Yesterday I went to my health club for a massage, and I got there a bit early to shower and take a sauna. In the steam room, I started up a conversation with a woman who, it turned out, was a career counselor with whom I shared a lot of the same interests, professional and intellectual. We agreed to get together in a more formal and less humid venue sometime. I told her my name and “Miss Conduct” and how to reach me through the Globe, and as I always do after finishing up a friendly and interesting schmooze, automatically stuck out my hand and shook hers.

Now, I am not going to go into the lurid details of my past, but I am a twice-married woman, and suffice to say I have done many things with naked people, but I do not think I have ever shaken the hand of one. It was surprisingly discombobulating.

Although, it occurs to me now, if it struck the other woman as strange at all, it probably seemed much more strange to her. Your first naked handshake with a stranger is one thing; your first naked handshake with a stranger who is an etiquette columnist is probably another thing entirely.

From Jezebel:

I was raised in the ‘50s and ‘60s, and manners were drilled into me. I see kids [on the spectrum] today that have no manners. That’s going to hurt them. You can’t punish a child who is acting out because of sensory overload. But it’s unacceptable to see kids throwing things and slapping people. I see kids with Asperger’s [a mild form of autism] who can’t hold a job because they are constantly late. Teach kids to use an alarm clock. This is common sense and sometimes we forget about common sense. Autism is used too much as an excuse for bad behavior.

I saw a preview on HBO for the upcoming movie about Ms. Grandin’s life and it looks phenomenal. We don’t have HBO but I’m determined to get a copy of it somehow.

So, last night, Mr. Improbable and I went to see “Indulgences” at New Rep. It’s a very good play, funny and sharp and well-acted, hip but not too knowing. Highly recommended.

At any rate, during intermission, I was in the lobby when the house manager came in through a staff-only door and almost bumped a couple of older women. “Oh, my goodness, sorry, guys,” she gasped. “We’re not guys, we’re girls,” one of them snippily responded. Neither of them acknowledged her apology.

So after my trip to the ladies’ room, I went to the ticket counter and asked to speak with the house manager. “Hi,” I said. “I’m Robin Abrahams, and I write the ‘Miss Conduct’ etiquette column in the Globe. And I want you to know that it’s colloquially acceptable to call more than one woman ‘guys,’ and that it’s not acceptable to criticize strangers for minor faux pas. Those women were very rude, and I think you’re perfectly fine.”

Well, she had been feeling bad about it, so she was was delighted, and so was I. I felt like some minor little superhero or something! I don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed being “Miss Conduct” quite so much. (Actually, I sometimes find being “Miss Conduct” in public to be kind of a pain, but I’ll write about that some other day.)

But of course you don’t have to be an official etiquette columnist to do this. On the other blog we’re talking about rudeness, and how to respond to it. If the rudeness isn’t directed at you, but at someone else, don’t scold the offender — comfort the offended. Say, “That was unfair. What you did wasn’t wrong” or “You handled that very gracefully,” or even simply, “I’m sorry that person did that to you.” It can make a world of difference; really, it’s like you are taking a shamed person and leading them back into the light by the hand.

I mean, it’s a heck of a lot funnier if you’re Miss Conduct, but it’s just as kind no matter who you are.

If you haven’t checked out the discussion on the other blog about whether we are in an epidemic of rudeness, do. It’s really interesting.

Hat tip to Mr. Improbable for introducing me, with typical American informality, to this “global portal for diplomats” and its advice about U.S. cultural customs.

I think this one is hilarious, because it is so true:

People who like to touch really like touching, and people who do not like to touch really dislike being touched. You will need to watch your colleagues for clues on what they are comfortable with.

… and I like this one for the alternate perspective it inherently embodies:

Do not be afraid of hurting someone’s feelings by responding “no” to an invitation. People will be offended if you say you will attend and then do not come.

Which ones struck you?

… is online here.

I often have to edit questions for length, and the question from the woman who is often “accused” (her words) of being pregnant was one of them. The full question was as follows:

I am a petite female who has put on a little weight as of the last year. The problem with this, is that I get all my weight in the front, which is bad enough. However, the icing on the cake has been that every week, there is a new stranger asking me, “When are you due?” I have an identical twin who is a bit smaller than me, but gets the same questions (just not as often). I have no ring on my finger, and several friends and family say that I do not look pregnant, just “fluffy.” And with the most recent pregnancy accusation made by an obstetrician – I am angry. It was funny before (I joked that it was a cheeseburger I just ate – which I had ate the night before), but now it has gotten out of hand. My question is, since when is it okay to ask if someone is pregnant when they could very clearly just be a little bit overweight? Also, what is the appropriate reaction? I would love to point out their flaws (i.e. a big nose, hairy ears, whatever), but I just smile and say “no, sorry,” as if it is my fault.

First of all, I am in no way denying or minimizing this woman’s frustration, so let’s get that out of the way. I’m an advocate or ally or member or whatever you want to call it of the Fat Acceptance movement, which I’ve been quite public about, and if I put a foot wrong here, I hope my FA buddies will call me out on it so I can get my head straight.

I was bothered, although I didn’t address it in my answer, by the “I have no ring on my finger” statement. Not all pregnant women are married, and not all married women wear their rings during pregnancy, if they’re prone to gaining weight or retaining water in their hands.

Also, of course your friends and family are going to say you don’t look pregnant. That’s the kind of thing friends and family do. But if you’re being asked every week — and by an obstetrician, no less! — then, hon, you look pregnant. Which doesn’t make it any less annoying, I’m sure, but everything is at least a little bit easier to cope with when we’re not in denial about it.

Last week, I got my hair done, and my hairdresser looked … fluffy. Really fluffy. I hadn’t seen her for a while, and I knew she’d had a baby eight months ago or so. With this question on my mind, of course, there was no way I was going to presume anything, so I greeted her and said, “What’s new?” She looked down at her belly and then at me as though I’d grown two heads and replied, “I’m expecting again, obviously.” She thought it was pretty funny when I explained my trepidation.

So here’s a question: what are, and are not, appropriate comments to make on another person’s appearance? I’d say both weight gain and loss are off the table entirely. (I used to be more on the fence about weight loss, but both learning more about FA — and also having the unpleasant experience, recently, of being congratulated on weight loss that is the result of illness — has changed my mind on that.) Even if someone is losing weight on purpose, there is a chance they will gain it back, and yesterday’s compliments may make them feel even worse.

Deliberate changes in appearance — new hair color or cut, new eyeglasses, contacts — seem like fair game, as long as this doesn’t involve insulting the way the person used to look. “Thank God you’ve finally gotten rid of the grey!” is not how we compliment a good dye job.

But what other general principles are there?

I think this is an area of social behavior where my own parameters are a little bit skewed from the norm. As I’ve mentioned before, I used to be a theater person, and still am at heart. And theater people, because their body is their instrument, can be extremely straightforward about assessing their own appearance and that of others. You have to know what you look and sound like and what kind of persona you project, and if you’re getting it wrong, a good friend or mentor will tell you, in no uncertain terms. There isn’t time for tact and “everyone is beautiful” happy talk when careers are at stake. Sometimes, in fact, given that I hope to do more television and public speaking, I wish I could get that kind of unvarnished feedback again. Maybe I’ll ask my actor friends, if I can convince them to treat me like one of them, and not like “Miss Conduct.”

But outside the greenroom — what’s polite and what isn’t?

I did a brief segment on holiday etiquette dilemmas on New England Cable News this morning:

View it here.

Good interview, but the ConductMom is right. I DO need to brush my hair in the back more!

I was planning to blog today about your awesome comments on my “holiday joys and woes” post, and how although Hanukkah doesn’t do it for me on any level, what you wrote helped. Because I realized that all of your joys had to do with stuff you did — not consumed, not believed — so maybe I should just stop trying to figure out Hanukkah and fry a pancake already. And how this relates to a particular scene in the Torah and the concept of na’aseh v’nishma, and what it means to have “experiential learning” in a religion as intellectual and text-based as Judaism, and all that …

And then I saw this. Senator Orrin Hatch, a Mormon from Utah, has written a Hanukkah song.

Now, let me make two points:

1. His song actually doesn’t suck. (There’s a video linked, you can judge for yourself. It’s not great, but in the canon of Hanukkah music, there’s worse. Trust me.)
2. Irving Berlin wrote “White Christmas” (and also “Easter Parade”), so hey, it’s all good. This is America, buddy.

What is not all good is this:

At one point, Mr. Hatch unbuttons his white dress shirt to expose the golden mezuzah necklace he wears every day. Mezuzahs also adorn the doorways of his homes in Washington and Utah. Mr. Hatch keeps a Torah in his Senate office.

“Not a real Torah, but sort of a mock Torah,” he said. “I feel sorry I’m not Jewish sometimes.”

Well, dude, YOU AREN’T, so suck it the heck up. And I think “mock” Torah pretty well describes it. “Sort of a mock Torah”? How in the name of Ceiling Cat is this in any way showing honor to the Jewish people you claim to respect, Senator Hatch?

If you are not a member of a religious group, it does not honor the people who are to go using their sacred objects or religious symbols as freakin’ accessories. Got it? If you are given something as a gift, with the understanding that it is a cultural/artistic item representing a different faith, that is one thing. (I have a Ganesh statue that was given to everyone who attended a friend’s Big Fat Hindu Wedding a few years back, and some Ukranian Easter eggs from my Ukranian, Christian mother.) Otherwise, no. Religions are not sports teams. You don’t run around wearing the jersey because you like how we play the game. You can attend services, you can study the texts, you can join interfaith groups, you can eat the food, but you do not dress up like something you aren’t. (For more on that, see PeaceBang here.)

Senator Hatch of all people should know this. Interfaith pieties aside, we are not “all one.” Religions differ in fundamental ways. Senator Hatch is a Mormon, and Mormons apparently feel so strongly about protecting their own religious symbols and practices against the casual curiosity or faux-identification of “Mormons for a Day” that they don’t even allow non-Mormons into their temples or allow us to view certain ceremonies. And that’s their perfect right. What if I decided that I, a Jew, was nonetheless a big fan of the Mormonism, and wanted to express that by wearing temple garments under my clothes? Does that put it in perspective for you, Senator Hatch?

And yet, I must thank you. Because your offensive co-opting of my religion has, in fact, inspired me this Hanukkah. If you can celebrate my holiday, I sure as hell can. I am going to make those damn latkes, and I am going to get that wax off my menorah, probably by melting it off with the scorching gaze of my contemptuous laser-eyes and the hot breath of my profanity-laced rant at your discourtesy-masquerading-as-tolerance. (You folks think this is a profanity-laced rant? This is nothing. I can and do kick it “Deadwood“-style when necessary.)

So thank you, Senator Hatch, for teaching me the true meaning of Hanukkah. Which is, frankly, that we need to protect our religions. That we need to set boundaries. That courtesy is not only about acknowledging what binds us together, but about respecting what keeps us apart.

Last week we went to Tupelo’s with some friends. Tupelo’s, as the geographically astute among us might have figured out, specializes in Southern cuisine and it is indeed all that. (And reasonably priced, Boston locals take note.) However authentic the food and drink may be, however, the wait staff is distinctly New England.

One of our friends, who is from the South herself, decided to give our delightful Italian waiter some lessons to expand his Southern repertoire beyond “you all.” I’m not sure if my friend has had server experience herself, but she focused her language lesson on the art of the hidden insult, the deployment of which surely everyone who works with the public would find a soothing balm to their psyche.

The phrase she taught him was “Bless his/her heart.” This, apparently, is a codicil to conversation that will alert one’s fellow Southerner that one does not, in fact, approve of the individual whose heart has just been blessed. As in, “My sister in law certainly does love her Yankee Swap,* bless her heart,” or a simple, “Ahmedinejad, bless his heart.” Our waiter seemed to like this a lot, and I wonder how many “Of course we can substitute olive oil for bacon drippings, bless your heart”s he’ll be muttering in days to come.

(*The mere existence of the Yankee Swap ought to be enough to convince anyone that the South, despite its iron-fist-in-velvet-glove reputation, has not entirely cornered the market on sweet-seeming passive aggression.)

Blogger FemaleScienceProfessor has a great article up at the Chronicle of Higher Education about academic etiquette. Amusing and informative — and good for people who work in many walks of life, as well. (Particularly, some good advice about job searching from the points of view of both applicant and hiring committee.) And I have to love tip # 11:

If you are going to ask a professor a question and you need to refer to your notes or a book, have them within easy reach, with the relevant pages marked. Don’t spend the first few minutes searching through your backpack and your giant folders covered with skull doodles only to realize that you left the desired item at home and have no idea what your question was, so instead you just ask the professor if you missed anything important in the class session you skipped because you overslept.

This blog post on the New York Times, by a returning Marine, is a fascinating read. The traditional narrative of the returning soldier’s readjustment tends to follow one of two lines: either that of a person so damaged by the horrors of war that they have been rendered unfit for life in polite society, or that of a person whose sense of discipline and honor is so refined that they are repelled by civilian sloppiness and laziness. This post is neither. Entitled “Let Me Get Right to the Point,” it focuses primarily on the difference in communication style between civilians and the military — and the different philosophical assumptions that underlie those differences:

One of the biggest changes I’ve undertaken has been relaxing my communication style. The Marine Corps values clear, direct, and accurate communication. Senior officers have little tolerance for meandering around your point, and they have zero tolerance for trivial or deceptive nonsense. Junior Marines are similar, except they can perceive this better than most field grade officers. I’ve learned that in civilian life many people want to banter about nothing for about 90 seconds before discussing anything of substance. I don’t necessarily like it, but now I can handle it.

…

At the root of the issue is that I strive to employ the Golden Rule: I treat people as I want to be treated. I do not want anyone to waste my time, so I try to be extremely respectful of others’ time.

There is much more in the article, but there’s so much to unpack just in those two brief bits!

For one thing, note that the communication style that the author, Jeffrey Barnett, considers respectful, many people and cultures (from national cultures to corporate ones) would consider distinctly rude. Even within the same city — Boston — and the same industry — academia — I have noticed this difference. I went to graduate school at Boston University and worked at Harvard during my last years of grad school, and in general, when dealing with the administrative staff, I tended toward Mr. Barnett’s mode. “Hello, Payroll Person. You clearly have several hundred other problems to solve, so I will present mine as concisely as possible and do my best to give you all the information you need, but no more, so that you may get on with your work.” Then I taught at wee little Emmanuel College for two years, and quickly realized that big-bureaucracy etiquette was not the same thing as small-community etiquette. At the big schools, you showed respect to Payroll Person by not wasting their time; at Emmanuel, you showed respect with a little small talk to acknowledge that they weren’t only Payroll Person, they were Sam or Betty, and had their own life outside of Payroll, thank you very much.

(This may have been slightly complicated by the fact that I was faculty at EC, instead of a lowly grad student or fellow administrator, and therefore very much needed to avoid copping Faculty Attitude. But I think the size had more to do with it, because you see the same difference in small towns versus big ones.)

The directness and clarity of the military, the strength of its culture, is part of why it has excelled, as an institution, at integrating people from many different ethnic groups and walks of life. The identity of “Marine” overrides that of race, creed, or color. And there must be a certain comfort to knowing so clearly how you are supposed to communicate, and why, and who is in charge of what at all times. I wrote recently about how, although I am neurotypical, moving around a lot as a kid gave me the same sense that people with Asperger’s have that the social world is mysterious and unknowable. Maybe this is part of why in high school I was considerably tempted to join Naval Junior ROTC, despite my manifest unsuitability for military life. The idea of a culture where the rules were explicit and clear, and where social status was indicated by clearly marked rank rather than shifting tides of popularity, seemed awfully soothing to me.

Please go read the post, and let me know your thoughts on it. I’ve been unable to get it out of my head for days, which is probably why it took me so long to get it on my blog — I couldn’t decide what of the essay’s many riches I wanted to focus on.

I’ll only mention one more, which is a particular pet peeve of mine — flag etiquette! Mr. Barnett, please know that at least one civilian gets it. I don’t know why it bothers me so, but people who own a flag and do not follow the flag code drive me nuts. It’s more respectful of the flag to burn it in protest (which acknowledges its power as a symbol) than to leave a battered flag out in the rain, or keep a flag out 24 hours a day without lights. I’m not saying one should necessarily respect the flag, but presumably, if you are displaying one, you do, so why not do it right? I’m particularly irritated by the soi-disant patriots with their sad, tattered antenna flags and ratty post-9/11 bumper stickers. Perhaps “These Colors Don’t Run,” but they do fade, so think about the message you’re sending, eh?

A bit of morning cheer — the Washington Post ran a roundup review of etiquette books, including Mind Over Manners:

It makes perfect sense — it’s rather cheering, really — that the etiquette columnist for the Boston Globe is not an imperious WASP but a Midwestern-born converted Jew who has blunt things to say about both Christopher Hitchens and the soi-disant war on Christmas.

The review itself is a brilliant piece of writing, absolutely laugh-out-loud funny: I haven’t heard of “Michael Lindgren … a musician and poet who divides his time, politely, between Manhattan and Pennsylvania” before, but I’ll be looking his stuff up from now on. Really, I’d urge you to read this one even if my book weren’t included, it’s so good.

You do not have to engage in physical intimacy with someone who makes you uncomfortable, ever. Politeness requires nothing more than a handshake.

Hugs are to be earned.

(Photos by AFP/GETTY on the London Telegraph.)

Ta-Nehisi Coates has a good post up about Joe Wilson’s “You lie!” comment during the president’s speech last night, putting it in the context of other … altercations.

I always like to point you to helpful advice elsewhere, so here’s today’s recommendation: a good blog post about inviting “plus ones” and when to assume
your significant other is invited and when to assume s/he is not:

If your significant other is invited to a social event, and you’re really and truly not sure the invitation included you, then it’s acceptable for the invited person to ask. For most social events, it’s nice to ask both halves of a couple. But there are actually people in the world who are close to Max, but not to me – and vice versa. And it’s completely conceivable that they’d want to have him over for, say, an intimate dinner party with eight carefully selected guests, and I’m not one of the other seven. That’s utterly fine with me. If you host an event, you get to have it exactly like you want it.

The invited person should phrase the question in such a way as to give the host a graceful way to say, “No, that person is not invited.”

One may not pretend to misunderstand as a ploy to try to wangle invitations.

(The questions are addressed primarily from the guest’s perspective; I gave some advice for hosts and hostesses a while back, here.)

Don’t click just yet.

See, the blogger I just linked to is one I never would have linked to off my boston.com blog. She blogs (and works) under the name Mistress Matisse, and she is a professional dominatrix. And a good writer, too. (Mr. Improbable blogged a post she’d written once from Las Vegas, after witnessing a magician’s bondage-suspension act go badly wrong, which struck her as ironic given that she was on vacation trying to leave work behind her.) Her “invitations” post is, specifically, about how people in polyamorous relationships should negotiate the “and guest”:

If the invitation – either verbal or written – says “bring a date,” or “you plus a guest,” then the invited person may bring ONE guest without further clearance from the host. One.

You’re on your own if you read the rest of the blog, which I certainly wouldn’t recommend doing at work. I would recommend reading it, however, if you enjoy a good laugh, if you’ve ever wondered if there are sex workers who enjoy their jobs, or if you are fascinated by the paradoxes of human behavior.

For a while, my two favorite personal (as opposed to political, pop-cultural, or social-science) blogs were Mistress Matisse and an orthodox rabbi who has since stopped blogging. This struck me funny one day so I e-mailed both of them, pointing out that while our jobs were very different, one way or another we all told people what to do for a living. Mistress Matisse didn’t write back, but the rabbi did. I guess enthusiastic attention from a stranger feels more validating to an orthodox rabbi than it would to a beautiful blond sex worker, for whom it may be more of an everyday occurrence.