This week's column - which dates to January 25, 1940 - is a back-to-the-basics lesson in etiquette. The letter writer must have written the morning after a dinner party she hosted or attended was ruined by a very late guest.
Dear Dorothy Dix - What do you think of a woman who never keeps any appointment or arrives at any function on time? When she is invited to dinner she keeps her hostess and the other guests waiting thirty or forty minutes while the soup scorches and the souffle falls and everybody gets hungrier and hungrier and crosser and crosser and the affair is ruined. Otherwise this woman is charming and pleasant, but she is losing all of her friends by her utter disregard of other people's convenience.
7 comments:
Okay, I'd guests a few minutes in case of bad traffic, but this sounds good to me. Course, now will cell phones (providing they work were you are) there isn't any excuse not to call.
PS - I sure cannot spell or write well! I was trying to say, "I'd give guests a few minutes..." Sometimes I think blogger or whatever messes up what we type. Does anyone else ever think that? lol
We've always followed this policy: If you get there late, you eat what's left over. If you care, you'll be there on time (more or less). I hate being late for events.
There is an editorial in the New York Times today about a couple with different entertaining styles: She's a night owl, he's an early bird. While I disagree with the "early to bed, early to rise" bit (I'm a night owl and I think we get the same stuff done as do early birds, just at different times of the day), I think the approach to arrival time the writer assumes is absurd. If you told me to be at dinner at 6:30, I'd be there at 6:30, not 8:30! And if I asked you to be there at 6:30 and you arrived at 8:30, I'd think . . . well, I'd be surprised, because I'd have assumed long ago that you weren't coming.
yep, Emily Post also recommends starting the meal when you had planned and the late person can just come into the course you are up too... or offering them the previous courses if it's convenient
I'm glad Emily Post and Dorothy Dix are in sync on this one --- I'd start serving the meal, too. And I hate when people with cell phones think their belatedness is completely excused if they call you 17 times to tell you why they're running late, they're getting into their car, they're five minutes away, they just had to stop for something, etc. Just because they call doesn't make it go away. It gets even ruder that they're making you answer the phone 17 times. Somebody said once that a continually late person doesn't value your time as much as their own. I agree!
There is a french proverb "people who are always late cause people to talk about them." That is just what happens. I used to work with a girl who was always late and her kids were always late. Then she would say everyone is talking about me.
And never be the first one to leave a party of catty people --- you'll be gossiped about, too!
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