Miss Manners^®

DEAR MISS MANNERS: In December of last year I was in New York City, and went with some friends to see the World Trade Center site. It was a moving experience, and afterward we recouped our spirits at the nearest coffee shop. Waiting in line ahead of us was a New York City firefighter in full gear, obviously on a short break from his work at the site.

I was seized with the impulse to buy the man a latte. However, I could think of no way to do this gracefully. He was ahead of me in line, and so I could not dart ahead and slap money down on the counter.

As a woman, I know precisely what to do if a strange man should offer to buy me a beverage at a bar (if asked, decline with thanks; if the drink just appears at my table, convey fulsome thanks via the waiter but leave promptly). But there seemed to be no way to reverse-engineer this knowledge. In the end, I timidly did nothing.

What should I have done? None of the alternatives -- buy a fistful of gift certificates and thrust them at uniformed persons, write a check to one of the WTC charities -- seems quite satisfactory.

GENTLE READER: This is a fascinating example of how the changing circumstances of social context affect etiquette.

Your interpretation of offering to buy a stranger's drink as being an overture to, ah, courtship, was valid before the attack. In the months following, however, the motive of wanting simply to thank Ground Zero workers was universally recognized. You could simply have marched to the counter and said, "I'd like to buy the brave firefighter a latte," put down your money, and returned to your place in line. Miss Manners promises you that the firefighter would not have protested, "But I'm a married man!"

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I have decided to cut someone out of my social circle. It's nothing that that person has done, and I like her very much, but I've come to feel that there are some very fundamental differences between us, and to continue association with her will only hurt us more in the long run. I drifted away from her a few months ago, saying I needed some time and space, and have found that life without her has been much more restful.

Does etiquette mandate that I tell her what I'm doing? I don't want to hurt her feelings, but have no interest in resuming our former friendship. Should I just remain quiet and distant or do I owe her some explanation (which could get me sucked back into everything I was escaping from)?

GENTLE READER: Etiquette mandates that you do not tell her what you are doing, much less why. It knows no way of saying "Life is more pleasant without you" that spares the feelings of the person in question. Miss Manners is afraid that you will have to do this the traditional way, by claiming to be too busy to see her.

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DEAR MISS MANNERS: I am not Catholic, but my fiance is. When I go to church with him, the members of the congregation hold hands during the Lord's Prayer.

I'm not Christian and do not recite this prayer, but I hold my fiance's hand anyway. If we sit in the middle of a pew, the person on my other side invariably reaches for my other hand. Should I hold his or her hand, too?

Not to do so seems rude, but to do so makes me feel like a more active participant than I like to be. In general, I take the hand if offered and hold it passively; that is, not making any effort to raise our joined hands when the rest of the congregation does.

GENTLE READER: You are confusing handholding with holding hands. How could that be?

Taking a wild leap, Miss Manners presumes that you hold hands with your fiance because it feels good. But this gesture has a bit of symbolic content as well. It signals to him, and to any onlookers in other circumstances, that you are a pair. (Unless, of course, you are in the midst of a public scandal, in which case it gives others the signal that you are holding on for dear life.)

Miss Manners would interpret the handholding ritual you describe at church as symbolizing the good will and fellowship of the congregants rather than an endorsement of the specific prayer, but she won't argue that with you. She only warns you that a refusal to participate will look dangerously close to refusing to shake a proffered hand socially, which is a major insult. That is why it seems rude to you.

If you feel you must refuse to participate, put both your hands behind your back and give your unknown neighbor a regretful little shake of the head, accompanied by a friendly look, to indicate that it is nothing personal.

But for heaven's sake, as it were, don't use the occasion to have a little hand-squeeze with your fiance. That only looks as if you have good will toward the person on your right, but not the one on your left. At least the dead handshake solution you propose (is that some sort of doesn't-count-because-I-had-my-fingers-crossed idea?) only reflects badly on you, not on innocent churchgoers.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I was taught to put my silverware across the top of my plate -- knife, fork, spoon -- at the end of a meal. I've taught my son to do the same. However, lately I've been out with a number of sophisticated friends, who dine out more than I do, who put their knife and fork upside down in a large "V" at the bottom of their plates at the end of a restaurant meal. Have I become a rube? Worse, am I teaching my son something incorrect?

GENTLE READER: No, but you are hanging out with gluttons. The placement they use is the signal to a waiter that they are not finished eating. As their plates are apparently empty when they do this, Miss Manners can only imagine that they are hoping more food will appear.

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Heard from your favorite charity lately?

Miss Manners bets you have. And from some that aren't such favorites.

What about the people from whom you have requested donations to your favorite charity? Haven't heard from them? Or perhaps you have heard an earful instead of a pledge.

The combination of laudatory generosity and a lousy economy have produced a society in which people who have enough on which to live are always asking one another for money. And that's not even counting the ones who are directing their wedding guests to pay their mortgages or the fund-drive executives who are discovered to believe that charity should end up at home. Miss Manners means the people who want to help others.

The entire enterprise has come to be characterized by good intentions and bad manners. Schooled in professional fund-raising techniques, kindly people learn to embarrass and harass friends and strangers alike. Inundated with these ploys from friends and strangers, other kindly people turn resentful and sometimes rude.

Miss Manners believes that everyone involved would benefit by kicking in with a sizable amount of politeness.

She suspects that this might even produce greater benefits for the people on whose behalf charity is conducted.

Perhaps not; Miss Manners does not pretend to be yet another expert in extracting donations, and is personally incapable of asking anyone for money. If effectiveness were the only standard that fund-raising need consider, then the charitably inclined should employ the traditional way of making potential donors reach for their wallets, which is to corner them in a dark alley and intone the traditional pitch: "Stick 'em up."

Nevertheless, she cannot help thinking that strategies that are giving good works a bad name are ultimately self-defeating. Even if they fork over at the time, in the long run people turn callous under continual attack from those who embarrass them by insinuating that they look cheap if they don't give or give more; will be socially handicapped if they don't buy tickets to charity events; and are obviously callous if they don't succumb to this particular appeal.

Even the most carefully polite fund-raisers are reporting being snapped at by those who don't hang up on them first. "We get responses such as 'Don't you have anything better to do?' or 'Some of us have to work for our money,' as well as a few things a Gentle Reader should not mention," reports a G.R. "We understand when someone is not able or willing to give money. However, what we don't understand is the unkind remarks thrown back at us."

Miss Manners wishes to make contributions to both the fund-raisers and potential fund-givers.

For those who ask:

Difficult as this is, try to remember that it is not your money. You have no claim on it; you have no authority to say how it should be spent. You should not even know how much money people have (people who have done research on this naturally want to show off, but it is a mistake) and you cannot guess the extent of their obligations. Even when there is a past history of giving, income and expenses could fluctuate widely from one time to the next.

All you can hope to do is to interest them in your charity and tell them how the money translates into results. Everything short of disaster is being called a "good cause"; what is meaningful is what a specific contribution will help accomplish.

Say thank you. Reminding people how much they gave last year and saying that you expect more this year does not qualify as thanks.

For those who are asked: You can say "No, thank you."

DEAR MISS MANNERS: Over a long period of time I have received scattered invitations to family and friend's weddings and bar mitzvahs that state BLACK TIE! I happen not to own a tuxedo and renting one is not inexpensive. I would like to attend most of these affairs but, since I do not have a tuxedo, I have opted not to attend.

Is there an appropriate way to decline an invitation to a black-tie affair? Or, better still, is there a way to attend a black-tie affair without wearing a tuxedo and without insulting the family or friend? I never know what to do and I am losing the opportunity to share the day.

GENTLE READER: Then rent or buy the proper clothes.

If this is truly a financial hardship, Miss Manners is sure that your friends would rather see you wearing a plain dark suit than not see you at all. Just don't let her and them find out that you had no trouble investing in tennis or ski clothes that you only wear a few times a year.

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