When Friends Fail to Entertain and Atheists and Others Sneeze
My husband and I, both in our 40s, like to have other couples over occasion- ally for dinner. I'm a decent cook, and both of us enjoy getting to know people with broad interests and backgrounds. However, we are rarely invited to others' homes in return. Is it that people don't have the time to entertain, or do you think something else is afoot?
J.M. /// Harvard
This often happens to my husband and me, too. Tell you what, J.M.: You come to our place for dinner some night, and then we'll go to yours. If we figure out what it is you're doing wrong, we'll tell you, and you promise to do the same for us, you hear?
Of course, I suspect you're doing nothing wrong. According to the etiquette books, invitations are supposed to operate on a quid pro quo basis, but it never seems to work out that way. Especially not for people with broad interests and backgrounds, who need time to pursue those interests and cope with the baggage from those backgrounds. And who may also pressure themselves to entertain with domestic-goddess panache and may start to plan a dinner only to realize that they don't have any red-wine goblets, just white-wine ones, and the toilet in the downstairs bathroom still doesn't flush quite right, and they never did learn how to use that bread machine, which means they can't serve those stylish homemade rosemary-infused dinner rolls the way they'd like to. By this time, they just want to lie down somewhere dark and quiet and not talk to anyone.
I find it useful, when courting new friends, to plan on a two-to-one ratio, more or less, of my invites to theirs for the first year. (Extend this period or increase the ratio if the new friends have some overwhelming project like a kitchen to remodel or a baby to tend or a dissertation to avoid. But not too much, or you might be foisting yourself on someone who doesn't want your friendship but is too polite, or cheap, to turn down a meal offer.) Busy people need a fair amount of time before a new friendship becomes habit. And relationships need time to get to the point where neither party feels the need to impress the other, a pressure that can make entertaining more of a chore than a delight. So be generous with new friends during this period, knowing that once the friendship is off and running, the tit-for-tat takes care of itself.
What is the proper response when a stranger, co-worker, or acquaintance near me sneezes? Is it OK to say "Bless you" even if I don't know that person's religious preference? What if I offend an atheist by trying to be polite?
B.P. /// Salem
It's lovely that you're so concerned with the feelings of atheists, since many people these days seem to assume that atheists don't have feelings. But you're on safe ground with "Bless you." You'll note that the phrase doesn't state whose blessing is being invoked. The sneezer is at perfect liberty to imagine that he or she is being blessed by Yahweh, Krishna, Buddha, or, for that matter, you, since you're the one who said it. And avoiding "God bless you" is generally wise. Sometimes that phrase can prick the sensibilities of believers, who might feel you are taking the Lord's name in vain. And if all these theological subtleties are enough to make you stick with "Gesundheit" or the more typically Bostonian "Hey, don't point that thing at me, I just got over a cold last week," I can't blame you a bit.
Miss Conduct is Robin Abrahams, a visiting professor of psychology at Emmanuel College in Boston. She has a PhD in human development.
