Miss Manners: One option: stop cooking for preoccupied boyfriend

DEAR MISS MANNERS: Is it rude to leave food getting cold when someone cooks for you?

This is a point of contention between my boyfriend and me. It irritates me to no end when I take the time to make a meal for him, and he lets it sit there getting cold while he does stupid things.

GENTLE READER: Letting one’s food get cold is not, in itself, an etiquette violation. The “stupid things” may be.

Examples include leaving the table during a meal without a good excuse, answering emails instead of engaging in conversation and arranging stick-figure scenes with your green beans.

Miss Manners notes that the reward for changing those behaviors will be lively conversation that will bring you closer together. Assuming the conversation was not the stupid thing.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: After a death in my family, I appreciated that friends of mine attended the funeral. But I was surprised when one friend questioned me – twice – on whether a lunch would be provided.

I told her beforehand, and again the day of, that it would not be, but that she could stop by the family house for a snack and a chat if she’d like.

She seemed to find it rude that we had not arranged for the entire group to have lunch together. I did not return any argument. I just reissued the offer to stop at my house. I was raised that people brought food for the bereaved because they were too upset to cook, and that the food was for the family and out-of-towners, not a catered buffet.

Fast-forward two weeks. The same friend had a parent die. She went out of her way to tell me that she was welcoming everyone to a local restaurant. I thanked her, but said I couldn’t come that afternoon. I would see her at calling hours and the funeral.

I went to calling hours and to the funeral, got flowers, and sent a small deli assortment to her house. She was not satisfied that I didn’t come to the buffet. Again, I didn’t return arguments, just said I was sorry that I had other plans (like still mourning my own relative).

Did I behave as poorly, as she seems to think? I didn’t in any way criticize her mourning ritual, and I tried to be thoughtful, but I didn’t go to the luncheon. Is a luncheon for all of the guests at the funeral (even in-town folks) now assumed to be a regular function that mourners should assume? If that’s the case, I’ll save up and make myself do it the next time.

GENTLE READER: Multiple and complex cultural customs – as well as an unseemly societal haste to get funerals over with so people can proceed to something more fun – confound expectations surrounding internment. The tradition you describe is that associated with the home visit.

Miss Manners makes allowances for different forms of observance. She would expect friends to do no less – and scrupulously to observe the normal ban on correcting another person’s manners – at such a time.