How To Control Your Life

Part 87

8 min readJul 14, 2016

Q: You are hosting a small party. When introducing a young unmarried woman and an older married man to each other, do you:

1. Introduce the man to the woman (“Miss A, I’d like you to meet Mr B”)

2. Introduce the woman to the man (“Mr B, I’d like you to meet Miss A”)?

A: The proper form of introduction is to present:
1. a gentleman to a lady
2. a younger person to an older
3. an inferior in social standing to a superior
in that order of precedence. So as here you have a woman and a man present, the answer is: “Miss A, I’d like you to meet Mr B”.

Q: You are paying a morning visit to some people who have newly moved into the neighbourhood. Which of these must you not do:

- Take your dog with you
- Take off your gloves
- Look at your watch
- Stay until your hostess gives you the hint to leave
- Talk about the current political situation
- Talk about someone who has left the room
- Put your feet on a chair
- Admire the room

A: You should not do any of these. A visit of this type should only be for a quarter of an hour and you should for that time pay complete attention to the people present in the room (not the objects). You should only discuss general, light and non-contentious subjects. Don’t make personal remarks to or about anyone, don’t remove your gloves or other clothing as if you’re going to make a long stay, and don’t bring children or pets with you which might disrupt your hosts’ household. Ideally you should take note of any chiming clocks in the house by which you can time your visit, or at most take only a covert glance at a clock in the room to enable you to time your visit. Leave without fuss when the visit is over.

Q: What utensil should you use to eat a pear at the dinner table, a knife, a fork or a spoon?

A: Pears should, at the dinner table, be eaten with a spoon (see Debrett’s Handbook (this gem is in the current edition!)).

Q: What jewellery should you not wear in the morning in the country?

A: ‘Country’ jewellery only in the country in the mornings: plain brooches (for example Cairngorm), tiepins with a country theme, unobtrusive watches - that sort of thing; never, ever, diamonds.

Q: At what point in an acquaintanceship you begin to use someone’s first name?

A: When they invite you to do so - never before. You may ask, if you feel that the time is right - but you must be very sure indeed that it is.

So, how did you do? Do you have perfect manners and the ability to sail happily into any company at all with perfect ease?

For example a social media site?

Ah - slight problem. Knowing which utensil to use to attack an artichoke (don’t use one, use your fingers) isn’t going to help much when you need to know, in the flick of a streaming conversation, which emoji will soften your flippant remark. And is it OK to unfriend a work colleague who posts too much on your timeline?

The art of etiquette hasn’t gone away, it’s alive and well and living in the twenty-first century. It’s just changed a bit.

Troy: You know, I asked him about that. He said, good manners are just a way of showing other people we have respect for them. See, I didn’t know that, I thought it was just a way of acting all superior. Oh and you know what else he told me?
Eve: What?
Troy: He thinks I’m a gentleman and you’re a lady.
Eve: Well, consider the source! I don’t even know what a lady is.
Troy: I know, I mean I thought a ‘gentleman’ was somebody that owned horses. But it turns out, his short and simple definition of a lady or a gentleman is, someone who always tries to make sure the people around him or her are as comfortable as possible.
Eve: Where do you think he got all that information?
Troy: From the oddest place - his parents. I mean, I don’t think I got that memo from mine.
A Blast from the Past (1999), Hugh Wilson (director), Bill Kelly (writer)

Yes, that’s what it’s all about: making the people around you feel comfortable. However you behave at home, when you’re out and about (in real life or in cyberspace), you have to mind your manners - literally. You have to control yourself and the way you behave so that you don’t discomfort other people.

If you have the odd £35 lying around the place, you could treat yourself to a copy of Debrett’s (they’ve even come into the twenty-first century themselves now, so you could save yourself £15 and get the Kindle edition) and never put a foot wrong again. Oh - hang on - yes, I suspected as much: no social media section…

Actually, it’s not that difficult. It’s not a question of knowing everything, of studying an etiquette book (or books plural - there are plenty of them), or of Googling frantically every time you find yourself in a new situation, online or off. The basics are the same as they ever were: it really is a question of just doing your very best to make the people around you as comfortable in your company as possible.

If you’re a guest in someone else’s house, you don’t need to think about whether or not to take your gloves off, your hat off, what to do with your parasol, or whether or not to bring your pug with you and leave him with the butler. What you do need to think about - as ever - is how to behave so that you don’t intrude too much and don’t take liberties with someone else’s home. You wouldn’t waltz in as if you owned the place, strew your possessions around, pick up theirs and have a good look at them (I once had a dinner guest who turned his dinner plate upside down to look at the mark - he wanted to check I was using a decent dinner service for him…), and put your outdoor shoes up on their soft furnishings - would you?

If you’re paying a visit, don’t outstay your welcome. Unless you know someone very well, you shouldn’t ‘just drop in’ to suit your convenience. They have their life to lead and they may well be doing something important to them which you will interrupt or disrupt. If you’re dropping something in to someone, don’t disturb them, just leave it somewhere - and don’t look in through the windows as you do so. Respect their privacy. If you are invited to someone’s home for a longer visit (overnight, a weekend, a few days), take a gift with you and, at the very least, write a thank you note after the visit has ended and you’ve gone away.

If you’ve invited someone to your home, part of making them welcome is to let them know something about the way the household runs. Give them an idea of when the bathroom will be free (or tell them which bathroom they can use), what time meals are served, what activities you have planned for the visit. Don’t leave them forever guessing what’s happening next and what they’re expected to do - and certainly don’t leave them to listen behind their door for half hours together trying to work out if there’s anyone in the bathroom.

Make sure you know what people like to eat and drink and if they have any preferred activities (or hated ones). And be careful what topics you introduce into the conversation: a disagreement about politics or religion or the like on the first evening of a visit can sour the whole visit.

Online, when joining a new group always ‘lurk’ for a while before posting so that you can see what’s acceptable and what’s not, and the ‘tone’ of the threads. If you don’t feel you can contribute usefully and in the way everyone else does, stay lurking and/or leave and join another group.

It’s not about you, when it comes to etiquette, it’s about other people. If you put yourself in their shoes, are sensitive to the way they react to things, the sort of things they say (and don’t say), what makes them relax and smile or stiffen and stop smiling, you won’t go far wrong.

You might even get away with the odd piece of statement jewellery in a country morning.

It is restful, always, in a book of many rules - and Etiquette has six hundred and eighty-four pages of things you must and mustn’t do - to find something that can never touch you, some law that will never affect your ways. Once somebody gave me a book of French conversation; I looked through it, sick with horror at all I had to learn. But hope came to me, for on one page there flashed like a friendly smile one single sentence that I knew I should never need to study, one blessed group of words for which, though I lived to be eighty, I could find no possible use. That sentence was “I fear you have come too late to accompany me on your harp”.
And in Etiquette, too, I had the sweetly restful moment of chancing on a law which I need not bother to memorize, let come no matter what. It is in that section called “The Retort Courteous to One You Have Forgotten,” although it took a deal of dragging to get it in under that head. “If,” it runs, “after being introduced to you, Mr Jones” (of course, it would be Mr Jones that would do it) “calls you by a wrong name, you let it pass, at first, but if he persists you may say: ‘If you please, my name is Stimson’.”
No, Mrs Post; persistent though Mr Smith be, I may not say, “If you please, my name is Stimson.” The most a lady may do is give him the wrong telephone number.
Mrs Post Enlarges on Etiquette, review by Dorothy Parker in The New Yorker, 31 December 1927

Twitter: Maryon Jeane

How To Control Your Life

Part 87

Written by Maryon Jeane