Avoid any conversation involving political correctness
Dear Miss Manners:
Is it my imagination, or is it the popular thing these days for some people to start off their hatefilled rants by bashing political correctness and then spew forth all manner of racism, misogyny, sexism and ageism?
How is one to deal with this venom? I agree with the idea that people should be careful not to use language or behave in a way that could offend a particular group of people. Does having good manners require me to sit quietly and say nothing?
Gentle Reader:
No: You should run.
Miss Manners is adding denouncing political correctness to her list of conversational prefaces from which no good ever follows. Others include, “Do you want me to be perfectly honest with you?” and, “Would you like some constructive criticism?”
When people announce that they plan to abandon the rules of civilized discourse, they should be taken seriously. The response should be, “Well, if you are in favor of being offensive, I’d rather not hear more.”
Dear Miss Manners:
I verbally invited a friend to a Fourth of July party to which I already had invited several others. She accepted but asked to bring the two teenage sons of her ex-husband, as he was busy that day.
I responded that I did not have enough chairs/ space to accommodate three more people. She said then she was going to plan some other activity with the boys.
A week later, she told me I had behaved in an unacceptable fashion, and she wished to sever contact for the foreseeable future. Was I unreasonable? Space was really the issue.
Gentle Reader:
Isn’t there a more basic issue here, one Miss Manners fears that you are too diffident to mention?
It is that you are the hostess: It is your party, and you get to set the guest list. And though you may wish to be flexible, you do not have to be defensive about your limits. It is enough to say you are sorry not to be able to meet their proposed extras on this occasion but hope some other time will present itself. (In this case, that would have been spreading graciousness over your friend’s obvious motive of keeping the teens occupied, rather than adding interesting people to your party.)
The proper way for a prospective guest to ask to bring someone is to decline the invitation on the grounds of having to entertain her or his own guest. That gives the host the choice of inviting that person or simply expressing regret that the invitation was declined.
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