Sunday column: Party guests edition

Today’s column is here, and features two of those kinds of questions that cause me to push back when “Miss Conduct” is described as an etiquette column: How to shake an annoying hanger-on, and privacy practices in a shared home. Those do have to do with social behaviors, of course, but the “etiquette” is a word that implies a certain clear-cut-ness to me. Questions like today’s bring home the simple, existential fact that we are either a remarkably irritating or perhaps remarkably irritable species. Peaceful coexistence–I mean “peaceful” in the full Jewish sense of “shalom,” not mere absence of war but the presence of that which promotes wellbeing–is a real challenge for us. Thinking you can meet that challenge with only the rules of etiquette is like thinking Tom Brady prepares for a game by studying the rules of football.

If ordinary social interaction is football, weddings are the Super Bowl. This week’s Globe Magazine is a special weddings issues, and I’ve got an additional feature on good manners, self-defense, and enjoyment-maximization techniques for the wedding guest. A sample:

The wedding invitation says “bohemian formal” (or something like that). What does that mean?



It means there’s a high likelihood of whimsical desserts and a low chance of the Electric Slide. It means that the couple want you to dress up but also to enjoy it, and that they believe this is possible for everyone and that they believe obfuscation promotes creativity. It means nobody else will know what to wear either. It means you should wear something simple and dark with flat shoes and one boffo accessory, just like you do for every other wedding.

I don’t know anyone here. What should I do?



The instinct is to pounce on a fellow singleton, but don’t. Maybe you won’t have anything in common and then you’ll be feeling lonely and awkward with another person, which is far worse. What you want to do is find a couple who aren’t talking==a married couple with nothing to say to each other at the moment, two other singletons who tried that “find another lonely person” thing and are realizing it doesn’t always work–and start a conversation with them.

A couple, romantic or not, that is hamstrung for conversation at a wedding can be revitalized by the addition of a third party, and they’ll be desperate and grateful enough that they won’t let the ball drop. Start with “How do you know the newlyweds?” “What do you do?” and then hit them with “Do you hate when people ask ‘What do you do?’ as small talk?” You’ll charm all four of their socks off.

If you’ve suffered through your share of dull weddings, or parties spoiled by an annoying, cloying friend, you might enjoy “Women Having A Terrible Time at Parties in Western Art History” by Mallory Ortberg, who really needs to have an entire school of art criticism named after her.

We’ve all been at that party.