Being Called Names

I give significant amounts of money to a private high school for inner-city kids. The man I deal with is a nice guy, but he always gets my first name wrong. (We are in contact two or three times a year.) I’ve corrected him three or four times before, and we’ve laughed about the mistake. I don’t want to keep correcting him, because it’s going to make him feel bad, but not correcting him means that eventually he’s going to figure out he’s been using the wrong name for years. What should I do?

R.G. in Baltimore

Does he always call you by the same wrong name, or by different ones? I had a classmate in graduate school named Laura whom I always called Dawn. After a semester or two, I got it straight, but until I did, she was awfully good-natured about it. I asked her once why she never got annoyed or corrected me, and she said, "Well, whenever you say ‘Dawn,’ I know you’re talking to me." I’d suggest you talk to Mr. Wrongname and have the issue out once and for all. You can say something like: "Listen, my name is R.G., but you’ve been calling me S.G. for three years now. I’m going to stop correcting you because it’s starting to feel really silly after all this time, and, anyway, it doesn’t bother me that much. However, if you introduce me as S.G. in front of other people, I’ll have to let them know you got it wrong, so don’t be embarrassed, OK?"

I’m assuming from the tone of your letter that, like Laura/Dawn, you’re not terribly irritated by the fact that someone gets your name wrong. If you are bothered, then take a slightly sterner tone (but not so stern that he’ll lose sleep thinking he’s endangering the school’s funding because of his bad memory). Make, and ask him to make, whatever little adjustments are necessary to ensure that this doesn’t happen again: He can write your name down before he calls you; you can make sure you introduce yourself first at social functions.

My daughter has been invited to a friend’s bat mitzvah. The daylong event includes a ceremony at the temple, a lunch, and a nighttime reception. What is a proper bat mitzvah gift? What is the dress code?

M.H. in Brookline

I checked with a friend whose daughter celebrated her own bat mitzvah last year, which means all her daughters’ friends celebrated theirs as well, which means my friend is by now quite a veteran of the bar/bat mitzvah scene. Here’s what my mitzvah maven had to say about gifts: "From personal experience, the amount of the gift depends on how close a friend it is. If the girl is not too close a friend, kid-to-kid gifts tended to be around $36. If it were a close friend, a lot of the girls gave jewelry." She noted that necklaces costing around $40 to $50 are popular, and that sometimes groups of friends would pool their money to buy a larger gift.

If your daughter gives a gift certificate, it’s a well-known Jewish custom to give amounts in multiples of 18 (hence the $36 mentioned above). In Hebrew, the word for "eighteen" is the numeric equivalent of the word for "life," so 18 and its multiples are considered a way of conveying good wishes.

My bat mitzvah mom had this to say about clothing: "Kids usually wore a skirt or more casual dress for the service and luncheon. Even for kids, covered shoulders in temple are a must – a lot of the girls wore shrugs or wraps. For a nighttime party, a second outfit is needed (heaven forbid you wear the same outfit to both!). A teenage-style ‘cocktail’ dress or dressy skirt set is appropriate." Your daughter needn’t wear a head covering. If the synagogue is one in which women and men are both expected to cover their heads, yarmulkes will be provided.

When I meet new people, they often ask where I’m from, and I tell them Connecticut. Some people reply with what I consider an appropriate response, such as "My brother lives there" or "It’s beautiful there in the fall." But every now and then I hear a snide comment, such as "Connecticut, huh? You [and/or your parents] must be rich." (For the record, my family falls somewhere in the middle of the income scale.) How would you respond?

J.B. in Medford

I would probably respond with a kind of snort-chortle through my nose, best phonetically written as "schnorkle," and then an emphatic "Shee-yeah right!" Then I would change the subject. Of course it’s rude for people to make comments like this, but try to be compassionate. They’re not insulting you, or at least not meaning to. What they are doing is exposing their own sense of inadequacy and (misplaced) envy in a way that is more psychologically revealing than they realize. So don’t take advantage of their vulnerability. Brush off their silly questions as though they amuse rather than annoy you, and you’ll be showing real class.

Miss Conduct is Robin Abrahams, a Cambridge-based writer with a PhD in psychology.