Ignore Inquiry, Change Subject

Dear Miss Manners: People think “Where are you from?” is a great opening line for conversation, but I’d rather have my tooth pulled out than answer.

I was born in Yugoslavia, and although English is my second language, I speak it quite well. However, I have a foreign accent, and it’s making my life miserable. After the original question, there are several places the conversation can go, and I hate them all equally:

“Yugoslavia - oh, that’s near Russia.” (Of course - the same continent.)

“Oh, that’s in the Eastern Bloc!” (It never was.)

“Oh, that’s the place where the war was. Were you there during the war? Where are your parents? Who are the good guys over there? How is it there now? Do they have food? Do you know anyone who was killed?” (Yes, my best friend.)

I don’t have a desire to educate unknown people about the geopolitics of the Balkans, and I don’t feel like sharing personal information until I get to know them better. But I don’t know how to stop the storm of questions and let them know it is a sensitive matter that I don’t feel like talking about.

Although I wasn’t there during the war, it brings back so many painful memories that I hate to think about Yugoslavia, let alone discuss it, especially with people who are asking out of curiosity alone.

I have received these questions from everyone, ranging from my boss’ boss to the waiter in a restaurant. How do I defend myself in a polite way, in a range of social situations?

Gentle reader: It is not an attack, although Miss Manners will leap in and defend you.

It is a conversation opener. Being a mobile people, Americans consider “Where are you from?” to be a less intrusive inquiry than the next most popular ones, which are “What do you do?” and “Where did you get those shoes?”

But any apparently bland question can be offensive in particular cases. Miss Manners knows of people who have vowed never again to ask “How’s your family?” after finding they have angered those who divested themselves of their spouses since the last meeting.

To deflect an unwelcome conversation opener, ignore it and substitute another one - “Funny, I was just wondering where you are from. I can’t quite tell from your voice.”

Dear Miss Manners: You say that everyone is free to invite whomever he wishes to his home, but this can lead to a lot of discomfort for other members of the family.

Someone should set the standards for the kind of behavior that is to be expected of guests both in the home and out of it. I think this is the prerogative of the people who maintain the place of living - those who do the work and earn the money. The house is their refuge, their castle, the surroundings from which they offer renewal and pleasure to others.

The standard-setters are usually parents. Their children should fit in with their mother’s and father’s wishes or leave. I expect you believe much the same, as our backgrounds are similar.

Gentle reader: Then the foregrounds must be different.

Miss Manners sadly suspects that what is looming in yours is a grown-up child or two who is letting rudeness into the house. And indeed, that should not be.

But things have come to a pretty pass when the parents threaten to expel the child from the family household and use their earning power as a justification.

Parents are supposed to set the standards of acceptable behavior for young children and their guests because it is their job as parents to provide such guidance. A grown child may decide to live by different standards, but has the obligation to spare the parents from changing their lives if he cannot persuade them to change their outlook.