Memorial Day

Posted on May 25, 2015 by Uncommon Courtesy

We love New Yorkers because they do what they can with the space they have.

Don’t forget that while we might be celebrating the beginning of summer and going to the beaches, BBQs, and picnics, that Memorial Day exists to remember soldiers who have died. So try to be sensitive around people for whom this holiday is not a light-hearted three day weekend.

As a housekeeping note, Jaya is traveling and Victoria is moving apartments over the next few weeks so we are going to be a bit light on content or rerunning old posts. But we will be back with great new stuff very soon! And we will be celebrating our two year anniversary in the next month! So get excited!

In the meantime, check out our Twitter and Instagram for extra opinions and etiquette related stuff!

The Case For Formal Titles?

Posted on May 8, 2015 by Jaya Saxena

I just started reading a fantastic book called No Nice Girl Swears. It was written in 1933 as a modern etiquette guide for young ladies, by a fabulous debutante Alice-Leone Moats, who managed to trick George Putnam into having her ghostwrite her own book. It’s a crazy story, and you should pick it up, but in the 1983 reprint, Moats walks through a few of the changes that had taken place over the last fifty years. She recognizes some parts sound “positively archaic,” but that others stand as good guidelines.

One thing she does stand by, though, are formal modes of address, “principally because the instant use of Christian names does away with the shadings so important in relationships. It is a leap into intimacy which I would often prefer not to make: I don’t lead a sheltered life and I meet many characters with whom I don’t care to be on terms of intimacy.”

We have spoken before about the issues surrounding formal modes of address, specifically gendered salutations. But it’s true, most people introduce themselves by their first or full names, and do not insist on being called Ms. Lastname by all but close friends and family. I would probably feel incredibly uncomfortable if I introduced myself as Jaya and someone continued to call me Ms. Saxena. However, I’m starting to see what Moats is getting at here.

Have you ever had an experience where someone thought they were closer friends with you than they were? Or you thought someone was a close friend and they weren’t? It’s a really easy thing to happen. For me, it usually is because we have lots of mutual friends, and we see each other at parties and are friendly and chatty with each other, and then suddenly one of us is calling the other to make plans when the other really didn’t see the relationship that way. Of course, meeting through mutual friends and slowly hanging out otherwise is how lots of great friendships happen, but only when both people are into that friendship.

Anyway, there are lots of reasons why this happens, but what Moats argues here is that the form of address helps reflect the level of intimacy. If I’m at a party and someone I’m very fond of asks “may I call you Jaya?” or if I ask her to call me Jaya and she agrees, there is the mutual understanding that this is a closer relationship. However, if I ask her to call me Jaya and she continues with “Ms. Saxena,” I understand that she prefers to keep our relationship cordial but at a distance.

I spoke to my husband about this the other night, and how I think the concept of having these removed relationships is a great idea, and he disagreed, saying that it just comes off as passive aggressive. I wouldn’t call it that, but yes, it is an indirect way to make your point clear. And really, that’s what a lot of etiquette is: a way to make things explicit without the awkwardness that it could entail. Most people do not want to have long, protracted conversations about the state of all of their relationships. Maybe we should, but we don’t. I don’t want to tell every friendly acquaintance exactly where in my hierarchy of friends they stand, I just want it to be understood that not everyone is the closest person to me.

This is making me sound like an unfriendly hag. I love friends! I love turning new friends into better friends into the best friends. But I do think there is a cultural assumption now that everyone has to be friends, and I wish we’d get away from that. There are people I see in larger social circles that I absolutely get along with, with whom I have engaging and fun conversations, who I don’t consider friends. That’s okay! That’s a fine sort of relationship to have. There are many other ways to put up boundaries in a relationship without having an explicit “I see you’re trying to be friends with me so let me stop you and just make this awkward for everyone” conversation. You can decline invitations, or not extend them. You can not initiate conversation, or not seek them out at any social gathering.

At this point, formal address conventions are not coming back. Even my bosses insist I call them by their first names. Plus, I’m sure this worked much better in theory than in practice even when it was more common–it’s not like awkward interactions only started when we dropped honorifics. But what are your thoughts? Is there something else we could do to make this clear? Should we just have really weird, direct conversations about this?

Thank You Note Poll Follow Up

Posted on April 24, 2015 by Uncommon Courtesy

Results!!!

Thank you for all your responses to our poll about who writes wedding thank you notes. It was quite illuminating!

Since it’s us, we had a great chat about it and the implications of the results.

Jaya: First off, we can just cast away these two couples who didn’t write thank you notes?

Victoria: Yes, who DOES THAT! Monsters! (If our one groom who wrote the most notes wants to volunteer himself, we can give him a prize!)

Jaya: Ugh, no thank you notes is the worst. Unless they didn’t get gifts?

Victoria: They got gifts, I can guarantee it.

Jaya: Hahaha. Okay, so what I think is interesting is all the women who justified why they wrote all the notes. There were so many reasons.

Victoria: They did! Well, the ones who left us comments in various places.

Jaya: Yeah. But it was either they had better handwriting, they had more time, they had the address list or the gift list, etc. All reasonable but like…still not reasons, to me. Your husband can read a gift list.

Victoria: Yeah, the handwriting especially is a good example of learned helplessness. Do not stand for it!!!!!

Jaya: Oh man I have shitty handwriting, you just take more time with it. Yes do not stand for that!

Victoria: Consider it an opportunity to practice.

Jaya: You will be writing more thank you notes as a couple. I mean, I will admit that now when it’s just one note at a time, I tend to write it, because I tend to think of it. Next time, remind me to be like “we need to write a thank you note. You do it.”

Victoria: Haha I will! But like, writing 150 thank you notes or whatever, is a LOT of work. And, speaking in generalizations, generally the bride has also done the most work in planning the wedding. So maybe grooms should be writing most of the thank you notes to balance that–kind of a like, you cook and I’ll do the dishes sort of swap.

Jaya: I guess the reason I understand most is impatience. Either I can remind someone else 8 times to write a thank you note, or I can just do it myself.

Victoria: Yeah, ugh. It’s so frustrating- this thing that women have the burden of overseeing that things get done because everyone will be mad at THEM if they haven’t. And when you have to nag and nag it just becomes easier to do it yourself. Until you are doing it ALL yourself.

Jaya: And I did find it interesting that of the same sex couples, all of them split them.

Victoria: Me too!!!! That’s super great. Love them.

Jaya: Learn from themmmmm. C’mon straight men.

Victoria: Seriously. Although, apparently in 55% of couples, they split them equally. Which is good if it is true.

Jaya: Yay! Yes.

Victoria: But I kind of don’t trust it–I imagine there is a degree of “oh we split it, he wrote 20 and she wrote 80.”

Jaya: A few people commented that in splitting it, they wrote notes to “their” list. Which I slightly balk at because you’re married, it’s your collective list now. I believe we did an equal split, and we had a spreadsheet. I started at the bottom, he started at the top, and when I got halfway I stopped. I did it faster though. So for a general tip, make a spreadsheet of all your guests, what they got you, and whether you’ve written a note.

Victoria: I think it could also be a fun date night–like get some takeout, have some wine, write some notes. (Actually I have an upcoming post about how to make writing TYNs fun).

Jaya: It’s just…it’s not that hard. For about two weeks after we got home from our honeymoon I wrote five a night.

Victoria: Yeah! And if you write them as the gifts come in (which you should!) it’s even easier.

Jaya: Oh yeah! We did that, we just still had the bulk afterward.

Victoria: Ahhh, interesting. I always imagine that most people send their gifts a month or two before the wedding (since that it what I do, lol).

Jaya: Lots of checks. Lots of people who send gifts and then bring checks.

Victoria: WHATTTT?!?!?!

Jaya: Yeah that was ridiculous.

Victoria: Brb gotta go get married.

Jaya: So yeah, I’d say a good 2/3 of the gifts came on the day.

Victoria: WOW my WASPy expectations are EXPLODED.

Jaya: Hahahaha but it’s just like, you take your trip, you come back. you spend like 20 minutes a night each doing this.

Victoria: Totally, and like, do them together.

Jaya: Yes, make dinner, and sit down and do it while you eat or something.

Victoria: I like doing unpleasant things together so that you KNOW you are spending equal time on them.

Jaya: Yes! Also, even though I don’t like the idea of his and hers lists, I do think being the one to write notes to each other’s family is nice. I think I wrote all the notes to his aunts and cousins and family friends, and he did them to mine, even though yes, every note is from both of you.

Victoria: Awww yeah. I like that, because then especially for the bride’s family, they know he is a decent person. Where, hopefully, with his family he has always been sending thank you notes so they already know he is a decent person.

Jaya: Yeah. I have heard, elsewhere, the argument that if it’s important to just one person in the couple, it’s their responsibility. And I just want to go on the record that I wholly disagree. I’m pretty sure I was more concerned about thank you notes. But the point is we’re married and it’s a joint responsibility now.

Victoria: Yeah! And like, there are probably going to be tons of important stuff that comes up in your marriage that is more important to one person but needs to be split. I always say this about chores–like yeah, maybe one person has a higher level of cleanliness, but unless you want to live in a pigsty, the messier person needs to make an effort to- not to mention that dirt and stuff can actually permanently damage your home if it isn’t cleaned regularly and then you lose resale value or your deposit and that’s bad for your whole family. And if you can’t manage to write a few thank you notes, how reliable are you going to be about your kids/pets/other important but boring chores?

Jaya: Hahahaha yes.

Victoria: Not to say that your brand new marriage is going to fail if one person refuses to help write thank you notes, but it seems like a thing you might want to notice and nip it in the bud. And accept no excuses!

Jaya: Yes! God sometimes I have no patience with people. Just do it. Just shut up and do it.

The Royal We

Posted on April 17, 2015 by Victoria Pratt

I actually hate reading books reviews (except when the reviewer really hates the book) so this is not going to be one. It is merely a recommendation that you go read this book immediately.

The Royal We is the first novel written by Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan (better known as the Fug Girls after their website Go Fug Yourself). It is the lightly fictionalized and heavily dramatized account of the courtship and engagement of Kate Middleton and Prince William (except in this case, the girl is an American named Rebecca Porter and the Prince is Prince Nicholas and they meet at Oxford instead of St. Andrews.) It is SIGNIFICANTLY better than the Lifetime movie adaptation of the royal couple’s relationship William & Kate (which of course I watched the second it came out. I also got up at 5am or whatever to watch the Royal Wedding- in case you didn’t know, this is also secretly a Kate Middleton appreciation blog.) So if you like William/Kate, royalty, Oxford, romances, “chick lit” (ew), and generally enjoyable books, you will like this one. I stayed up past my bedtime three nights in a row reading it.

ALSO! It has a fun etiquette bit. So the main character Bex is enduring “princess lessons” of the kind Kate Middleton was allegedly subjected to:

And yet, even without its emotional stalwarts, Team Bex was bigger than ever. Marj drafted a phalanx of expert strangers who diagnosed me as a Neanderthal hunchback with Clydesdale tendencies, and began shepherding my way though Duchessing for Dummies, No longer could I clomp from point A to point B. I had to glide, each leg crossing slightly in front of the other, my food going heel-sole-toe at exactly the right smooth pace. I was taught to don and doff coats without them hitting the floor; to use only my left hand to hold drinks at official events so that my right would never be dam or clammy for handshakes; and accordingly, that I’d be better off never taking an hors d’oeuvre, lest I be forced to shovel it into my mouth. Before sitting, I learned to bump the chair ever so gently with my calves to be sure of where it was without glancing behind me. I must only cross my ankles, never my legs, and when getting up from that position, it is a decreet ballet of scooting to the edge of the chair and then standing quickly while uncrossing things. I am not uncoordinated, but that tripped me up six times the first day. In flats. Marj made my instructor sign a second confidentiality agreement on the spot, and then suggested some off-hours practicing. It’s a wonder it took me as long as it did to hire Cilla permanently, because her suggestion to bring Lady Bollocks into my Duchess for Dummies training was a masterstroke. There was a reason Bea was so successful in Thoroughbred competitions that rewarded obedience.

You can download the first seven chapters from the Go Fug Yourself site in case you don’t trust my judgement.

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