Miss Manners^®

DEAR MISS MANNERS: When I eat steak, I like to cut my steak into smaller pieces. Then, after doing so, I stab the cut portion of steak with my knife and place it in my mouth. I was recently chastised by my new girlfriend for doing so.

I have eaten my steak like this since I was a young boy. I felt my girlfriend was wrong, since I've never been corrected for eating my steak this way.

Will you please help me explain to my girlfriend that there is no wrong way to eat a Texas steak?

GENTLE READER: Sure there is. Chomping off the cow, for example.

Are you, perchance, under the delusion that manners are only for use on formal occasions, by the sissies who go to such things, and that it is manly to be slipshod?

(And yes, Miss Manners threw in the "perchance" to goad you, just as you are persisting in your eating habit to goad your girlfriend.)

Or perhaps you are just extremely old-fashioned. Eating from the point of a knife was commonplace until it was roundly condemned about 200 years ago, when the fork came into widespread use. And cutting up all the meat before it is eaten is done only for small children not yet trusted to wield knives.

That you were not told this before is a shame. But now you know.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I recently asked a first date with a lady who had hinted to me that she would welcome a more-than-casual relationship between us. I took her to a pleasant and quiet restaurant, hoping that we could get to know each other better.

Her cell phone rang 10 minutes after our arrival at the restaurant, and she proceeded to have a lengthy conversation with the caller. A few minutes later, this was repeated with another caller and then, just after we finished our main course and were awaiting dessert, it happened again with a third caller.

From what I could hear of the conversations, none were of an urgent nature.

During the third call and subsequent conversation, I took sufficient cash to pay for our meals (plus a generous tip), placed it on the table and interrupted her long enough to say that perhaps we could do this again when she wasn't so busy and left her sitting there, cell phone in hand.

We had taken a cab to the restaurant so I'm afraid she would have incurred the expense of a cab to get herself home.

Was I wrong to expect her to turn her phone off or at least inform her callers she was busy and promise to call back later? She has let all our mutual friends know how terribly rude I was to her.

GENTLE READER: That makes five instances of repeated rudeness on her side and none on yours, presuming that you handled the matter as civilly as you indicate. Miss Manners would say that you did the lady a favor by giving her the privacy to enjoy the relationships she already has.

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DEAR MISS MANNERS: We received a wedding invitation that included a slip of paper detailing proper wedding attire in order for us to show respect for the church.

Specifically, women are to wear dresses knee-length or longer, with covered arms and no bosom showing. Hair is to be covered with a scarf or hat (if not, the church will provide a covering). Legs are to be covered with hosiery, and pumps, or a covered shoe with no heel is acceptable. Men are to wear a suit and tie, or sport coat and tie.

Is this appropriate? In our church, we figure that as long as we're neat and clean, God is happy to see us.

We will meet the demands because we love the bride, but it's leaving a queasy feeling.

GENTLE READER: It makes you queasy to think of dressing respectfully to enter a church? Or to attend a wedding?

Why?

Would it help if you let your clothes out at the waist? Miss Manners supposes not, if you really do not understand the part that symbolism plays in society and in religion. Beyond the obvious functions of protection and attraction, clothing serves as a symbolic way of conveying information. Religious texts and directives are full of mentions of clothing, sometimes in regard to modesty, but also in terms of respect for a place of worship.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: My wife's mother passed away when she was 17, long before my sister-in-law and I came along. After his wife's death, my father-in-law remarried a wonderful woman that everyone loves and cares for deeply.

My sister-in-law has been calling the new wife "Mom," which makes my wife very uncomfortable. My wife also feels that it is disrespectful to the memory of her mother.

She spoke to her brother about how this really bothers her and found out that it bothers the brother as well, but he is not willing to press the issue with his wife. This has been driving a wedge between our families for about two years and it is getting to the point where our families are no longer social and our fear is that our children will grow up in the same town and not know their cousins.

Is my wife off base here? Is the sister-in-law being inflexible/insensitive by continuing to use "mom" as a title? If we need to discuss this with the sister-in-law, who should discuss it with her? Her husband or my wife?

GENTLE READER: Your wife is not off base in feeling this way -- only in supposing that she can dictate her choice to her sister-in-law. And to her brother, who, for whatever reason, has chosen not to make an issue of it.

Furthermore -- Miss Manners is afraid that you will have to explain this very gently -- your wife is now showing disrespect to her late mother. By making it the cause of a family feud, she is undoubtedly going against what her mother would have wished. No mother wants her children to be alienated from one another. Once your wife said how she felt, she should have dropped the matter.

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DEAR MISS MANNERS: I am happily married to a man that I have waited for for a long time. My problem is that he thinks nothing of using the terms Hun, Sweetie, Love, etc., to female strangers such as waitresses, cashiers or bartenders.

He insists that he is just being polite. In my opinion, these are words of endearment and should only be used when addressing a loved one.

He thinks it's funny and that I'm over reacting.

I take it very personal and this hurts me. I would never think to do this to him. I have done this out of spite once to see his reaction, and he was shocked; however, he never brought it up.

Please help me accept his politeness or continue to express my feelings on the subject.

GENTLE READER: You would do better to express the feelings of others about this method of address. Your argument that those are terms that should be reserved for you is, Miss Manners is afraid, unattractive. And it isn't going anywhere.

Furthermore, it is not a valid interpretation in this context. Far from being considered polite, much less a sign of affection, this mode of address to strangers in service positions was condemned decades ago as being patronizing and sexist. In fact, this was so long ago that many young ladies so addressed now merely consider it a foolish, if somewhat creepy, habit of harmless old duffers.

Miss Manners recommends dropping the argument that as his wife, you have excusive rights to endearments. As his wife, you have the duty to alert him when he is inadvertently making himself look silly. He will not think your objection so funny if he understands that this habit makes him look old and out-of-it.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: What is the best way to get people out from behind my desk?

My office is not large, but there are two chairs and sufficient room not to feel cramped on the "public" side of my desk. The furniture is arranged to clearly delineate the occupant and the visitor sides of the room.

Still, co-workers will sometimes walk around to my side, and though I don't think any of them mean it aggressively, it really puts me on edge.

Sometimes it's necessary for us both to look at my computer screen, but I can swivel it out so that it can be seen from both sides of the desk. There is, in other words, no reason for anybody to invade my territory. How can I prevent this, short of a velvet rope?

GENTLE READER: People didn't used to do this. But wait, don't sink into a lament about the decline of manners. They didn't used to have to look at computer screens.

Please allow Miss Manners to rearrange your office for you. Swivel your monitor out beforehand when you know someone is coming who needs to look at it, and head off any approach to your desk by saying, "Please have a seat. You'll be able to see better from there."

But just in case, plant your briefcase on the floor next to your chair, with something else on the other side, if necessary. Then you can stop people by alarming them with a "Watch out!" before you re-direct them to the visitors' chairs.

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