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#Post#: 2224--------------------------------------------------
Miss Manners: Accept the Date or Forgo the Event
DIR By: Nerdling
Date: March 22, 2012, 10:43 am
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You know, I have my moments where I disagree with Miss Manners,
but I usually reserve my "What the everloving ?!?!" moments for
Ask Prudie. So I almost did a double-take to check who I was
reading (and what the year was) when I read Miss Manners's
response to the first letter this morning. You see, according
to her, a young woman must accept the first young man who asks
her to prom or she shouldn't go to prom at all. Never mind what
kind of guy he is or if she has plans to ask a different guy
herself or if she wants to go with a group of girlfriends.
Because, apparently, the only reason any high school girl would
ever turn down a high school boy's request to go to prom is
because he is unpopular, and unpopular boys grow up to be
successful men, and we wouldn't want to miss out on our
opportunity to date a future successful man, now would we?
Would it be rude to smack Miss Manners upside the head and
remind her that this isn't 1512?
HTML http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/miss-manners-high-school-slights-can-last-a-lifetime/2012/03/01/gIQAzRvOSS_story.html
#Post#: 2233--------------------------------------------------
Re: Miss Manners: Accept the Date or Forgo the Event
DIR By: PaulTate
Date: March 22, 2012, 2:21 pm
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I agree: it's totally ridiculous.
First of all, it's the 21st century and whatever etiquette rules
are applied to women/girls, ought to be applied equally to
men/boys.
If one person asks another to go as their date to a social
event, the invitee ought to be free to accept or decline based
on their preference. If they choose to provide any reason to
decline, they could just say "I already have other plans."
For all the inviter knows, those other plans might be to go with
a group of people, or as someone else's date.
#Post#: 2234--------------------------------------------------
Re: Miss Manners: Accept the Date or Forgo the Event
DIR By: Izzy
Date: March 22, 2012, 4:00 pm
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What grates me most about this is her condescending admonishment
at the end "There is another lesson you might give, even though
she will not believe it. That is that some law of nature makes
the least popular boy in high school into the most desirable man
later in life, yet, no matter how successful and glamorous he
has become, makes him remember and continue to smart from having
been slighted."
I am all about searching for "inner beauty" and falling in love
with a personality and whatnot, but I'll be damned if I'm going
to encourage a girl to go to a dance with someone she actively
dislikes on the off chance that he might become "successful and
glamorous" sometime in the future. Who cares if you don't like
him? He's rich! Go on, be his arm candy.
No.
#Post#: 2238--------------------------------------------------
Re: Miss Manners: Accept the Date or Forgo the Event
DIR By: Jabberwock
Date: March 22, 2012, 7:12 pm
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It's terrible advice, and it also directly contradicts advice
she's given in the past. Besides, who's to say that it's the
shy, unpopular boy who's getting turned down? I knew more than
one athletic, popular guy who was also smarmy and obnoxious, and
I wouldn't have gone to the prom with them either.
#Post#: 2239--------------------------------------------------
Re: Miss Manners: Accept the Date or Forgo the Event
DIR By: Nerdling
Date: March 22, 2012, 8:16 pm
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But didn't you know, Izzy? That's all we members of the fairer
sex are good for: eye candy. *rolls eyes*
Someone suggested that this response was the result of really
poor editing, but how in the world do you get to this point in
editing something and publish it without reading it and saying,
"Hmmm, maybe that doesn't say what we thought it says anymore"?
And what did they do, cut out some sentences, throw the rest in
a hat, and draw them at random?
#Post#: 2256--------------------------------------------------
Re: Miss Manners: Accept the Date or Forgo the Event
DIR By: TychaBrahe
Date: March 23, 2012, 5:21 pm
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I posted this at the site, and I'll repeat it here. I believe
Miss Manners is misinterpreting advice written elsewhere.
If a woman is at an event, and a man approaches her and says,
"May I have this dance?" and she refuses, then it has
traditionally been considered rude to accept another man's
invitation to dance that song. To sit out the song suggests
that she is tired, or wishes to chat, or whatever. To refuse
one person's invitation and accept another's suggests that she
is refusing the person, not just the chance to dance with him.
Of course, in these types of situations, dancing was seen as a
social thing, not as a romantic thing, so one often danced with
gentlemen to whom one was not romantically attracted.
#Post#: 2261--------------------------------------------------
Re: Miss Manners: Accept the Date or Forgo the Event
DIR By: StacheBandit
Date: March 23, 2012, 8:20 pm
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Totally agree with you all. Normally I think Miss Manners
strikes a good balance between etiquette and common sense, but
she got this one wrong and revealed a little too much about her
personal biases here. Automatically assuming that the young
lady would only turn down the shy geeky kid, or that geeky =
unattractive, is outdated and inaccurate. She got this one
wrong.
#Post#: 2296--------------------------------------------------
Re: Miss Manners: Accept the Date or Forgo the Event
DIR By: sterling
Date: March 25, 2012, 1:01 pm
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When I was a senior I had a graduation dance coming up. A guy I
barely knew and who didn't attend my school asked me. I said
no. I didn't know the guy and something about him bothered me.
I planned to go with friends and no date. The guy called when I
wasn't home and somehow my mother started talking to him and
decided I would be going to the dance with him since it was rude
of me to turn him down and go alone.
Well the guy turned out to be a drug dealer who couldn't keep
his hands to himself. When I refused to make out with him right
there in the middle of the room with my parents chaperoning the
dance he called me all manner of dirty names and finally ditched
me. My mother then grounded me for having behaved like that and
embarrassing her. Somehow it became my fault that he was
groping me in public and other chaperones were talking about it.
No one should be forced to spend time with someone they don't
want to. Women have found themselves in some really bad
situations, including being beaten and raped, because they were
taught it was rude to turn down a date.
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