Return Stony-Faced Look, Not Laugh

Dear Miss Manners: My partner and I are attractive, vivacious women. When we encounter people in casual social situations, it does not occur to them that we could be a couple. This puts us in an awkward situation when someone feels free to make derogatory remarks about gays or lesbians that are presented as jokes.

The last time that occurred, my partner and I simply got up and left. We feel, however, that this is an inadequate response.

Gentle Reader: Inadequate in what sense? There are other ways of dealing with personally insulting bigotry, but Miss Manners hopes you don’t mean that you want a harsher method, because there isn’t one.

Not having the power to impose fines and jail sentences, etiquette deals with the most severe cases of rudeness by shunning people - cutting them, walking out on them, refusing to acknowledge their existence. This may sound wimpy, but she assures you that it is a fierce weapon.

It is therefore usually considered too fierce for first-time transgressors, especially when stupid jokes are involved. In a casual situation where you are not well known, you may not even be certain that the offenders are not gay themselves and thus feel entitled to make insider jokes.

A less severe way to register disapproval is to refuse to recognize the joke. To return a stony-faced look instead of the expected laugh, with or without the remark that you are gay, should be enough to warn and perhaps educate someone who may be rude without being a committed bigot.

Dear Miss Manners: I was invited to a bridal shower honoring the daughter of a friend. Because my gift was modest, I took particular care in wrapping the present attractively. I arrived with the idea that my gift would convey to the young lady how much I cared because of how much thought and imagination had gone into wrapping it.

I barely got one foot into the door when the package was snatched from my hands and I was escorted into a receiving line. I greeted the bride-to-be, thinking that my gift was being placed where she would later open it. Imagine my horror when I saw my unwrapped gift on a display table with all the other opened gifts. I did not want to create a scene and spoil the party, so I said nothing.

Later, I took the “head hostess” aside and explained how upset I was. She seemed surprised and explained that it is the custom in that small town for the hostess to take the gifts to a back room, open them and then place them on a display table. She said there are just too many gifts to expect that the bride-to-be would have time to open them herself.

It seems to me that displaying the wrapped presents would be fine if the honoree does not have the time to open them immediately. The idea that everyone should need to know exactly what was received and from whom is akin to gossip. Am I alone in thinking this inappropriate?

Gentle Reader: There were too many people at this shower.

Miss Manners is a bit weary of hearing about how rough life is for brides because their friends insist upon giving them presents.

Pleas to let them off from expressing thanks, or lessening the burden by requiring the guests to address envelopes to themselves did nothing to move her stony heart. Having lots of generous friends should only infuse one with energetic gratitude.

Now here is the plea that opening presents is too much of a burden. Too bad. The only solution is to refrain from burdening such a person with presents in the future.