Relax!
Don't go to so much trouble!
Why don't you use plastic glasses?
Take off your jacket!
Why don't you use paper napkins?
Don't be so formal!
Sit down!
Why don't you use paper plates?
You don't have to impress us!
Guests who make such remarks to their hosts must fondly imagine the effect they produce:
"Whew," the host must think. "I don't have to strain myself pretending to be something I'm not. These people love me just as I am, without all this fancy stuff."
Or maybe not. Miss Manners is afraid that the effect might be more like this:
"Try and do something nice for people, and look what you get. They come into my house, call me pretentious to my face, criticize my stuff, complain about the way I do things, bark orders at me and try to foist their own slobby standards on me. How would they like it if I came to their houses and suggested they try a little harder?"
Yet the Etiquette-Busters are out in full force. If they attack their own friends who are in the very act of showing them hospitality, you can imagine that no one is safe. Not even little children, whom they taunt for politeness and tempt to rudeness:
Did your mother make you wear that?
Don't call me Mr., that's my father.
You don't have to thank me.
You must be bored having to listen to the adults.
"Ma'am"? Do I look that old?
I bet you'd rather be watching television.
What is the problem here? Could it be, Miss Manners wonders, that they fear that the world is not rude and crude enough as it is? And believe that it is their mission in life to stamp out the niceties wherever they find them?
Miss Manners has heard motives that are more altruistic, if no more attractive.
The face-value one is, indeed, that they are saving their friends trouble and rescuing them from false values. The presumption that nobody really likes doing things "nicely" is paired with the revelation that nobody -- or at least not they -- even likes to have things done this way for them by others.
In countermanding the courtesies that children exhibit, the idea is to form a sympathetic alliance with the children against their parents' strictures. Whether this stems from a belief in preserving the natural soul from civilization or merely a grab for popularity with the young, the effect is to undermine the parents and confuse the children.
A wider argument is sometimes made on behalf of an element of society other than the parties directly involved. "It intimidates people," the critics will say of those benighted folks who, unlike themselves and the criticized, are too primitive to be exposed to any but the crudest way of doing things. These people are not up to being treated with any luxuries, so it is considered a kindness to hold back on them.
But sometimes one hears an Etiquette-Buster's confession that rings true: "You make me feel guilty." I'm not going to bother, this argument goes, so we need to lower the standard so I don't look bad.
DEAR MISS MANNERS: I am a senior in college, and my roommate of two years will be getting married after graduation. What is an appropriate wedding gift? She has already hinted that she hopes her friends give her cash gifts, because she will be getting furniture and china/silverware hand-me-downs from relatives and could use the money. I'm still in school and don't earn a lot from my part-time job, and I'm worried that if I do give her a cash gift I will look cheap.
GENTLE READER: It is better than looking greedy, Miss Manners assures you. Marriage is no excuse for hinting that one's friends should fork over money or anything else.
Looking cheap is more like reverse greed, in that it means stifling generosity because one begrudges giving to others what one wants to keep for oneself. It is unrelated to spending according to one's means, which any sensible person should always do.
The chief ingredient of a present is not supposed to be the amount spent, but the thought and care put into selecting something one hopes will delight the recipient. As your roommate has made it clear that thought and care would not delight her, she will have to settle for whatever bare cash you would have added.
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