Dear Miss Manners: When I tell someone I am an engineer, he often asks what my diploma is.
My husband, also an engineer, never receives this question. I am 68 years old and I got it more than 100 times in my life, including last week.
I am always surprised and insulted, but I just say what my diploma is and moved on. Sometimes there are even follow -up questions, such as the school I have attended – as it is not possible that I can have a four -year diploma in engineering.
I would like an answer that indicates that it is a sexist and insulting question, without being too obvious or conflicting.
Soft reader: “Unfortunately, it is not a question of exploiting a choooo train, as I suppose that you hoped. Just a regular engineering diploma, like that of my husband.”
Dear Miss Manners: I have a prosopagnosia of development, or the establishment of the face, and I cannot recognize any human face.
I work remotely in a profession that does not ask me to interact directly with others. My husband is watching television and films with me in case I confuse the characters and goes to celebrations with me to help me know with whom I speak.
I was very open to my state and my desire to answer questions about it and I made sure to inform all my friends.
But I have a friend who insists on showing me photos of people. She will keep her phone right in front of my face and scroll dozens of photos of her son, friends, her husband’s family, friends I have never met, etc.
I tried to say things like: “Oh, is it junior?” Or “Is it the same girl in the other photo?” After a particularly exhausting session of many, many photos of the high school ball of his son, I even said: “You know that I am in breathless, right?”
But nothing has stopped this behavior.
Due to the insulating nature of my condition, I have a very small number of friends and I do not want to lose the friendship of this person. Can you think of something I can say or do to make it stop, without offending it?
Mild player: You are probably not the only one to have this question. It seems likely that everyone that this person is bored will also welcome a solution.
Miss Manners begins to wonder if there is a medical condition that makes people who cannot notice that others run when they see them coming.
The polished way of refusing to look at the photos is to look away and to say, “I prefer so much that you told me.
Dear Miss Manners: I have a friend who constantly requests gifts for a variety of opportunities, both for herself and for her 12-year-old son.
More recently, she tagged me on social networks alongside a link to a gift register for obtaining the 8th year diploma from her son. Is it one thing? He seems to think he is entitled to gifts and recognition for having been promoted to the next year.
How should I approach this type of request?
Soft reader: Of course, that’s one thing. Are you not constantly asked for money and goods from almost all those who have your contact details?
But Miss Manners assures you that it does not make it an appropriate thing, nor one thing requiring an answer.
Please send your questions to Miss Manners on her website, www.missmanners.com; To his e-mail, gentlerader@missmanners.com; or by post to Miss Manners, Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.
California Daily Newspapers
