Rude date won’t get another chance

Dear Miss Manners: I was on a second date at an upscale French restaurant. To my surprise, my date was incredibly rude to the waiter the entire night, starting with criticizing him for not speaking French (as my date does), never making eye contact with the waiter, never saying please and thank you, and so on.

I was mortified. I paid the bill, as I had offered, and left a larger tip than I ordinarily would. The next day I called the restaurant to apologize, and the manager told me the waiter had already alerted him to the bad situation.

Is there something else I should have done for the waiter?

Gentle Reader: Perhaps thanked him for saving you from any third date with that person.

How people treat those who are not in a position to defend themselves is a good test of character. Your good character was demonstrated when you compensated the waiter and then also corroborated his story with his boss.

Dear Miss Manners: I like to listen to podcasts on sound-blocking earbuds while exercising.

The issue I have is that a couple of other people turn up the sound on the TV to the point of interfering with my listening to podcasts.

I’ve politely asked them to turn the sound down and use the closed-caption feature on the TV. One person told me to turn my own sound up and blow out my eardrums. The other turned up the TV sound even louder.

I tried talking to the manager, to no avail. Any ideas on how to handle the rudeness of these individuals?

Gentle Reader: Unfortunately, for a system of etiquette to function, it requires a sense of decency, or at least the desire for a peaceful community. Those qualities of civilized life seem to be in short supply now. Let us hope that you can find a gym where blatant rudeness is not tolerated.