Dear Miss Manners: What do you say to someone who said he was going to give you something, “but …”?
Two things that really happened to me:
1. I got home and my mother said, “By the way, are you hungry? I prepared a dinner for you, but I ate it.
2. I met a friend for lunch and she said, “Did you know that I organized a tea? I thought of inviting you, but I didn’t do it.
In both cases, it would have been better if nothing had been said. I would not have been wiser.
In both cases, I didn’t say anything in response. What would Miss Manners say?
Mild player: “I think to thank you, but I will probably not do it.”
Dear Miss Manners: I do a chemotherapy treatment. Several times, when I was asked how I feel, I mentioned side effects of chemo – to answer: “Don’t you think it’s just your age?”
These are not symptoms that occur normally as people age. Why do people feel that they must offer an alternative explanation to explain why someone feels bad?
Another time, while lunch with friends, I had to get up twice to go to the bathroom. When I went back to the table the second time, one of the people asked me: “Do you have a problem?”
Really! What’s wrong with people?
Soft reader: No filters, for one thing. People feel that they have to say something, even to the point of monitoring their number of bathroom trips.
But Miss Manners recognizes that there is also the less blameworthy impulse to offer comfort – not just sympathy – when there is no real comfort to offer. This is why distress is bombed with amateur medical advice and false money.
Dear Miss Manners: Some parents and I were informed of a baby shower for a distant cousin. No official invitation was sent; We were invited by word of mouth and received a gift register of gifts by SMS.
After that, some of us received an invitation by SMS, while others have not done so.
No one in the family really knows the couple, who live outside the state. They will not even be present in the shower: we are told that they will assist “practically”.
When the couple visited our condition several months ago, he did not have time to meet with expanded family members, nor to attend another baby shower in person at that time.
We have the impression that this shower is just a sticky gift. Do we have to attend? Do we have to send a gift?
Soft reader: Why do you even ask?
Miss Manners finds curious that people who are probably suffering from foreigners’ scams are intimidated with regard to social ties, so tenuous.
Why would you like to give gifts to the people you know barely and who have shown no interest in knowing yourself? Are you afraid that if you ignore their gift requests, they give you a recovery agency?
Please send your questions to Miss Manners on her website, www.missmanners.com; To his e-mail, dearmissmanners@gmail.com; or by post to Miss Manners, Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.
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