Who Should Pay When Friends Go Out Together?
Sometimes at a restaurant, you end up doing “the bill dance.” The check comes, and three friends reach for it in synchronized motion, and then the argument starts: You got it last time, hand [...]
Readers Suggest a Few Etiquette Rules to Break
Last week, I started a list of outdated etiquette rules I am ready to say goodbye to. This week it’s your turn. Readers agreed with a few of my suggestions, found others to be [...]
Modern Etiquette Means Saying Goodbye to Some Old Rules
There was a time when good manners meant following specific rules. Lots of stern and formal guidebooks described the “proper” way to behave in any imaginable social situation. Where to put the salad fork [...]
Are the Rules Changing for Addressing Envelopes? Yes!
A Real Simple reader named Milea Joy posted this question on the magazine’s Facebook page:
What is the proper way to address a letter/envelope to a couple where the woman has her doctorate and the gentleman does not?
First, I love the fact that you are actually addressing an envelope, Milea. For readers who are unfamiliar with the practice, it’s something we used to do fairly often back in the Dark Ages before the Internet, involving things we called “paper” and “ink”— and requiring the use of penmanship skills we painstakingly acquired in elementary school.
Stop Flirting with my Husband, Hussy! (as Betty Draper Might Say)
The reader’s dilemma this week makes me feel as if I am watching an episode of Mad Men….from Season 1, before the characters heard about Betty Friedan or that new-fangled idea called feminism. A reader named Elizabethmg wrote:
Is it appropriate for a single woman (divorced) to spend the entire evening at a party (where she knows almost everyone there and could have easily mingled with others to have conversations) with one married man whose wife was also at the party? She followed the man around—where ever he stood/sat—and engaged him in a conversation. Before the married couple left the party, the wife confronted the single woman and let her know she was out of line with her behavior.
Elizabethmg asked: Who was out of line here?
Great Haircut. But Do I Need To Tip?
This week’s etiquette dilemma comes from Catherine Jarmain, who recently posed the question on Real Simple’s Facebook page:
“Should I tip my hair stylist if he is also the salon owner? I went to him for the first time last week and he gave me the best cut I have ever had. I didn’t tip him because my mother always said not to, but my husband said I should have.”
Should Catherine tip him next time?
When Your Mother-in-Law Does You a “Favor”
My friend Jill’s mother-in-law ran over her dog. Not on purpose. She accidentally backed up her sport utility vehicle and crushed the dog’s pelvis. While pet-sitting. As a favor.
The question: Who should pay for the dog’s surgery and medical expenses?
Thank You For Picking Your Nose
Picture my family — two adults, three children, big appetites — in a charming bistro in Paris. Steaks! Wine! Chocolate gateau everywhere! Sitting next to us is another family of four (friends with whom we are traveling) and at the other end of the table a third family (more friends from home). At the end of the meal, the bill comes and we…split it.
This seemed perfectly reasonable at the time. Mais, non.
The Case of the Racist Roommate
Earlier this week, a reader named Allison posted a dilemma on Real Simple’s Facebook page that is as much about ethics as etiquette:
“I have a prejudiced roommate to be. She sublet from another roommate. How should I handle other people who want to rent rooms?…At first she didn’t want to live with any more girls, which seemed strange, but then it was African Americans. She uses the phrase “she totally jewed me,” and she does not seem to have many kind things to say about Greeks or anyone of Asian descent. Ahhh! We have sublet the rooms for May only to a bunch of Caucasians (female, much to her actual chagrin), but we have to go through the whole process again in June.”
How should Allison handle this sort of talk…and the roommate’s unwillingness to rent to “other kinds” of people?
Just When You Thought It Was Safe to Mail a Paper Thank You Note…
A couple of weeks ago (well before Earth Day) I raised the question on this blog of whether traditional thank you notes are becoming obsolete. A few readers may have noticed my gentle attempt to sway opinion when I suggested: “So maybe it has become wasteful—or, dare I say, impolite?—to cut down another forest so we can mail anachronistic paper thank you notes.”
“Wrong!” you answered (pretty much universally).
