It is the year of our lord 2002 and where are our manners? Currently, they are in a conference room off the main lobby of the Warwick Regis Hotel in downtown San Francisco. They are past the doorman and the front desk and the front desk clerkettes. They are in a room decorated with lavish drawings of eighteenth century masques where the lighting is good and the table long. They are here because this is the room where Syndi Seid, founder and grand dame of Advanced Etiquette, a modern day charm school, holds forth on all things prim and proper at time when many have forgotten and many more never knew.
Do you remember the first time you beheld the power of manners? Back before you understood exactly why James Bond always got the girl. Mine came in the principal’s office circa tenth grade after some schmuck had stolen the history exam and all the usual suspects were manhandled out of homeroom for purposes of grand inquisition. For the record, I didn’t steal the test and still don’t know who did, but we all looked at it. Eight guys sitting in that office and all of us sin guilty, slumped, eyes averted, gum-chewing, untucked, unkempt, withering in the face of forces beyond our control.
All of us except for John R. That slick shit would have made Syndi Seid proud. He sat up straight. He kept both feet flat on the ground. He maintained proper eye contact. When the principal worked through the room with his guilty or not guilty line of questions we all copped to it. Not John R.
“No Sir,” he said.
We flunked. John got an A. And let me tell you something else that fucker got—all the way through high school—he always got the girl.
Truthfully, I was not an ill-mannered kid. I was like most, unsure and awkward. The instruction I received at home was along the lines of: “Hold the damn door for your mother!” So I held the door because I was told to hold the door, but I was not told why. I was left out in the impolite cold. I had not learned what John R. had learned—that etiquette, that manners, properly wielded, are a weapon as powerful as any broadsword.
Wielding this weapon in these modern times takes a particular dexterity. It’s no longer enough to say please and thank you; keep your elbows off the table; and chew with your mouth closed. These days there are liberated women and imported cultures and email, voice mail, snail mail quagmires; automatic doors; soul brother half-hug hand shakes and a thousand other petty confusions.
In the old days there were reasons for etiquette. Men entered doors ahead of women to ensure that the room was safe. Cups clanked during toasts so the grogs would mingle, safeguarding against poison. Slowly these traditions embedded themselves in society. By the Victorian era manners had become a codified game, and the player identified his social strata just by knowing which breast pocket sported a square. The late 18th and early 19th centuries saw the seams of society stretched by a huge influx in immigrants and new money and returning soldiers, and in 1922, Emily Post answered the call by setting down in print what had once been taught at home. Etiquette became an immediate bestseller, never leaving the list, reprinted 89 times during her lifetime. For a while we were a well-behaved nation, but it didn’t last.
“Manners went downhill after the 50s,” says Jason Tesauro, co-author with Phineas Mollod, two cavalier crusaders in the late twenties, the authors of the wonderful new compendium: "The Modern Gentleman: A Guide To Essential Manners, Savvy & Vice." “There was a small resurgence in the 80s, but the 90s backslide—think grunge—was extreme.” Which has left us sailing turbulent seas here in the early zeroes.
To steady our ship charm schools are creeping back into vogue, though much of what is being taught comes couched as international business etiquette. Post herself has become an institute, based in Burlington, Vermont, offering topics a little farther afield. You can take Creating Extraordinary Relationships: matters most Post-911 or Benefits to the Bottom Line if you want to shell out about four grand for a full day’s tutorial. Or $7000 for a private day’s tutorial with Dorothea Johnson, the founder of our nation’s diplomat training camp: The Protocol School of Washington. Or do as I did—spend $250 for a day with Dorothea’s prize student: Syndi Seid.
Syndi Seid favors dark suits in solid colors and cravat-style silk blouses. She’s in her early forties, five-foot-four, Chinese-American, with cute bangs and a sassy smile and not once does she crack anyone’s knuckles with a ruler. Class starts promptly at 9:00. Immediately any preconceived notions about the kind of person who goes to charm schools in these rude times (don’t take my word for it, according to a recent survey done by Public Agenda, a New York nonprofit research group, eight out of ten Americans lack courtesy) go out the window. The students come in all shapes, sizes, colors, whatever—and with as many different reasons for being here: “I want to get ahead in business and want to make sure my manners never hold me back.” “I’m in party planning.” “I was raised in a house where we only ate with chopsticks.”
As for me I’ve come to believe manners are a place to turn after the places turned in youth lose their luster and edge. They are a way to get over and stay over. Fresh out of college we could advance our causes with sartorial stand-outs, but since nothing seems sillier than a late model club-kid, in later years we turn towards subtlety and stealth to break the homogeny. “In your thirties,” says Peter Post, heir to Emily’s throne, “standing up when a lady arrives at the table offers as much power as funky style did in your twenties.”
He was violating the second rule of the two rules for getting on well with people who speak Spanish: give the men tobacco and leave the women alone.
—Ernest Hemingway
A couple of years back I was buying beer at a 7-11. As I took my place in line the gentleman ahead of me gave me a look. Admittedly, it wasn’t the best part of town, but really, I had as much right to a sixer of cheap swill as the next guy. He turned again. Again I stayed put.
“Man, don’t you have any manners?” he asked.
“Huh?”
“You want to come to this neighborhood then don’t stand so damn close.”
When it comes to modern male etiquette, the conundrum is usually about personal space. Men spend their twenties staking territory and their thirties defending it. So it’s not enough to simply respect the king, you’ve got to respect the kingdom as well.
Take that great stumbling block—the restroom—for example. First off, put an empty urinal between you and the next guy, even if it means ducking into a stall to do so. And always remember there are very few things worth talking about with your dick in your hand and fewer that should be said in public.
Money also comes down to personal space. Seid believes money is discussed only during business situations. So no matter how much you’re dying to know the monthly dues on your pal’s new duplex or how well Microsoft treats its employees—don’t ask. If you need to parry the inevitable query opt for an obfuscating out: “I make slightly less than the Sultan of Brunei spends on hair gel.” And when it comes to borrowing money or lending money it helps to defer to Woody Allen who said “I never lend money to friends and I sure as hell don’t lend it to strangers.”
Good manners have much to do with emotion. To make them ring true one must feel them, not merely exhibit them.
—Amy Vanderbilt
Women read manners like tea leaves. A rude now may mean you don’t get a later. So when it comes to the dames, do as my father does and open the damn door. This means when you get a phone number don’t bother with the what- day-should-you-call algebra. “Call the next day,” says Tesauro. “If you bothered to ask for her number she already knows you like her, you’re not even tipping your hand, you’re just offering the illusion of hand tipping and that can have quite an impact.”
Modernity makes chivalry tricky. According to Seid, when it comes to revolving doors, the woman goes first and the man pushes. The same holds true for elevators. Tesauro and Mollod, in their chapter entitled Prophyletiquette, state: “A hosting gentleman offers the basic coital accoutrements for anxiety-free coupling,” which may be a different kind of door all together, but hold-worthy none-the-less.
Good manners, especially when it comes to women, are about sublimating your desires beneath the needs of another. So doors—yes, but if you choose to walk on through there are other things to consider.
The last great flirtation I had started out with me holding doors like a religion. She loved it, called me charming, agreed to move in. Be it familiarity or laziness or a symptoms of darker things, but a year later I had forgotten my faith. Then she asked me why wasn’t I holding doors for her anymore. Damned if I did and damned if I didn’t and suddenly I wasn’t charming and she wasn’t staying.
A blond in a red dress can do without introductions.
—Rona Jaffe
The Hampden-Sydney primer opens with a chapter on introductions. On page five we learn: “A woman is never introduced TO (accent theirs) a man unless he is a clergyman, the President, a governor, a mayor, a foreign head of state.”
Okay, maybe we’re not all going to the same parties, but even Tesauro and Mollod agree that no etiquette tradition is as sorely missed as the proper introduction. The purpose of such is so the host can leave the introduced and the guest alone and they’ll have something to talk about. This means that when introducing a person it is important to add a bit of color commentary. When people introduce me as “Steven,” I’m left trying to explain who that is and why it matters. If someone says, “This is Steven, he’s a cosmonaut,” they might be lying, but at least it gives me room to maneuver.
Modern living has altered forms of communication, but there are still rules to follow. Peter Post sees cell phones as the modern equivalent of the wrong fork. He recommends never talking on a cell phone where it can impact another person. If you need to take a call than take it outside. By extension, as far as speakerphones go, do unto others as you would have them do onto you.
The ease of communication brings other problems. There are the friends shitty jobs and too much time for email. There is a woman I dated for a while who didn’t have a job, which meant my phone rang on the hour every hour:
“Hi. What are you doing? Are you busy?”
“Yes, I’m busy working.”
As you can see, that one ended badly.
One thing that has gotten lost in all this high-tech wizardry is the art of written correspondence. Since the purpose here is to set yourself apart from the rabble, remember the hand-written note. Take that self-penned thank you notes/dinner invitations car for a spin. It happens so rarely the gas mileage is incredible.
Manners are love in a cool climate.
—Quentin Crisp
Civilized living brings up all sorts of situations—hosting, guesting, bringing gifts, sending thanks—where good manners mean opportunity. If you go to a party bring wine; if you have to leave early apologize and send a follow-up note; if you’re a weekend guest treat your host to a meal; if you’re habitually late go out and buy a bag of Hershey’s chocolates. It might not make you prompter, but at least people get a kiss for their patience. In today’s hostile climes such little charms cast strong spells.