When I tell people that I work as an etiquette columnist, generally the response is excitement – and a lot more questions. Is it really always necessary to write thank-you letters? (Answer: Yes, but not so often that you sound like a broken record.) Do I know the correct way to fasten medals? (Yes.) Is Twitter bad form? (Nope, but public exhibitionism is.) What’s the point of manners these days, anyway?
People ask me the last one so often that I’m going to devote a column to it now.
Admit it – when you think ‘etiquette’, you think Emily Post, gloves and hats, conversing with dukes and four dozen varieties of tableware. That, or you just think of the scene in Pretty Woman where Julia Roberts shoots a snail halfway across the room. It’s archaic, stodgy, anti-feminist and utterly irrelevant in this modern, free-flowing world. Right?
Well, no. Not really.
Manners used to be a way of determining class – whether you’d been ‘raised correctly’. This, of course, is total bollocks nowadays, unless you’re looking to pull a Princess Mary (and to be honest, she just went to etiquette classes so she wouldn’t peeve judgemental foreign royals at dinners – he liked her just the way she was.)
These days, a lot of the old rules are, very deservedly, gone. Opening doors to women is unnecessary when women open their own damn doors, and weddings have become so awesomely diverse that you’re just as likely to register for a donation to Haiti – or to the gay marriage campaign – as for silverware. ‘Reputation’ died with Joan Jett’s guitar riff. It’s perfectly OK to be friendly with superiors, swear, have one-night stands and sit in gutters eating watermelon – in fact, it’s kind of excellent.
So what’s been retained? The bits which show you’ve got consideration for other people. And not just in the ‘play by her rules when Grandma visits’ way, either. To have manners, these days, means to be a person who respects others and can handle situations smoothly. ‘Please’ and ‘thank you’ are just words: etiquette is an attitude.
That’s what lies behind all these step-by-step rules on how to handle dinner parties, office dilemmas and recalcitrant relatives. Everybody, when it comes down to it, is a diplomat sometimes, and manners are a diplomat’s biggest weapon. They’re a way of being assertive and in control without treading on toes – and if you want to stand out, trust me, it’s a skill set you need.
So! Hopefully that’s the question answered. Now, if you want to know how to fasten medals, let me know.
Yours sincerely,
Miss Manners