There was a letter to Miss Manners about whether it’s rude to decline an invite to a dance only to accept a similar invitation from another person later. I don’t agree with Miss M’s reply, depending upon how it’s done, of course.
Rude:
Boy: Will you go to prom with me?
Girl: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Boy: Will you go to prom with me?
Girl: Are you kidding? I know I can do better than you.
Boy: Will you go to prom with me?
Girl: OK, unless Captain Football asks me later.
Not Rude:
Boy: Will you go to prom with me?
Girl: No, thank you.
Is one obligated to accept an invitation from someone just because they asked first? I don’t think so. Is someone prohibited from accepting an invitation from the second person who asks if the first one was declined? I don’t think so. Will the person who was rejected be hurt if someone else was later accepted? Probably, but life’s full of disappointments.
Maybe I read the reply incorrectly, but it looked like Miss M thinks if the first invitation is declined, all subsequent invites should also be declined. Did I miss something here?
This was never an issue for me, since I was never invited to a prom in my life. Or a school dance for that matter… (I’m over it, really. ) But for those of you who had a social life in high school, how did you deal with unwanted invitations or unaccepted invitations? What about as an adult - how do you handle such things now?
Miss Manners’ answer was stupid. So if Marvin Nerdlinger asks Suzie the Cheerleader to the May prom in November, she must either go with him or not go at all? Yeah, that’s realistic. And does this extend to other aspects of dating? “Suzie, will you go to the movies with me? No? Well, now you can’t go to the movies with anybody, ever!”
I got my share of rejection in high school, and yeah, it sucked, but that’s life. Never once did I care if a girl who rejected me subsequently went out with somebody else. That’s just how it works, kids.
Her column can be entertaining, but it fails the “real world” test more often than not.
That’s a pretty crack-smokey answer, right there. It’s not rude to not want to date someone or be friends with someone, provided you’re not rude or cruel about rejecting their advances.
Now, there are situations where it’s rude to accept later invitations, but those come down to how you went about declining the first invitation. If you told someone that you have to wash your hair that night, or you don’t eat dinner, or you don’t want to see that movie, or it’s against your religion to dance or whatever, then it’s rude to accept later invitations for the same night/dinner/movie/dance. The rudeness isn’t in preferring to go with someone else, but in being dishonest about your reasons and making that blatantly, publicly obvious to the first person who asked you (and all the rest of your peer group.) That kind of public humiliation is eminently shitty, and doing such a thing is a great breach of manners.
Yeah, this is an insane answer. Hopefully random strangers will start inviting Miss Manners to dinner at Golden Corral on a nightly basis, just to completely wreck her social life.
Yeah, I usually agree with Miss M. on most things, but this is ridiculous. I immediately imagined Marvin Nerdlinger (thanks, Wheelz) going around and asking every single girl well in advance, knowing that they’ll all say ‘no’, and thereby effectively cancelling the whole dance single-handedly. “If I can’t have them, no one will! Mwah-hah-hah-hah!”
That’s nutballs.
As others have said, if you say, “Oh, I won’t be able to go; I’m having my dog refurbished,” and then later show up with someone else, then yes, you’re a Grade-A asshole. But if you just say, “Sorry, I’m not interested, but thanks for asking,” then you’re in the clear.
This is correct. Miss Manners’ answer was whack. I didn’t read all the comments posted to the link, but there seems to be quite a bit of support for this position.
Am I the only one who thinks Miss Manners has far too much time on her hands to dream up responses to highly contrived social situations, or am I just a misanthrope with no friends and therefore no need to address these questions?
Well, maybe that used to be a thing, because my mom told me that when I was in high school in the 80s. Some creepy dude asked me to a dance and I turned him down, and my mom said I couldn’t go with anyone else. WTF? So it’s either Rapey McStalker or no one?
There is something really weird going on here. This goes against advice Miss Manners has said before. You are most certainly free to decline invitations politely anytime you want and she has said this herself! You are then free to go with someone else. What you can’t do is accept an invitation then drop the guy when a better looking one asks you later. I wonder if they put the wrong answer with that question or cut out a crucial part (like a part indicating that the invitation from Guy#1 had been accepted and then retroactively declined.)? Because this goes against her own advice previously.
After reading the column in question (and the 136 people who disagreed with her vs. the one who seemed to agree) my conclusion is that either the letter or her response was totally mangled in the editing process.
Based on this part –
–my guess is that she was trying to point out the importance of the delicate art of letting someone down easily, and not celebrating too obviously when you get asked by someone more to your liking.
I’ll be interested in seeing if she feels compelled to do a follow-up to this column.
A friend of mine once asked Susie to the dance. Susie told him, “Sorry, Lisa is staying at my house so she has an excuse in case JWT asks her to the dance.” Would Miss Manners approve of my “friend” telling me that?
) But for those of you who had a social life in high school, how did you deal with unwanted invitations or unaccepted invitations? What about as an adult - how do you handle such things now?