DEAR MISS MANNERS: My associate and I lived overseas for 12 years and have just lately moved to his hometown.
He has a job, I’m working as a temp, and we’re struggling to seek out housing, so we’ve been staying along with his dad and mom.
I’m extremely grateful to them; we’ve been residing with them for 2 months now, and will keep one other two months (the housing disaster is that dangerous). However I’m additionally discovering it tough to stay with them.
I knew it could be difficult to not have my very own area and to stay by another person’s guidelines, however I additionally really feel judged, and I hate their jokes.
They’ve suggestions and feedback about completely all the things.
I favor to bathe within the night, after work; they inform me it’s “bizarre,” that showering wakes you up and is a horrible factor to do exactly earlier than mattress.
I’ve very lengthy hair, and my mother-in-law has requested me a number of instances if I might “consider” slicing it. Once I stated no, she pointedly stated, “It is very long, you know.”
I’m a vegetarian, and I by no means deliver it up. Nonetheless, they’ll typically ask if I’m “tempted” by no matter meat dish they’re having.
After which there are the fixed jokes about my nationality. They may deliver that up a number of instances a day, asking me “what people do in my country of origin” (I left 16 years in the past). Or they’ll simply drop random phrases within the language of my beginning into the dialog and chortle.
It makes it onerous to slot in and really feel accepted. My associate says to only ignore it, and he by no means intervenes — it isn’t one thing he would do.
My buddies agree it’s tough, however to “think of the free rent.”
What do you assume?
GENTLE READER: Though Miss Manners doesn’t need you to finish up on the road — and she or he does perceive that your associate’s dad and mom are doing you an infinite favor — asking what she thinks, relatively than how one can repair your drawback, strikes her as far too passive.
Etiquette will not be a barter system. Simply as one rudeness doesn’t justify one other, your hosts’ good deed of letting you reside with them doesn’t justify the continued rudeness you describe.
The disagreeable responsibility of asking them to please cease commenting in your nation of origin, your hair and your alternative of meals ought to fall in your associate, whose responsibility it isn’t solely to take action tactfully, however to insist the discomfort with their habits is his personal, not yours.
Motivating him to do that convincingly is your process.
DEAR MISS MANNERS: Which is ruder: being ignored by somebody who is continually on their mobile phone, or interrupting that particular person with a dialog with out saying “excuse me”?
GENTLE READER: Justifying one rudeness by citing one other is ruder.
Please ship your inquiries to Miss Manners at her web site, www.missmanners.com; to her electronic mail, dearmissmanners@gmail.com; or via postal mail to Miss Manners, Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas Metropolis, MO 64106.
