Newport Manners & Etiquette: 4 Ways to be More Friendly This Month

Wednesday, November 02, 2016

Didi Lorillard, GoLocalWorcester Manners + Etiquette Expert

The start of the holiday season is in motion with questions to Didi Lorillard at NewportManners about what to do with all that leftover Halloween candy, how to be friends again after the election, what to do when cellphones become more important than sex, and monitoring your teens Snapchats.

Married to his cellphone

Q. I'm married to a man who spends more time engaged with his iPhone than he is in talking to me. Forget about trying for an intimate dinner. Making plans are a disaster. I've learned that the only way to get him to agree to a plan is to text him. We'll be sitting having breakfast in a coffee shop and he'll text me about weekend plans. We never have eye contact. He wonders why we don't have more sex. I tell him to ask his iPhone. What is a newly wed to do? JC, NY, NY

A. Your husband is phubbing you. Snubbing you in favor of his cellphone. Without eye contact you won't have sex. You won't have sex unless you can make eye contact. Set boundaries or walk. Demand more respect. When you come home your phones stay by the front door. If either of you violates that rule, you have to give the other one a hundred dollars.

Outside your home, compromise: you can check your phones but you cannot engage in activity on your phones, such as gaming or watching a show. When he's with you while on his phone, he should be reading the news to you or the message from his brother, and not leave you to your own devices when you're supposed to be spending time together.

De-friending a friend over politics

Q. I'm crushed that one of my oldest and best friends de-friended me on FB. I think I know why. If I'm sick of seeing her Trump ads, she must be equally annoyed by my pro Hillary posts. We never discuss politics when we're together hanging out after classes, but I'm hurt that she's de-friended me. How do I get my friend back? CS, Palo Alto, CA

A. Wait a week or two after the election results have come in before trying to friend her on FB. By then she may welcome seeing posts of the friends she de-friended. Once the election is over, try not to gloat over your win on social media and she'll be less likely to carry a grudge.

To monitor a teen's Snapchat or not

Q. Our sweet tween has become a teenager with vengeance. We were suspicious of his demeanor the day after he attended a party. Suspicious that he might be hungover. He's not allowed to have a secret password on his phone so we took a peek while he was sleeping only to be surprised at the dozens of pics he took at a party last weekend. We figure that if his friends were behaving badly, he must have been behaving badly too. What are we parents to do? GH, Dover, MA

A. You can buy and install an app such as mSpy to track and save all of your teen's Snapchat data exchanges because you have access to his device. Then you'll only be in the same predicament as you are in now. You're already spying on your teen. Talk to him about the possibility of those photos hurting his reputation, and the reputations of his fellow partygoers for decades to come. You'll have to tell him you're using spyware which may only force him to find another way of keeping his private life from you.

Ask him to make a compromise by sending only the really good photos to his computer before deleting any photos that make someone look not only silly -- but depict them making a fool of themselves. Go over the photos with your son and discuss which ones he should seriously consider deleting.

The best result you may get out of this is making it a small project you do together once a week. Just say, "Let's go over your photos." If you have developed an ongoing open, honest relationship with your teen over the years, you'll want to compromise too and give your teen the privacy he deserves as he becomes an adult.

Leftover Halloween candy

Q. Can you suggest a responsible way in which to dispose of Halloween candy? With three kids, there is way too much sugar in this house? Zoe, Providence

A. Hey mom, it is a teaching opportunity about empathy, kindness and generosity. In quart size plastic baggies that ziplock, have your children bag up their candy to give to the homeless. After you drop the kids off at daycare or school, head for the nearest shelter for those whom are shelterless. They'll be grateful for the sweet treats. Alternatively, have the school collect the candy (also in ziplock bags prepared by the kids) and make the donation from the school. It is the sweet thing to do.

Didi Lorillard researches manners and etiquette at NewportManners.