You Should Repent, Apologize, Reform
Dear Miss Manners: Eight months ago, my stepsister, who I haven’t seen in two years due to bad relations with her parents, came to live with us when her mother died.
I hate her, to be blunt. We fight all the time and we never agree on anything. I am a churchgoing Christian and attend a Christian school, and am usually a good person, but this is the exception.
She annoys me and hates me, too. I am both of my parents’ pride and joy - they love me more than any of my other sisters. My parents give me more things than her. This summer I went to a very expensive camp. She was very mad and does not understand why I get to do more. My GPA is 4.0.
She gets on my nerves and does stuff that she knows will make me mad. I do very mean things to her and sabotage everything that she does.
Last night I told her things about her mother that I was told never to tell her. She almost had a nervous breakdown. She cried for hours and has not come out of her room. Not even for meals. My parents think that her friends told her. I did not get in any trouble for this.
Lately I have been feeling very good about this and about the other things that I have been doing to her. I am tired of fighting with her. What do you think that I should do?
Gentle Reader: All right, you asked:
Repent. Apologize. Reform.
And proofread. Miss Manners fervently hopes that the absence of the word “not” in your declaration about feeling good is an oversight. (She has already generously assumed that the spelling mistakes she quietly corrected in your letter are the result of emotion or haste, not a sample of what earned you a GPA of 4.0.)
But even if you take pride in having triumphed through meanness, as you do in your parents’ unfortunate partisanship, you are making as much trouble for yourself as for your stepsister.
You are developing nasty habits that will affect other relationships in your life. For starters, you have already betrayed the confidence of your devoted and indulgent parents, even though they don’t yet realize this.
Perhaps more dangerously, you have put yourself in the position of living with an enemy. If your conscience does not trouble you, your self-interest should.
Miss Manners does not recommend rehashing faults and grievances, which would only have the effect of rekindling them. It would be enough to declare that you are sorry for your own behavior and would like to propose a truce.
Your stepsister will probably not trust you at first; indeed, you make an excellent case for her not doing so. But if you are able to refrain from meanness and maintain a friendly posture, perhaps she will come around.
Dear Miss Manners: What exactly is expected when one invites people to a party or dinner and RSVP is stated by a certain date? I was recently stood up by several friends who never called, nor appeared at a luncheon I was giving. When I called them to find out why, they stated they interpreted RSVP to mean they only had to respond if they were going to attend. I’m very upset and insulted. I always thought RSVP meant “please respond” or “respond if you please.” Either way, to me it means respond one way or the other. Who’s right?
Gentle Reader: Your friends flunk French, as well as manners. “RSVP” stands for “Repondez s’il vous plait,” and the fact that the French take three words to say “please” does not mean that it may be interpreted as “if you feel like it.”
Next time, you should use the English phrase, “The favor of a reply is requested,” although Miss Manners cannot imagine why you would want to invite these people next time.
The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Judith Martin United Features Syndicate