You’re Cutting Into Their Profits

Dear Miss Manners: It seems one cannot go into a restaurant and order a hot dog without being asked if one would like an alcoholic drink.

When I told a waiter that neither my wife nor I felt like a drink (we were going to a movie and did not want to become drowsy), he snatched the wine glasses off the table and went away in a huff.

What is it with these people in the restaurant business? Why do they feel they need an explanation when one turns down an offer to buy a drink?

Gentle Reader: What it is with these people in the restaurant business is that they sell food and drink, and make a tasty profit on the drink.

What Miss Manners needs to remind them is that they also sell atmosphere and service. Huffiness is not good for business.

Neither should hoity-toityness be, but Miss Manners regrets to report that there are a lot of people who like to spend their money to be sniffed at by restaurant personnel.

You are self-respecting enough to dislike it, and Miss Manners suggests you react accordingly.

Dear Miss Manners: I am confused about why heterosexual men feel it is OK to sneer at, belittle, or even threaten other men who express physical attraction for them.

Many of these same men discuss the specific details of their attractions to women in public workplaces, on the bus, or watching movies or TV, and they also feel entitled to mention this directly to the women they find attractive.

So why all the rudeness and intimations of violence when they are treated in an equal manner by gay men who find them attractive?

Is this just another case of our good manners needing to be updated? I think a simple, “No, thank you,” or “Thanks, but I’m not interested” would meet everyone’s need for respect.

Of course, people vary in their feelings about attention from others, but let’s lighten up, guys. It’s not a threat to your manhood if a gay guy tells you he likes you or finds you handsome.

How can gay and straight men best deal with the reality of attraction without resorting to rudeness?

Gentle Reader: Oh, let’s not lighten up. Miss Manners would prefer to go more heavily into the causes of the rude rejection - which (you seem to be unaware) is also common within the heterosexual courtship situation.

In addition, people ought to be flattered when they are found attractive, even by people to whom they are decidedly not attracted. In fact, they are more likely to feel affronted.

They should, of course, control this feeling and decline politely. But the emotional reaction also explains why polite romantic overtures should always be made in a tentative way that allows the object of them to head off a positive declaration of interest before it is made.

You hear these men talking about the times their advances were reciprocated; they don’t tell you about the times it was made clear to them that they were found creepy. But judging from their accounts of showing interest in strangers, this must have happened to them often.

Miss Manners assures you that ladies who are abruptly approached by those in whom they had displayed not even slightly flirtatious interest do not react kindly.

xxxx

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