The Perfecț Evening: Tips on Social Etiquette

Pretense pervades most social relationships, less a flaw than a civic duty. There are ground rules that could be taken right out of Dale Carnegie’s landmark playbook, How to win Friends and Influence People. Obsequiousness is in. Sincerity a no-no.

When out with friends, be sure to temper news of your successes. It may sound like you’re boasting and, after all, your friends may have had a bad day. Best serve up your triumphs like a weak tea: faint, apologetic, and quickly forgotten.

Equally your woes. Everybody has them, and they’ll certainly not want subscribing to yours. And besides, nobody likes being cornered into false condolence. Nothing clears a room faster than earnest despair.

Try to agree with everyone. The food may be awful, but keep it to yourself. Silence signals discontent. Try a “thank you for a memorable meal!” It might get you invited again, and since you thought it “memorable,” having it again. If someone tells you of their transcendent ski venture at Aspen, a simple “awesome” suffices.

Whatever you do, don’t huddle up with someone, conversing in a corner. Avoid lingering In a conversation long enough to be known. Circulation’s democratic; depth, exclusionary. A minute per person hits the right balance between recognition and escape.

Encourage others to talk about themselves. Make them feel they’re the night’s chief exhibit, the most important person in the room, even though you can hardly stand them. It’s important to have people like you and, doing this, you can’t miss. It’s not an emotion but a technique. And who knows—this evening’s bore may prove tomorrow’s benefactor.

Be sure to dispense hugs liberally, even to those in daily life you eagerly avoid. Distribute them as though they were small-denomination currency passed out. Make them feel they’ve made the team.

At evening’s end, offer to help—clear plates, stack glasses, perhaps gesture nobly toward the tip if at a restaurant. Accept, with serene gratitude, the inevitable refusal. The offer, not the act, is what counts.

Should you encounter someone who violates these protocols—who speaks too candidly, listens too intently or, worst of all, means what they say, withdraw promptly. Avoid authenticity like a draft in an old house,

For instance, I have this “friend” on Facebook who “doth protest too much”(Hamlet). Practicing social etiquette, I don’t travel to his page anymore.

With these modest disciplines in place, your evenings are granted success: pleasantly forgettable, flawlessly managed, absent of those awkward intrusions—honesty, feeling, intuitive vapors that have been known to unsettle a perfectly good night.

—rj