Dodge, Then Go For A Fast Break

Dear Miss Manners: I am 6 feet 5 inches tall, which is considered tall for a woman. I do not, nor have I ever had, any interest in playing or even watching basketball games.

Why do people just assume I played basketball in school?

While grocery shopping, a store clerk - total stranger - introduced herself and began informing me how short her daughter was and how much her daughter loved to play basketball and did I have any insights that might encourage her toward her goal.

I looked at this woman like she was insane, said no to all her questions about playing or watching basketball. She ignored this and continued rattling on for at least 10 more minutes. What should have been a quick run to the store became a 15-minute inquisition.

I realize some people are fascinated with my height, but to make assumptions and impose boring prattle on someone is downright rude.

Gentle Reader: An amazing number of people seem to think it amusing to play word association with strangers. Yet there is hardly a surer way to bore and/or offend people than to pick their most obvious characteristic and free-associate about it.

Miss Manners regrets that you are subject to such blather, but while she will not permit you to respond rudely, she does not require you to stand there for 15 minutes enduring it.

She gives you full permission to break in at the first sign and say, “I’m afraid you must have mistaken me for someone else. I know nothing about basketball, and I have no idea what made you think I did.”

Dear Miss Manners: A hostess will often set out things such as mixed nuts or salads. Is it mannerly to pick out just one of the ingredients to eat, such as most of the tomatoes from the salad, or the cashews from the nut bowl, leaving behind the peanuts for everyone else?

Gentle Reader: It is unmannerly to be caught picking out just one of the ingredients to eat, thus implying that the total dish was not fit and that one is taking all the best parts, leaving others the rejects.

Miss Manners trusts that you have noted her wording. There are ways of doing this without being caught.

It is not unmannerly to pick out one or two cashews daintily, eat them, pretend to be engrossed elsewhere and then, after a decent pause, to repeat the process. Nor is it unmannerly to take two tomatoes without lettuce or whatever wild growths one finds in salads these days, and later to take two more tomatoes for seconds.

What is piggy is the obvious maneuver of stirring a finger in the nuts or poking with a fork in the salad looking for goodies.

Dear Miss Manners: Is it improper for me to invite my family and friends to my third wedding?

The first wedding was semiformal, when I was 18 and married a man I knew only four months. The marriage lasted two months; I left when I caught him cheating. My entire family and friends attended. At the second wedding, only a handful attended.

I was brought up believing that marriage is forever, and I believe this one is. I have no doubts about this man, as I did with the prior two. I don’t expect gifts, I just want them to share my day.

Gentle Reader: You put it so nicely that you inspire Miss Manners to share your feelings. And in fact doing so is the basis of her ruling.

The test is: Will these people share your feelings and sit still for such a ceremony once again? If you have reason to believe so, invite them to your final wedding.

xxxx

The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Judith Martin United Features Syndicate