The Fog of War
When you're caught in the middle of feuding friends, plus the necessity of e-mail subject lines.
For more than 10 years my husband and I have been good friends with three other couples, celebrating many occasions together. Last year two of the couples had a falling out and are still not on speaking terms. One couple refuses to attend any event where the other is present. This has made it difficult for us and the fourth couple, as we would like to remain friends with everyone. How can this be handled without hurting someone's feelings? C.G. / Boston
I'm so sorry for you to be trapped in someone else's drama like this. The kind of relationship you describe before the schism sounds wonderful, the stuff of movies. It must be a dreadful pain to have lost it.
It sounds as though you haven't taken sides, and I'm going to assume that this is a situation where neutrality is a moral option. It isn't always. If one couple defrauded the other of their retirement savings, say, then your support ought to go to Mr. and Mrs. Vic, not Mr. and Mrs. Perp. But if whatever happened is in a grayer area than that, it seems that a major factor is that one of the feuding couples has turned it into a with-us-or-against-us situation, and the other has not. They (the Hardliners) want you to break things off entirely with the other couple (the Middleroaders), while the Middleroaders are willing to be polite in public and not make things even more horribly awkward for the rest of you.
Sit down with the other neutral couple to discuss the situation; it will be better if the four of you present a united front. There won't be a way to make everyone comfortable, I'm afraid. But you should be explicit with both the Middleroaders and the Hardliners that you intend to maintain your relationships with both of them and that you will not be choosing sides. Let them know that everyone will continue to be invited to group events, and it is up to them to decide whether to attend. And have smaller get-togethers, occasionally, with just the Hardliners or just the Middleroaders. If you're lucky, the feud will fade over time. If not, at least you will know that you were honest and honorable and did not allow yourself to be manipulated.
I'm a junior in college and a leader of a few campus clubs. After receiving several e-mails that lacked subject lines from freshman members, I requested that they get in the habit of including them. One student was annoyed by my request. Was it reasonable to ask, or is my issue with subject lines merely a pet peeve that I need to get over? J.B. / Norton
You are being entirely reasonable, and I commend you both for your e-mail practices and your leadership skills. Whatever your campus clubs are ostensibly about (politics, sports, arts, or what have you), the real purpose of extracurriculars is to give students practice in working in groups, managing projects, and learning effective communication. So good for you in stepping up to the plate.
Sending work-related e-mails without a subject header is both rude and inefficient. It can also backfire on the sender if the recipient assumes "Oh, this must just be something casual" and therefore doesn't read or respond to the e-mail in a timely fashion. (I'm not suggesting you do this once or twice to teach anyone a lesson, understand . . . just that, theoretically, it could happen. Oh, yes, it could.)
For more on e-mail etiquette, I highly recommend Send: Why People Email So Badly and How to Do It Better, by David Shipley and Will Schwalbe. You'd think it would be a dry topic, but the authors are wonderful, and the book is a fast and fun read packed with good advice.
Miss Conduct is Robin Abrahams, a Cambridge-based writer with a PhD in psychology.
