That dumb list

This week, New York Magazine published a list of so-called rules for living in polite society. It's generated a lot of discussion, as it was obviously intended to, and so part of me feels it's not even worth really reacting to.

That said, I would say that magazine writers are maybe literally the last people I would ever ask for advice on how to behave in society, and a few of the entries were genuinely baffling to me.

Who talks about 50 Cent these days?

The one about how white people should pronounce the name of the rapper 50 Cent. I don't really disagree that calling him "fiddy cent" is annoying – more simply gauche and lame than truly offensive – but I also just don't know how often this comes up. I was a junior in college at the height of 50 Cent's career. I probably elbowed my way through at least one dark campus apartment as "In The Club" played over shitty speakers. Yet I rarely have cause to think, much less talk, about 50 Cent in the Year of Our Lord 2023. Remember that tweet about how he was annoyed his grandmother made him take out the trash even though he was very rich? That was more than a decade ago.

These people do not understand hospitality

This list seems aggressively anti-hospitality, or it seems to fundamentally misunderstand what hospitality is, or why people would want to host at all.

Rule No. 52, "Don't foist your allergies on a dinner party," basically says that if you have dietary restrictions, it's wrong to bring food that you can actually eat to a dinner party and that to do so is somehow offensive to your host, who, in this scenario, has invited you to his home for a meal but has apparently made no effort to ensure you will be able to actually eat the meal he is preparing. And, somehow, it's the guest who's being rude?

In the example specified (and, again, I can't emphasize enough how many of these seem to be particular gripes of a particular writer), someone's husband went to a lot of trouble to make, like, pasta from scratch and then one of the guests, a famous person (there are a lot of rules and stories here that involve famous people, which is also insufferable) showed up with food he could eat. They write, somewhat astonishingly, that "at a dinner party, it's about what the host wants to do." I'm sorry, what? In this framing, the guests are merely an audience for the elaborate performance put on by the host. Their satisfaction or pleasure is secondary, if it matters at all.

Another one, less egregious but still annoying to me, is the one that says that, if you are staying at someone's house, you should always strip the bed before you leave, even if they say not to worry about it. Like, on its face, it's fine. I usually strip the bed when I stay at someone's house.

But there's this pervasive sense in this list that being polite or "acting right" in society mostly means never being even slightly inconvenient to another person, even if that person has invited that inconvenience! And inconvenience isn't even the right word – it's that no one should ever have to expend effort on anyone else's behalf. According to this list, we should all be fully autonomous islands that occasionally interact. Part of the joy of having someone stay with you is that you have to wash the bedding. Because a person – your friend, presumably – slept in your guest bedroom or on the couch or whatever.

I can only speak for myself, but I like to host because I like to host people, not because I specifically want to host a dinner or a party or a movie night. (Or it's not just because I want to do those things.) It's nice to put in effort for others. It's nice to be accommodating of their needs and wants. This is what it means to be friends! There is also genuinely a lot of grace in allowing others to care for you.

A little communication (and generosity) would go a long way with a lot of these

A lot of these scenarios also just seem like failures of communication to me. With the dinner party example, this supposed disaster – that is not at all a disaster – could have been avoided had the host reached out to his guests to confirm their preferences/needs in advance. This would have allowed the famous designer to mention his very restrictive diet and the two of them could have determined what he could or could not eat on the planned menu, and if he could eat nothing on offer, whether he wanted to skip the party or bring his own food. Voilà!

Other rules presume that people do not mean the things they say and that to take the things they say at face value is itself some kind of faux pas. The bed-stripping one mentioned above, another one about bringing gifts to a party where the hosts have said "no gifts," and some more I'm not remembering.

There also seems to be no awareness that many people's restrictions are tied to allergies that have very unpleasant physical consequences and thus they may be slightly wary of eating food they have not prepared themselves. (I have a friend with a very serious dairy allergy, and she's pretty hesitant to eat stuff that she isn't 100% sure doesn't have one of her triggers in it. This is beyond reasonable!) There's no need to create arbitrary rules based around the worst outdated stereotypes of vegans.

Which leads to a broader point, that applies to so many of these rules, which is they are designed to eliminate ambiguity in even slightly thorny social situations and spare people the (apparently onerous) task of granting grace to others or of having to make judgements in the moment. There is weirdly a lot of indulgence given to hosts and lots of obligations put on guests, which strikes me as the wrong way around. (Sorry, I'm southern!)

I'm sorry but a friend or acquaintance not returning your texts is not "ghosting"

After saying it's fine to ghost after one date (which, like, yeah, that's fine*), they then say that if you ghost, you should not pop back up years later.

Part of me was like "Yeah, man, if you go on a few dates with someone and then disappear, you should probs not be all 'Hey! What's up?" three years later unless you have a really good reason."

But then it became clear that this writer means is that if a former coworker or someone you have an existing history with does not get back to you once or even a few times, they can never reach back out for a favor later on. (The example she gives is to help with the publication of their book.) And, while I'd say that's fine advice (though again the people we're dealing with here are MAGAZINE WRITERS – people help with your book because they later want you to help with theirs, it's a transaction), I think it's wrong to characterize this behavior as "ghosting."

"Ghosting" is for dating! I'm sorry, it just is. The first few weeks of dating are a time of great uncertainty (where people do, quite regularly, just disappear) and consistent communication is literally the only way to convey to a person that you are still interested and that you value them as a person. Not communicating is communicating that you are not interested and do not value them, or at least not enough. There is also an intentionality to ghosting – people ghost on purpose because they don't want to have to tell someone directly. People who ghost know what they're doing. And even if they don't do it intentionally, they still know what is being conveyed by their silence. And the person being ghosted recognizes they are being told not to get in touch again. Extending the benefit of the doubt in this situation would be foolish.

A friend or former coworker, someone with whom you have an established, presumably pleasant history, not getting back to you can absolutely hurt your feelings like ghosting can (no one likes to feel disregarded), but it's simply not functioning in the same way. If I text a friend – and let's say it's not someone in my immediate circle, but a friend from my past or an old job – and they don't reply to me, I may have to recalibrate my expectations of them or my understanding of our friendship. I may even sulk about it a little. But I, literally the nonbinary sovereign of taking things personally, know better than to take it personally. It might require a little mindfulness to really get there, but I can do it. At this point in my life, people are busy – they've often got kids, spouses, demanding jobs, or aging parents. Or all of the above. Extending them the benefit of the doubt is the natural thing to do – and an easy way to keep yourself from feeling unnecessarily shitty. You have a store of goodwill and trust built up from months or years of interaction. It's also good to acknowledge that while you matter to your friends, you are not necessarily their top priority all or even most of the time – and that the world more broadly does not revolve around you and your needs – and that that is not a judgement on you or your worth. Just text them again! They'll probably be like "Oh! Sorry!" because their silence, unlike the silence of someone you went on two dates with, was not intended to send you a message.

And if someone reaches out years after they supposedly "ghosted" you, it's probably because they don't remember that they did it. Because they didn't mean to! Somebody who ghosted you after two dates presumably has deleted your number, because seeing your name makes them feel shame.

*The scenario they mention, however, doesn't even strike me a ghosting. If you go out with someone, and neither of you texts afterward, that's just really convenient! It's great to be on the same page in this way. Aside from a mutually recognized connection, it's the best dating outcome.

Maybe we should all just care a little less about what others do

This is in response to the one about how straight people shouldn't call their spouses or their boyfriend/girlfriend their "partner."

And, like, who cares? Most people are just out here trying to get through the day and if they want to call the person they split expenses with and regularly have sex with their partner, I do not care – and I truly mean that it in the sense that it simply does not concern me -- and I don't really think you should care, either. But, in this same spirit, you do you. Whatever gives you joy. But frankly it doesn't seem to be making any of the people bothered by it happy.

I also think this is where the writers of this list are showing their age again. I think partner is pretty standard among people younger than me, and particularly among the growing number who engage in polyamory or non-monogamy or who identify as genderqueer or non-binary. Like, it's just a term now. But yes someone who chooses to call their spouse their "partner" because...they want to seem more enlightened than they are is kind of annoying, but, like, so what? Straight people want to play "subversive revolutionary but only when it comes to language" just like gay people do!

Don't get me wrong, people are annoying. The internet makes it possible for us to see annoying people literally all day. But you don't have to keep sticking your finger in that particular electrical socket over and over. Just log off.

I'm not one of those "Let people enjoy things!" people. You also gotta let people hate things and also let them hate the way other people enjoy things because one thing that gets lost in this discussion is that people can enjoy things in truly insufferable ways that even my stated policy of letting it ride cannot accommodate and the notion that anything goes when expressing enthusiasm or that being irritated by obnoxious boosterism of tiresome corporate media is being a hater is ridiculous and I think we need to see that so often fandom isn't even about the thing in question but rather about how the fans' liking of that things reflects upon them, how fandom has truly become an identity, as though fans' appreciation of Stars Wars or Game of Thrones or whatever says something fundamental about them. Ted Lasso fandom was particularly annoying because clearly a lot of its self-described fans felt their love of the show was also evidence of their great kindness in this cruel world of ours and they all spent a lot time congratulating each other about that. And, like, maybe? But the fact that you have to tweet about it so much is notable. You could just be out there being kind to everyone! Instead, you're on here getting into fights with people who dare to dislike Ted Lasso to solidify your bond with your fellow Ted Lasso lovers. People are allowed to hate the way you love Ted Lasso, Vanessa. (Relatedly, I also just feel the quality of writing online – just standard everyday posting – has really declined and sometimes I read something someone has shared or has written themselves, and wonder if I have lost my mind because I think it is the goopiest, cringiest nonsense I have ever seen. Like, maybe we could all bring it down a notch.)

I have never tweeted about Ted Lasso and its annoying fans because, well, I like to be liked and I don't enjoy getting into fights with strangers about an Apple+ show. I also think Parks & Rec, another show much lauded for its kindness and goodness, actually had pretty terrible politics and a not insignificant amount of cruelty (also Ron Swanson is incoherent as a character), but I don't mention it because...I like being liked and it is not worth it. You can just let things go! Including people hating something you love! Like some people I am fond of love Ted Lasso and Parks & Rec and I don't want to upset them!

(During my early pandemic days in the Portrait of a Lady on Fire fandom on Tumblr – yes, I'd just turned 38, shut up – you would sometimes see someone who, in their posts, would wax poetic about the beauty of art and friendship and how the fan community reflected so perfectly the values expressed in the film, and who, also, in a random comment on some less prominent person's post, would be ABSOLUTELY VICIOUS because that person dared to suggest that Adele Haenel's Sbrenica movie was not terrible, as was the consensus. But, not to be bitter, that's actually pretty standard dyke behavior.)