Timing is everything when it comes to manners
Why timing is everything when it comes to social manners
‘Much better to be thought appallingly idle than the eager granolabotherer’
So 10.30pm is the witching hour for dinner party guests, according to a manners expert on The Lady. Stick around any longer and it’s rude. Really? Who knew? I’d always assumed the polite thing was to be having too much fun to even think of leaving before 11. This changes everything! Clearly we need to establish when is too late, when is too early, and the general rules of correct social timing.
Here goes:
9am: The earliest you can call someone unless it’s a work thing. We are well aware that super high achievers are always talking to their three best friends at 6am, while on a treadmill, drinking a kale juice, but whatever. Everyone knows the early bird phone call is, at best, “getting you out of the way”, or classic call dumping. Before 9 is when people ring who don’t actually want to talk to you – they want to leave a message while you’re struggling out of the shower to answer the phone.
10am: Cut-off time for cancelling on the day, due to illness. Any later looks like cancelling was just one of the things on today’s packed To Do list. HA!
11am: Earliest you should drop in unexpectedly at the weekend. What if we’re still in bed, and there are empty bottles and dead flowers and spaghetti (cooked) strewn all over the house? (NB: If staying with someone for the weekend, never rise before 9am. Much better to be thought appallingly idle than the eager granolabotherer, perking around the kitchen when your hostess is just reaching for the Solpadeine).
1.30pm: The latest you can arrive for Sunday lunch. Lately people are pretty flexible about supper time; you can turn up at 9.30 and no one will bat an eyelid, but Sunday lunch when you are having a roast is a different deal.
5.30pm: Cut-off time for the “guarantee to get back to you later today” email. When the email drops at 5.58 – ie late enough for the sender to ensure that they don’t have to deal with your response because they have officially “left for the day” – that’s rude. So much worse than not getting back at all. It’s like delivering a long-awaited package, ringing the bell once, and then bolting with it before we have a chance to get to the door. That happens, too, of course.
7.15pm: Cut-off time for arrival at the theatre. Any later is super stressful for the people you are meeting (shall we leave his ticket at the box office? Shall I stand outside in case he’s gone to the other one… oh God, what if he’s gone to the other one?) and no one gets a chance to properly decompress with a large G and T.
7/7.30pm: A rude time to book a table for dinner with friends, indicating as it does (unless on the West Coast where they all eat at 7) that this is an in-out, guaranteed early night, not a diary-cleared-for the-following-morning sort of dinner.
8.15pm: The latest you can turn up to a 6.30 kick-off drinks party. Nobody cares, really, but any later does have a whiff of, “only want to hit this party at peak time, for maximum personal gain”.
8.30pm: The latest you can feed nonagenarians. They won’t complain if it’s later, but they won’t sleep either, or have the strength to chew, and they will think you have forgotten your manners.
10pm: The latest you can phone someone on a weekday. Any later is not just rude but peculiar since phone calls are becoming the Narwhals of communication (rare, lovely but disturbing), and why would you? (You may send a gif/text at any hour).
11pm: The earliest you can exit a party, at the weekend, without leaving your hosts wondering where they went wrong.
So now you know.