Lovers Should Keep Affections Private

Dear Miss Manners: What is your opinion of couples kissing in public places?

I have a distant relative in his 60s, who is living with a much younger woman. The couple seem to feel it necessary to hug and kiss frequently while visiting family and friends, much to the embarrassment of those of us who are forced to watch. The same kind of behavior goes on also in stores or other public places.

Does this public display of affection come under the heading of bad manners?

Gentle Reader: Yes. It’s in a division of Bad Manners called Showing Off, and a sub-division of that called No Two People Have Ever Been So in Love.

All people newly in love suffer from the delusion that they excite envy in the rest of the world, whose emotions (and resulting actions) are pallid in comparison. And for some reason, those who believe their romances defy tradition - usually because they are illicit, but also, as in this case, because of so simple a matter as a large age difference - seem to be particularly susceptible.

Miss Manners does not begrudge them this fantasy, as long as they don’t put it to the test by making others their audience. That is bad from the couple’s point of view, as well as being bad manners.

This is because audiences develop critical opinions about what they see. Far from being stunned that they are witnessing the romance of the century, the onlookers may well be thinking, “Eeew, how can she bear to kiss him?” or “What in the world does he see in her?”

Dear Miss Manners: At dinner this evening, as we sat down at the table to eat our dessert, my father started to butter his cupcake. I looked at him strangely.

After I queried his doing, both he and my mother insisted it was perfectly normal. I told them it was like buttering birthday cake and it was disgusting. They both insisted that it was a perfectly normal thing to do.

I said, “But you are not supposed to butter cupcakes.” But my mother said, “You pour milk on your pie.”

I did not know what to say. Maybe it is because I am still only a child that I do not see the point of putting butter on cupcakes. Do you pour milk on your pie? Do you put feta and cheddar cheese on your spaghetti? Do you butter your cupcakes? What is acceptable?

Gentle Reader: Not using the word “disgusting” in connection with your father, Miss Manners is afraid. Aside from that, however, one may sometimes indulge generally unacceptable tastes in the bosom of the family.

Miss Manners is not making culinary judgments here. If she were, she might ask you whether you ever butter muffins in the morning, and how many ingredients in a sweet muffin differ from those in a cupcake.

Nevertheless, you are right that the habit is not customary, and therefore from a manners point of view it would be rude to startle others with it.

Do not expect to find any logic in such customs. Grated cheese is customary on spaghetti, and you can probably manage to grate some cheddar, but not feta. A slight amount of cream is considered acceptable on apple pie, but not on lemon meringue.

Dear Miss Manners: Is it acceptable or not to dip ice from my water glass with my spoon and put ice into my wine glass at my evening meal? I have seen this done. Is it OK or rude?

Gentle Reader: You must also have met the gentleman who told Miss Manners his secret for drinking champagne all day without getting drunk - an ice cube in each glass. He wasn’t what you would call sober when he explained this, but then it was already 10 in the morning, and she probably should have caught him earlier.

As a matter of etiquette, the practice doesn’t stand up much better under scrutiny, but Miss Manners wouldn’t actually call it rude if it is done inconspicuously.

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