Tag Archives: Etiquette

Do I Really Have to Touch the Toilet in a Disgusting Bar Bathroom?

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Jaya has actually used this bathroom [Via Flickr user gnta]

Dear Uncommon Courtesy,

From a young age, my mother instilled in me the politeness attached to putting the seat back down after using the toilet. This was a universal lesson that was to follow me beyond the two-males-to-one ratio inside my childhood home. As an adult, I traverse unisex bathrooms in bars and find the water inside the toilet bowl to be merely a suggestion for urine, as the entire bowl itself is some sort of blank canvas for avant-garde piss art. With this in mind, is it actually impolite to leave the toilet seat down in a unisex bathroom out in the shared world?

Sincerely,

Curious About Covers

OFFICIAL ETIQUETTE

I adore questions that have me searching the Emily Post Institute for the term toilet lids. They are silent on the subject. Miss Manners has discussed it in terms of asking guests to put the seat down (you are not supposed to mention it). In fact, Miss Manners prefers to think that toilets don’t exist, so not much help there. Fortunately for you, we are happy to acknowledge their existence and tell you our thoughts.

OUR TAKE

Jaya: So my idea is that 3/4 things anyone does in the bathroom require the seat to be down. So on statistics alone you should leave the seat down, always.

Victoria: And REALLY, everyone should be putting both the seat and the lid down to prevent germs flying around. I don’t, but it’s something to work towards. Plus, dudes can take one for the team in being the ones to touch the thing.

Jaya: Totally. And I think this is still the case if the seat is down BUT someone had been in there and peed all over the seat. I mean, at some point everyone realizes they’re in a public bathroom, and things aren’t going to be the best.

Victoria: Wait, what’s still the case? They still have to lift the seat up?

Jaya: Yeah? Or, I don’t know, if you see pee all over the seat, no matter what sex you are, take one for the public bathroom team and wipe it off.

Victoria: Oooh yes, totally. Why doesn’t Lysol or whoever make little purse-sized sprays? Then you could spray and wipe before you sit. They could make a million dollars.

Jaya: THEY DO!

Victoria: They do!??!?!?!

Jaya: Bonus cat!

Victoria: Anyway, in conclusion, the answer to a gross public restroom is to not make it even more gross.

Jaya: Exactly. Just because everyone else is doing it doesn’t mean you have to.

How to Be a Considerate Roommate

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When you are sharing a space like this you are going to need manners. [Via Flickr user byrion]

Roommates! We’re all going to have roommates at some point, whether it’s because we’re college freshmen, we’re poor and need to split the rent, or we just can’t imagine spending a second away from our BFFs. However, your BFF is gonna peace out and leave you with all the rent and all the dishes if you are a crappy roommate. So here are some tips to follow.

 

  • Try to discuss chores in an adult manner without getting passive aggressive or defensive. For some people, having a chart helps. For others, one person needs to take the lead and remind everyone when chores need to be done and who needs to do them. Try to establish something early on.

  • Respect the other’s space and privacy.

  • It’s not required, but it is pretty considerate to let your roommate know if you won’t be home overnight or are going away for a weekend so they don’t worry. It’s also a safety measure- if you get kidnapped or murdered, you will want someone to call the police!

  • After cooking, try to leave the kitchen the way you found it.

  • Try not to monopolize spaces, or if you do, try to make sure your roommate feels welcome. If you cook every night, offer to share dinner with your roommate (though don’t let yourself become the de-facto chef!). If you watch TV a lot, make sure your roommate also gets a say in what’s on.

  • Respect your roommate’s moods- don’t jabber at them first thing if they need coffee to wake up. On the flip side, a quick good morning or hello when you walk in the door before taking an hour to decompress will do wonders for making your roommate feel like you don’t hate them.

  • If you are a homebody, try to get out sometimes so your roommate can have the place to themselves.

  • Make sure you aren’t taking up more than your share of fridge and pantry space. Part of this can be accomplished by agreeing on certain foods that can be shared. You shouldn’t need to have two of everything when you guys can probably split the same carton of milk or bag of flour.

  • Don’t eat your roommate’s food, and ask before borrowing things. On the flip side, establish what’s personal and what’s shared. You don’t want to flip out at your roommate for playing your records when she thought they were fair game for anyone who felt like listening to music.

  • If you have a significant other, make sure they aren’t spending EVERY night and weekend at your apartment unless they are chipping in!

  • Try to discuss things in a civilized manner without getting passive aggressive or mean.

  • Just clean the toilet already, jeez.

  • And don’t hog the bathroom.

 

Unfortunately, even if you follow all these rules, sometimes you will just have a shitty roommate. So let’s all commiserate and share our shitty roommate stories. Here are ours:

 

Jaya: Of course mine was my freshman year roommate from college, who thought that because she went to boarding school and technically had enough credits to count as a Junior when she was 18 that she was incredibly mature and knew all there was to being a roommate. She made a lot of rude assumptions (“You’re an only child, so I know you’ll have a hard time sharing…”), but then proceeded to break every rule she set, such as leaving mugs filled with sunflower seed shells all over the room for me to knock over, kicking me out of the room for a weekend so her boyfriend could stay over, blasting her music when I was studying and then insisting I leave the room while she was studying, and not letting me use the fridge because it was “her” fridge even though c’mon we’re freshmen and I just want a place to store my leftover mozzarella sticks. Oh and she would spend long times guilting me whenever I came home drunk, even though I was 18 and we went to school in New Orleans. And then she’d go out and get wasted and come home at 4am just scream-laughing and waking everyone up.

 

Victoria: I’ve been pretty lucky in having mostly good roommates, aside from the expected frustrations over chores and sharing the bathroom. I did have one roommate who spent most of her time on the phone with her long distance boyfriend, but that was more just…weird than anything. Another roommate had been on the track team until she was injured and then spent the rest of the semester skipping class to watch TV and thus being in our tiny dorm room at ALL TIMES. She also liked to study in the room all night with the light on (pro tip: sleeping masks are absolutely amazing) instead of going to the library like a normal person. OH! And one roommate let her boyfriend’s friend from home crash in our room during his Spring Break, leading to an EXTREMELY drunk guy crashing through my door in the wee hours and scaring me to death.

 

Are These Engagement Gifts Totally Weird?

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You don't even have to invite them if they got you a crystal bathtub. [Via BornRich]

You don’t even have to invite them if they got you a crystal bathtub. [Via BornRich]

Dear Uncommon Courtesy,

Help, engagement gifts are making me uncomfortable! My fiance and I just got engaged, and people keep sending us engagement gifts. If it were close family members or friends that would be one thing, but these are all coming from family friends of his that either a) he’s never met or b) met once or twice, most likely at least 5 years ago. Of course we’re thanking them, but is this weird?

Sincerely,

Weirded Out By All These Bowls

OFFICIAL ETIQUETTE

The short answer is that, traditionally, engagement gifts are not given. In the olden days, when you got engaged, you would tell your parents, and then they would host a dinner or something with close friends and announce your engagement at your engagement party. Since it was a surprise to all the guests, obviously they wouldn’t have brought gifts. And with engagements being far shorter in the past, by the time anyone sent you anything, it would clearly be considered a wedding present. However, with longer engagements these days and engagement parties celebrating the engagement instead of the announcement, engagement presents have started to crop up as a thing. Engagement gifts should really just be a token of your affection for the couple: a bottle of champagne, a pair of toasting flutes, or a nice picture frame. Still, you are absolutely not expected to send/bring anything at all.

OUR TAKE

Victoria: Obviously these rules about what the expectations regarding engagement presents are all well and good until someone completely ignores them and sends you a lavish gift anyway.

Jaya: Yeah, this is one of those situations where everyone says “oh, how thoughtful,” but actually it’s not that thoughtful of them! Ok, it’s a little thoughtful, but not in the way you’d like.

Victoria: I think the only thing you can really do in that instance is accept the gift in the spirit of generosity in which it was offered and send a nice thank you note immediately. And don’t feel any pressure to invite a random person to your wedding just because they sent you a gift!

Jaya: Right! I think a lot of people hear a couple got engaged,  get them an expensive crystal bowl or something because it’s expensive and “nice,” and then they think they’ve done this great job. Meanwhile, the couple is probably freaking out thinking that now they have to invite this person, or their parents are saying “they were nice enough to send you a gift, can’t you make room?”, and they have no idea how to use this gift and just feel guilty that someone spent upwards of $100 on something they didn’t even want.

Victoria: What a mess.

Jaya: Is there any way to stop the madness?

Victoria: I think the only thing you can really do to discourage it is to hold off on setting up a registry and if someone asks just say “oh, it’s all so new, we haven’t even begun to think about presents yet!”

Jaya: Yeah, and in general people need to consider their relationship to the couple. If you’re their best friend, go for it. If you went to high school with the groom’s mom and keep in touch with her but haven’t seen her son since he was in grade school? A gift is probably not necessary!

Victoria: Maybe as a safeguard you COULD revive the tradition of sending out wedding announcements AFTER the wedding, in which you have a nice card printed the basically just says so and so were married on such and such a date. It’s just a nice way to let people know that you did get married, and it has no expectation of gifts.

Jaya: But a pre-wedding announcement doesn’t have an expectation of gifts either!

Victoria: True, and there is the danger that people might feel compelled to send you ANOTHER gift. But, hopefully, these people are considering these “engagement” presents to be a wedding present too and are just getting it sent early?

Jaya: Yeah. But it’s so easy to read into it another way. Sending gifts is a wonderful thing, and it may come from a genuine place, but weddings are so fraught with tension and meaning, that sometimes a simple “We’re so happy for you” is more appreciated than anything.

Victoria: Absolutely.

Jaya: But yes, write them a thank you note, figure out a way to use/return the gift, and hope that it’s not a secret ploy for a wedding invitation.

Victoria: When in doubt, write a thank you note.

Thank Goodness We Don’t Have to Do That Anymore: Dueling Etiquette

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Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr fight their famous duel
(Alexander Hamilton is the hottest founding father, please discuss.)

Duels were a popular way of hashing out ones differences from the Middle Ages to the late 1800s. During that period, guns became much more accurate and thus you were more likely to actually DIE during a duel. Also, people started going to law school when they didn’t know what to do after graduation, leading to more lawyers who could resolve our differences in a courtroom rather than on a field of honor.

Dueling worked like this:

A gentleman insulted another gentleman and that second gentleman challenged the first to a duel. Each chose a “second,” a person to act as their representative and make sure the fight was fair. The seconds would actually do a lot of the work. They did all the negotiating and trying to calm everyone down, then when that failed, they loaded the guns, counted out the paces, and signaled to fire.

There were several ways to end a duel which had to be agreed on before beginning. It could end at first blood, when one party was too injured to continue, death, or after each man had fired one shot. They could even agree to purposefully miss- apparently in their famous duel, Alexander Hamilton  purposefully missed (or deloped) Aaron Burr. Either Aaron Burr didn’t get the memo or was a true cad because he (obviously) shot to kill. Though, some duelists felt that this practice  implied that you thought the other guy was not worth shooting and was thus even more of an insult.

Some fun dueling etiquette facts:

  • There were several published codes of dueling. The Code Duello in Ireland in 1877 and the Wilson Code by a South Carolina governor in 1838

  • Duels usually took place at dawn in some hidden location like an island in a river to help avoid arrest because you a) can’t be seen and b) the jurisdiction over strange locations is often hazy.

  • Only gentleman were allowed to duel, because you had to have a certain level of honor before it could be insulted. “Lower class” men had different ways of resolving their differences.

  • If a man refused a duel, he might be “posted” meaning a poster would be placed in a public place calling him a coward or some other foul thing until he was SO insulted that he would have to accept the duel.

  • The goal of a duel was not necessarily to kill but to gain satisfaction and show that you were brave enough to face death for your honor.

  • One statistic says that between 1700 and 1845, in England, dueling had a 15% death rate.

  • Back when duels were fought with swords, women would fight topless. The reason for this was so that if they were stabbed, the sword wouldn’t push any of their clothing into the wound, causing infection. Men had never thought of this and many wounded duelers died of sepsis.

Why Did This Person Send Me A Baby Shower Invite, And Do I Have To Send A Gift?

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Just hope these aren't there. [Via Cakewrecks]

Just hope these aren’t there. [Via Cakewrecks]

Dear Uncommon Courtesy,

Hiya!  I love the website so far! And now I have a question of my own.

I just got my first baby shower invitation (yikes).  I am busy that day so I can’t go — but do I still have to send them a present? If it matters, this is an old high school friend who I’m not very close with, and I wasn’t invited to her wedding (which I was totally fine with–I only mention it to illustrate how not-that-close we are and I think it is weird I got this shower invite).  Is it a huge faux pas to forgo a gift? If you tell me to, I will get something small from their registry, otherwise my natural inclination is to buy books and give them to her at some vague point in the future, because I buy everyone books.

Sincerely,

Strangely Showered

OFFICIAL ETIQUETTE

You are under no obligation to send a gift, though, of course, you can if you wish.

OUR TAKE

Jaya:  Baby shower gifts! I actually just got invited to a baby shower, so this is timely.

Victoria:  Nice! Yeah, gifts are totally optional if you can’t go. And for someone not close like this I would totally not send something because…it kind of seems like a gift grab? Showers are tricky, they are really supposed to be just for your super intimate friends, but now we have people inviting all the female wedding guests to them and all kinds of craziness.

Jaya:  Absolutely. And yeah, it does seem like a gift grab. It’s probably not intentional, but presumably this mother-to-be knows they are not that close.

Victoria:  And usually, I think the hostess will get a list of guests from the mother-to-be?

Jaya:  Right. But just inviting everyone you know to every occasion (unless that’s culturally what you do) seems a bit like a ploy for gifts. I don’t know, showers bother me sometimes in general.

Victoria:  I don’t mind them so much for babies, but I wish they would fall out of favor for weddings as they are starting to seem redundant with all the crazy gift giving that is starting to happen. Like, why are people giving you TWO (or MORE!) gifts for the same life event?

Jaya:  And also, you’d think anyone important and supportive in your life would already know you’re having a baby, and would probably buy you a gift.

Victoria:  Yeah, because its kind of like, for the baby!

Jaya:  I have no problem with people throwing parties! I love parties! But yeah, to invite everyone you know, who may not have been a part of this baby’s life already, sounds like you’re trying to get more stuff.

Victoria:  Weirdly, I have heard a thing that it is bad luck to throw a baby shower before the baby is born.

Jaya: Oh is it bad luck?

Victoria:  I have heard that, but it seems like everyone does them before anyway.

Jaya:  Problem solved. Don’t send a gift or the spirits will get you.

Victoria: I guess the idea is that birthin’ babies is dangerous and it might die and then you will have all these presents to deal with, but no one wants to think that way!

Jaya:  Omg Victoria!!!!!

Victoria:  It’s a thing I heard! Not something I believe!!

Jaya:  “Please save the money on buying me a baby bjorn in case I die and you need it to raise my orphan child.”

Victoria:  No no, they are afraid the BABY will die.

Jaya:  Ooooh.

Victoria:  Don’t Indians not give babies names until they are like, 2, because of the same reasons?

Jaya:  Yup! Also because they wait until the baby has a personality, so their name will match who they are. But yeah don’t waste the good names if they’re gonna die of malaria by the time they’re 4 anyway.

Victoria:  Ooooh, that makes a lot of sense actually.

Jaya:  Hi! Ok, back to gifts, and not infant mortality.

Victoria:  Yeaaaah, I really like the idea of sending a classic children’s book.

Jaya:  For this person, I think it’s totally up to her whether to send a gift. Gifts are always optional no matter what, and especially in this case. And I love the books. Good, gender neutral option.

Victoria:  I personally wouldn’t send one, I don’t think. What am I, made of money? No. But maybe if later on they invited me over to come see the baby, I would probably bring something. And then I would squish its little face. Although, I do think if you choose to attend a baby shower, you do need to bring something since the main activity of a shower is gift giving.

Jaya:  I always liked the idea in these things of like, giving something not related to a baby. Like how nice would it be, as a new mother, to have someone give you a nice robe and some bath salts and be like “hey, take a night not as a mom.”

Victoria: Remind me to invite you to my shower if I ever have a baby.

Jaya:  Also, pregnant ladies of the world, do not invite acquaintances to your baby shower. There is probably a lot of vagina talk and that’s weird.

Victoria: I hear there are games where people put melted candy bars in diapers and you have to guess what candy bar it is. Although, again, there is this whole hyping up of every portion of our lives- baby showers, gender reveal parties, specially colored cakes! Where does the madness end??? (I don’t really object because I love parties, but still!)

Jaya:  I also had no idea Baby Registries were a a thing until last year.

Victoria: Yeah, actually, interestingly, while it is not etiquette approved to put registry info on your wedding invite, it is totally okay to put it on shower invitations.

Jaya:  Oh interesting. I guess because you’re not inviting people to your birth. The shower is sort of the one event. Unless you want 60 people to see a baby and your bloody vagina. Which…hyped up!

Victoria: OMG that is absolutely going to happen. What a world we live in.

Jaya:  I can’t wait to get invited to my first birth. What sort of cardstock do you use for that?

Victoria: Although! It would kind of be more traditional! Because it used to be all the ladies of the village would come help out.  Paleo-birthing, it’s gonna be big.