Good Manners for Nice People Who Sometimes Say F*ck (29 page)

The problem with throwing a birthday party in a restaurant

Unless all your friends are hedge-fund kazillionaires who shred dollar bills to line the hamster cage or you are picking up the entire dinner and drinks tab, think twice about having a birthday party for yourself or a friend at a restaurant. Consider having birthday cake and cocktails at your place or another friend’s, or at least celebrate with birthday drinks in a bar—one where those short on finances can order a single glass of house wine and get a separate check without a glare from the bartender or waitress. Yes, your birthday comes but once a year, but the Visa bill comes monthly and includes interest, and your friends will be even gladder you were born if they don’t celebrate your next birthday by finally paying off celebrating your previous one.

When somebody’s conversation makes your ears want to talk your arms and legs into a suicide pact

In keeping with the subject of this section—those who ramble on—we’ll take the scenic route to the answer, starting with a visit to your head.

The brain likes cognitive shortcuts. They save time and energy. So, like those little plastic-wrapped cheese and cracker snackpacks some companies sell, your brain keeps pre-packed thinking sets on its shelves to help speed you through life. These thinking sets, called heuristics, are made up of knowledge and experience you’ve acquired. For example, there’s the
what to do when you come to a door
thinkpack. This thinkpack allows you to react automatically when you come to a door; you don’t have to wonder what a doorknob is and figure out how to use it every time.

But sometimes these pre-packed cognitive shortcuts can end up being a mismatch with the situation we’re in, and you can use that to your advantage when you’ve had your attention commandeered by a blabbermouth. There’s a famous bit of research by social psychologist Ellen Langer that suggests we have a cognitive shortcut that makes us likely to comply with a request if it comes with a reason—even if the reason is ridiculous. Langer asked people waiting to use the copier in a library whether she could cut in front of them. When she asked without giving a reason for taking cuts—“Excuse me. I have five pages. May I use the Xerox machine?”—60 percent of those waiting let her go ahead of them. However, when she asked “May I use the Xerox machine because I’m in a rush?”
94 percent
let her go ahead. But even a ridiculous reason—“Excuse me. I have five pages. May I use the Xerox machine
because I have to make some copies?
”—had 93 percent of the people agreeing to let her go first.

So, at a party or event, when you find yourself trapped in some person’s conversational tentacles, our tendency to let down our guard in the face of a request with a reason attached can help you escape while preserving the windy person’s feelings and dignity. To get away, just give them a reason—almost any reason—even “Excuse me. Sorry to interrupt, but I need to go over there for a second.” Of course, it’s kinder if you can give your reason a little more meat, like “Excuse me, but there’s something funny about my drink” or “I’m sorry to interrupt, but I need to hit the bathroom,” and kinder still if you can actually be seen heading in the direction of the bar or bathroom afterward. (If you are waylaid on the way, well, at least you seemed to be bartender-or toilet-bound before it happened.)

The Human Stain: When you leave your mark on another guest or the host’s furnishings.

As I noted in the “Communicating” chapter, you should avoid repeated and rambling apologies. Apologize big the first time, showing that you are horrified and embarrassed and get that it’s a big deal that you spilled red wine all over their beige carpet or shattered their Qing dynasty ashtray. Don’t keep chirping that you’re sorry every few seconds or minutes like a cuckoo on crack. This only extends the incident and forces the spillee into the position of saying something minimizing to shut you up, like “It really isn’t a big deal,” when they, in fact, very likely think it is.

You should take steps to clean up your mess immediately after you make it—if you know a little something about, say, stain removal or restoration of one-of-a-kind antique crockery. Otherwise, ask the host for direction, lest you simply help make whatever you’ve done even worse.

When the breakage or spillage or other debacle seems to be your fault, you should offer to pay to make things whole (or beige) again. In worst-case scenarios (like when dry cleaning doesn’t remove a stain), this may mean buying somebody a new pair of pants or financing the reupholstery of the host’s couch. Sometimes, the item won’t be replaceable. In this case, send flowers and a note or try to buy something comparable to make up for whatever you stained or broke.

If you are only partially at fault, you can offer to share in the cost of the replacement. If the contents of your bank account won’t allow for immediate payment of your share, you can offer to pay over time. And, finally, if you are sincere in your offer to pay, you may need to be a bit pushy. If it isn’t feasible to bring them cash, perhaps send a check and call and insist the host cash it. Don’t use a host’s embarrassment at taking money from you as a sneaky way out.

The trade-off in not offering to shell out is a stain on your character—in others’ minds and your own (assuming you don’t have all the conscience of shrubbery). In the long run, doing the right thing—making good on your clumsiness in dollars—will probably cost you far less in social opprobrium and personal self-loathing.

The senseless death of the thank-you note

Somebody spends hours cleaning their house and even more shopping, cooking, and laying out the spread for a party, all of which probably cost them a bunch of money, and your response is … calling out “Bye!” and maybe adding a “Hey, thanks!” as you go out the door? Emailing a thank you the next day is the minimum you should do—and is fine if somebody simply put out beer, chips, veggies, and dip. When somebody has you to dinner, a little more effort seems in order. This isn’t to say that you need to pluck a goose, sharpen a quill into a pen, and write a 1,000-word letter waxing on about the stuffed mushrooms in a spidery longhand. I like to send antique postcards I buy in bulk on eBay (150 for $34 last time I bought ‘em). Best of all, there’s just enough room to scrawl some thanks for the fab grub and maybe an amusing aside. But what the antique postcard lacks in space for verbosity it makes up for in groovy-osity. As the late crime writer Elmore Leonard admiringly put it after he got my postcard thanking him for having me at his Christmas party, “looked like it got lost in the mail for 75 years.”

A FEW WORDS ON THE INVISIBLE MAN

One thing I loved about my late friend Cathy Seipp was that you didn’t need to be socially acceptable to be included in her circle or invited to her parties; you just needed to be interesting and unlikely to set furniture on fire. Cathy understood that the “losers” and oddballs of the world don’t actually have “cooties” or anything else that’s catching. They maybe have Asperger’s syndrome or some undiagnosed lack of social graces—along with some compelling things to say, if only you’ll give them the chance.

If you’re having an intimate dinner party and you want just the right mix of people to keep the conversation flowing and mostly fascinating, it’s understandable that you’d be somewhat particular about whom you invite. And sometimes when you’re at a party, a particular conversation just won’t lend itself to bringing in a total newcomer. But if you’re throwing a big bash or if you’re at an event and spot somebody all alone—shifting on their heels and looking uncomfortable—consider whether you have enough social and psychological capital to be a little more inclusive. Maybe think back to a time when you were the excluded one or the new person walking through the door, not knowing anybody, and how that felt.

I’ve been there. A lot. As the odd kid nobody liked growing up, I was pretty much picked last even for being picked last. The good thing is, that seems to have given me a sort of radar for the excluded and uncomfortably adrift. I say hello, invite them into the conversation, introduce them, see that they aren’t all alone. Doing this for other people also encourages me to do it for myself. Whenever I don’t know anybody at a party or event, I don’t dwell on it; I don’t give in to fear; I change it—as soon as possible—with a smile and a three-word sentence: “Hi, I’m Amy.” Works every time.

What to do when a friend is really, really sick and could maybe even die

“I just want to let everyone know that having cancer hasn’t made me a better person.”

—Cathy Seipp, 1957–2007

As somebody for whom being
mature means resisting the temptation to give the finger in traffic, I’m at a loss for what I should say to you upon learning that you have inoperable cancer or some other terminal or otherwise-horrible illness. Sure, there’s the generic “I’m really sorry”—which seems seriously inadequate, since it’s what I’d say if you had a flat tire.

Take cancer. There are really, really wrong things to say upon hearing somebody’s cancer diagnosis, and lots of people say them. Attempting to relate, they scan their brain for stuff filed under “cancer,” and up pop the chemo horror stories: “Wow, cancer. My friend had cancer and had chemo, and not only did her hair fall out but her head fell off, too!”

Some manage to see the upside in being ravaged by a disease: “I’d give anything to be that thin!” Others root around for something comforting in the spiritual-sayings bin: “You know, they say everything happens for a reason.” Great. Their cancer-stricken friend can’t help but think, “What, God looked at me and thought, ‘You suck, so I’m going to rub you out’?”

Of course, some people are just assholes no matter what the situation. Cancer survivor Rosanne Kalick blogged about a colon cancer patient who had a casual acquaintance ask him about his colostomy bags, “Paper or plastic?”

So, what
should
you say when a friend tells you they have cancer or some other horrible disease?

“I know you can do this,” meaning, “I know you, and I know that whatever comes, you will deal with it.” Don’t say “you’ll be fine,” since you don’t know that they will be.

—Cancer patient Jeanne Sather,
assertivecancerpatient.com

“I’m so sorry this is happening. It could happen to any of us. Life is so unfair sometimes.” This helps remove the blame or shame that people with cancer sometimes feel.

—Cancer survivor Lori Hope, author of
Help Me Live: 20 Things People with Cancer Want You to Know

“You’re very strong. I can’t believe cancer would be dumb enough to try to go after you.”

What I wish I’d said to my late friend Cathy Seipp.

What should you say as your friend’s battling their disease?

Some people will want to talk about it; some won’t. Some will want advice; some won’t. Take your direction from your friend by letting them talk and just listening, by asking what works for them, or by thinking about the kind of person they are.

Mystifyingly, when Cathy was fighting lung cancer, people who knew her well and should have known better would ask me to forward her their suggestions that she eat Tibetan mushrooms or stand on her head and snort dried deer antlers. They meant well, but they weren’t thinking too hard. Cathy was highly rational and a vocal believer in evidence-based Western medicine—the kind dispensed by her Cedars-Sinai cancer specialists, as opposed to the kind dispensed in an Internet forward from somebody who believes that the government faked the moon landing.

On the flip side are patients with some form of cancer that’s been shown to be very curable with chemotherapy, only they’re forgoing it for the recommendations of the girl from the drum circle who works part-time at the health food store. Are you supposed to honor your friend’s belief in tofu enemas as a cancer cure? The answer is, there isn’t one correct answer. It really depends upon the person and the situation. Sometimes it’s an act of friendship to be an asshole and refuse to let somebody die unnecessarily, but it will be a pointless act if they’ll most likely keep doing whatever they were doing but lose you as a friend when they need you most.

What if you say or do the wrong thing?

You’re human. You’re going to say or do something stupid. Just accept that. The worst thing you can do is be so afraid of saying or doing the wrong thing that you do nothing at all. Of course, the most hurtful thing you can do is vanish.

For some, another person’s cancer is the ultimate form of cooties, making them feel suddenly and uncomfortably mortal. Don’t be ashamed if you feel this way. But, admit it to yourself, talk to friends about it, do whatever it takes to resist the urge to make like Jimmy Hoffa and disappear. If you just buck up and go visit the person, you’ll probably find that they want to talk not about cancer but about whatever dumb crap you always talked about before. Ultimately, what you say is a lot less important than what you do. As the old saying about success goes, a lot of being successful in comforting somebody seriously ill is just showing the hell up.

HOW TO BE A FRIEND TO SOMEBODY SERIOUSLY ILL

Avoid nebulous offers to help, like “If there’s anything I can do…”

This is about as helpful as calling them up and
baaah
-ing like a sheep. Instead, be specific: “I’m going to the grocery store. How ’bout I pick you up a roast chicken and some sautéed green beans?” (Find out whether they prefer to be called, texted, or emailed with your request to help.) Ask for their grocery list and about other errands you could run. If they’re too tired to tell you what they need, make your best guess or ask other friends or their family members.