Postponed weddings: Should gifts be sent now, or later?
Dear Miss Manners:
I was invited to two weddings that were indefinitely postponed due to the coronavirus outbreak. Unfortunately, both couples are in careers where their work schedules make it difficult to reschedule the weddings.
I had not yet bought presents for either wedding, as one was still a ways out, and the other, I was only invited to one day before it was canceled. I am trying to decide if I should send a present now, or wait until the wedding is rescheduled.
What is the proper etiquette for this unexpected situation? One couple has been married legally for over a year anyway, and the other is a stable couple, so I fully expect both will reschedule.
Gentle Reader:
While you are not obligated to send wedding presents, a show of good faith that these weddings will take place eventually would certainly be welcome.
Presumably, even the issuers of the last-minute invitation are people who mean something to you, and it would mean something to them to be remembered during this difficult time.
That is not to say that Miss Manners does not appreciate your hesitance — not only in sending presents without assurance that a wedding will occur, but also with the fear that if you send a present now, it could easily be forgotten later. (Miss Manners wishes she were less cynical, but she has seen too many wedding couples who unabashedly go after their guests if they think a present is owed.)
However, she is also inclined to be generous — particularly now — and therefore proposes a compromise. Why not send a small token that shows that you are thinking of these couples? Something that takes their minds off of their situation and allows them to focus instead on their current time together?
A unique board game, for example, or a home or craft project. If the unintended effect is that their competitive spirits, disparate interests or too much time together instead drive them apart, you may have no need to send a more substantial present later. But of course, Miss Manners sincerely wishes that that will not be the case.
Dear Miss Manners:
I am a senior male who was recently having lunch at the counter of a family restaurant. After my meal arrived, two younger men came in and sat on either side of me. They obviously knew each other, and began a conversation with me while I was in the middle trying to finish my lunch.
They then proceeded to pass a cellphone to each other, over my plate, to show pictures of a car wreck that one had been involved in.
Mind you, there were plenty of empty seats at the counter on either side of them. They could have easily moved and sat next to each other. I felt this was extremely rude. What should I have said?
Gentle Reader:
“I was planning on eating alone today, and I seem to be in the way of your conversation. I think I will move so that you can more easily talk to each other — and that I am not in the way of your elbows.”
Dear Miss Manners:
My 75-year-old husband insists that men do not have to wash their hands after a trip to the restroom if they only urinated. I think that every trip to the restroom should be followed by hand-washing. Can you tell us who is right?
Gentle Reader:
In these days, when even a trip to the mailbox involves washing one’s hands, there can be little argument who is right. But even in pre-pandemic days, Miss Manners agrees that a gentleman washes his hands after a visit to the restroom, if only because a gentleman does not discuss the specifics of what took him there.
Dear Miss Manners:
Assuming it is edible, is it proper to eat any garnish added to a plate of food?
Gentle Reader:
If it is on a food platter and is edible, sure. Just promise Miss Manners that you are not reaching for the flowers in the centerpiece. Visit Miss Manners at.missmanners.com, where you can send her you questions.
Andrews McMeel Syndication