss Manners: I have worked in the hotel industry as a room attendant for many years, and know the ins and outs of making beds. When my husband and I took a vacation to see friends of ours in another state, they kindly let us stay in their home during our visit. To our surprise, the bed we slept in only had the bottom sheet, and a comforter for our top layer.
Since it was rather warm, the comforter was out of the question to use. We politely asked if we could have a flat sheet for our bed. Our hosts looked shocked we even asked such a question, and flat-out said they didn’t have any flat sheets: “We only use bottom/fitted sheets for all beds in our home.”
We quickly apologized and let it go. The next morning, my husband and I went to the nearest store and bought a flat sheet to use and brought it back home with us.
Is this the latest trend, to not use top sheets anymore? Should we be packing sheets with us whenever we stay at other people’s homes?
What bothered us the most was wondering, when was that comforter last washed?
I guess what we are trying to say, for hostesses out there, is that if people are going to stay in their homes, please provide a complete sheet set that the guests can use or peel away.
Or are we out of line here?
Gentle Reader: When you say “we,” you might include Miss Manners, who believes that a properly made bed has two sheets, an actual blanket, a blanket cover, a bedspread and a reasonable number of pillows so that none has to be pitched overboard to make room for the sleeper.
However, she is aware that she may not encounter this arrangement when she leaves her own well-ordered household. Indeed, there are many who, in using comforters, immediately did away with bedspreads, and are now doing the same with top sheets.
Whether your hosts wash the duvet cover as often as they do the sheets, she cannot say. But it is rude to let on that you suspect your hosts of slovenliness. So Miss Manners hopes that you did not mention that you had to provide your own bedding.
Dear Miss Manners: I extended a single invite, one month in advance, for Thanksgiving and provided an RSVP date of Nov. 20. On Nov. 10, they thanked me, talked about their pending options and said they had not yet decided.
I have now been invited to another home and want to handle this correctly. Do I wait to hear back by the 19th, or is the expectation midnight on the 20th?
With social media tools, is email OK to wish my invited guest well on Thanksgiving and mention our new plans? Or, should I call — and if so, what if I have to leave a message? I would like to join an extended family that is equally important to our lives.
Gentle Reader: You should have checked with Miss Manners before issuing a generous deadline. Without one, you could reasonably have expected an answer within a few days, and asked for a definitive one now. The best you can do is to plead that you find that you need to know — without mentioning that you could do better.
Dear Miss Manners: In this day of “pet parents,” I constantly find myself biting my tongue. A dog is a dog, and they follow a different set of rules than children.
I love my dog — he has been my best friend for 14 years — but he is a dog, and I will not treat him the same as I treat a human child. If he is driving me nuts, it is not abuse to put him outside for a while, as long as weather allows. It is not abuse to put him in a temperature-controlled garage when we are not home.
It is not unkind to not allow him on the furniture. If he is not listening or is generally misbehaving, I have no problem swatting his backside or grabbing him by the scruff of the neck, the same way his mother would have. As a result, I have an overwhelmingly well-behaved dog that I’ve never even had to have on a leash. Dogs respond to consistent discipline.
Pets are animals, not people! What would you see as a proper response to someone who tells me that I should have my dog taken away for treating him like a dog? To be clear, I am never excessive in punishments and he has never been hurt — he is a genuinely happy, fearless, active little guy.
Gentle Reader: We will assume that it is the dog who is happy, fearless and active, not the person trying to have him taken away.
Without disagreeing with your premise, you might consider accepting your assailant’s premise that there are some similarities between children and pets.
As a Human Parent — by which Miss Manners refers to “the parent of a child,” although not necessarily “a parent who has had a full night’s sleep” — you would understand a stranger interceding in true cases of abuse. But you would be rightly indignant at strangers threatening to call the police because they disagree with benign parenting.
The next time you are criticized, try recoiling with a horrified, “Are you suggesting someone should take away my beloved Prince?” Then, while your critic recovers from the confusion, make a quick getaway.
Dear Miss Manners: My daughter is getting married on New Year’s Eve, and wants to list her father’s long-term girlfriend on the program as her stepmother.
I am against this, as they are not married. The wedding is being held in a church, and right off the bat, my daughter is lying in their first sacrament to God.
What is the proper-etiquette way to name a long-term girlfriend on the wedding program? Help. My daughter is upset and won’t talk to me.
Gentle Reader: Your daughter may be upset at having been accused of sacrilege. Whether or not your assessment is theologically accurate, it adds significantly to the emotional pressure of the conversation.
Etiquette recommends a gentler approach. As an enemy of wedding programs (a sacrament is not a theatrical performance), Miss Manners is willing to take the blame for recommending that the offending program be scrapped in its entirety.
Dear Miss Manners: My daughter has become friends with my son’s ex-girlfriend, and wants her to attend her wedding. This girlfriend broke up with my son over a year ago, which hurt my son a bit. My son has moved on and has been dating a new girl for about eight months.
We’ve asked him what he feels, and he basically doesn’t want her there. But it’s my daughter’s wedding, and we are friends with her parents, too. To prevent a world war, who do I side with?
Gentle Reader: Do you remember when they were younger and fought over who had the toy first? Sometimes you took the decision out of their hands (“If you can’t agree, then nobody gets to play with it”), but sometimes it was more effective to make them work it out themselves.
This is one of the latter times. Miss Manners has no objection to your making the comparison when you tell your son and daughter — it will remind them that they are brother and sister, and that they love and should respect each other.
However, it would be best to avoid being too explicit that the ex-girlfriend has been cast in the role of the stuffed giraffe.
Dear Miss Manners: I live on the corner of a major street in my town, very near the intersection with another major street. As such, there will be times when I am out working in my yard, or out in front for whatever reason, and a funeral motorcade will pass. I’d like to be respectful as they pass, but am unsure exactly what I should do. Any suggestion would be helpful.
Gentle Reader: Stopping your activity and standing with a solemn face while the cortege passes is an easy way to pay your respects. It is also a kind thing to do, so Miss Manners hopes you will not be discouraged if she notes that, it being a major street, others who do not notice are not guilty of impropriety for politely going about their business.
Dear Miss Manners: On three separate occasions during the past month, my husband and I have come across somewhat elderly gentlemen who have been eager to share their life experiences. Two of these were volunteers at historical sites, and one was a neighbor who approached us in the driveway.
In each instance, it quickly became apparent that the person was so interested in sharing his experiences that our interaction was not so much a conversation as it was a monologue. Each seemed oblivious to the fact that we might have other needs to attend to after awhile, such as (literally) having a plane to catch.
Even after several attempts to jump in with a comment of my own, followed by a “Goodness, look at the time!” it seemed impossible to get away without being quite abrupt. I feel rude just cutting someone off and walking away, especially when it involves an elderly person, but after 20 or 30 minutes of a one-way information session, I find myself at a loss as to how else to respond.
Gentle Reader: Being on the elderly side herself, Miss Manners will try to keep her answer brief. But if you find yourself drifting off in the middle of it, you only have yourself to blame for asking.
If reasonable attempts to interrupt politely do not work, that sudden gasp at the passage of time, with a flurry of apologies, might. Just be careful not to alarm the stranger to the point that the need for medical attention further delays your retreat.
Miss Manners is written by Judith Martin, her son, Nicholas Ivor Martin, and her daughter, Jacobina Martin. You are invited to email your etiquette questions from www.missmanners.com, if you promise to use the black or blue-black ink you’ll save by writing those thank you, condolence and congratulations letters you owe.