Second query: When I ask anyone for recommendation, do I owe them a follow-up? Such as “I looked into what you suggested, but decided to go in a different direction.” Your common sense recommendation is all the time a lot liked.
There is a distinction between declining an invitation and bowing out later on. Miss Manners isn’t positive you’re making this difference, that may be the explanation that your well-mannered pals are taking the extra step.
When declining an invitation, a easy “I am so sorry, but I’m afraid I can’t attend” is completely well mannered. And extra continuously than now not, revealing the actual reason why — that you simply do now not really feel find it irresistible or do now not like the folk, job, meals and/or value of admission — can be impolite. But in case you are bowing out after having approved, you had higher have an excellent excuse — or a minimum of one that isn’t discoverable.
As for the second one query, you do now not owe someone, together with Miss Manners, a follow-up on recommendation except they particularly ask if you happen to used it. Even if that’s the case, you want now not specify if it used to be a hit.
Dear Miss Manners: I am 38, and 10 years in the past, I used to be identified with a serious, life-limiting illness that leaves me in monumental ache around-the-clock.
Unfortunately, my frame turns out to be breaking down at a sooner charge than many others with this illness. I have begun the usage of more than a few aids, comparable to a wheelchair, which one way or the other turns out to give other people a move to ask about my boundaries and inform me about theirs.
I am now not ashamed of my illness, and I don’t thoughts telling other people about it. My downside is when other people, even some in my very own circle of relatives, inform me that they may by no means maintain this sort of prognosis, and that they’d kill themselves in the event that they have been me. I by no means know what to say to this. I really feel like I want to placed on a courageous face all the time, when actually, I have been hospitalized for making an attempt to finish my lifestyles due to my ache. (This is none in their industry.)
I am making an attempt to take advantage of the years I have left and making an attempt to in finding causes to are living; reminders of loss of life make my already tricky lifestyles a lot tougher. Is there some way to succinctly inform people who this remark is each unwarranted, undesirable and beautiful rattling offensive?
“What a terrible thing to say.”
New Miss Manners columns are posted Monday via Saturday on washingtonpost.com/advice. You can ship questions to Miss Manners at her site, missmanners.com. You too can persist with her @ActualMissManners.