Getting Close to Strangers

I recently went to a play where I had seats in the middle of the theater. When I was scooting by the other people in my row, should I have faced toward them or away? I tried both ways before and after the intermission. Facing toward seemed more polite but also felt too intimate. Sidling by people with my backside in their faces seemed rude. What do you suggest?

R.C. in Brookline

I would suggest that theaters be designed with sufficient legroom so that you could simply walk down the row without any contortions required of you or the already-seated playgoers, but that doesn’t seem likely to happen anytime soon. Until it does, the custom is to face away from the other people while sidling and muttering your apologetic way toward your seat.

My son and his fiancee attend graduate school and live together in another state. My husband and I feel strongly that today’s lavish weddings that cause the couple and/or their parents to go into debt are a travesty. The girl’s parents evidently don’t feel the same way and have pledged up to $15,000 for the big day. I don’t think they can afford this any more than we can. How do we go about contributing much less and not look as if we’re being mean and miserly?

P.M. in Newton

Give as much as you are comfortable giving and no more. This isn’t akin to some employer-sponsored charity drive in which one party is supposed to match the contributions of the other. Traditionally, the groom’s parents don’t contribute anything to the wedding except the groom. Today, the bill splitting is more egalitarian and practical, and the couple themselves and either set(s) of parents are free to contribute to the festivities in whatever way makes sense. Your contribution isn’t a failure to match up; it’s a positive donation to your son’s wedding day. Frame it as “We’d love to give you X,” not “We’re giving you $10,000 less than Sally’s folks did – sorry.” Don’t apologize for how much you are or are not giving. Gifts are gifts, and as such are freely given.

Though you are not obligated to contribute beyond your means or desires, you are obligated to hold your tongue about how other people wish to spend their money. So no preaching to the bride’s parents about the evils of the wedding-industrial complex or the horror of debt. They don’t get to call you stingy; you don’t get to call them profligate. Going into debt for your child’s wedding may be foolish, but starting a feud with your child’s future in-laws is far more so.

A friend was describing the work of a local artist and switched the pronoun from “he” to “she.” I was puzzled, and then my friend said the artist had undergone an operation to become a woman. We agreed the use of pronouns is difficult here: She should now be a “she,” but if she did a work of art while a man, is it right to say that “he” did it? My friend said the artist prefers to be thought of as always having been a woman, but this could get confusing. If my friend were to tell a story about the artist when they were both little boys playing, his story would come across differently if I thought he was good friends with a little girl rather than a boy. What is the general rule here?

J.H. in Boston

The general rule is that you refer to and address people as they wish to be referred to and addressed, within reason. (For a woman to wish to be referred to as “she” is reasonable; for her to wish to be addressed as “Reverend Duchess Shandalaya, Mistress of Destiny” is not. Except perhaps on very special occasions.) Transsexuals don’t see themselves as people who have gotten a sex change; they see themselves as people who have, later in life than they might have wished, been able to match their biology to the sex they identified with all along. So while it may seem to you that Local Artist did a work of art while a man, Local Artist almost certainly thinks of all her works as having been done by a woman, and Local Artist’s perspective is the one that matters here. Therefore “she” is always an appropriate reference regardless of what Local Artist may have looked like during the period your friend is talking about.

But perhaps, as you say, your friend is telling a story that really would sound odd if the listener didn’t know that Local Artist was born male – something that would, say, involve the phrase “So she and I were showering together after gym class.” In this case, the friend could continue with “she” but toss in an addendum: “So she and I were at Boy Scouts one day – oh, Local Artist was born biologically male – and the scout leader said to her . . . .” A more sensible solution, however, would be to avoid telling new friends stories about old friends in which the old friend’s gender is a crucial plot point. This is the case whether the old friend is a transsexual or not.

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