Dear Queenie,
My boyfriend is still friends with his ex-wife and he thinks I should be too. I know her slightly and I don’t dislike her, but I don’t want to be friends with her.
Sometimes the three of us get together with a whole group of friends, which is okay with me, but I am not interested in hanging out just with her.
My boyfriend says I am being unreasonable. I say he is.
Queenie, how do I get my boyfriend to understand?—Not interested
Dear Not interested,
Frankly, I think what your boyfriend wants is just a bit weird.
Tell him what you have told me, and ask him why this is so important to him. Listen carefully to what he has to say. But if he has not convinced you, stick to your guns. Show him this column if you think it will help.
Dear Queenie,
My son-in-law is from another country where they speak a different language. He speaks English well enough, but he also talks to their young children in his native tongue and they talk to their parents in both language.
Queenie, I’m worried that they will grow up to be confused about what language to use when talking to people outside the family.—Monolingual
Dear Queenie,
Some people we know invited us to join them at a restaurant for a celebration in honour of a mutual friend who is getting married.
Afterward when we got home they called us and told us how much we owed them for the bill we left without paying. We apologised and said we had forgotten, but the truth is we assumed the hosts would be paying.
Queenie, since when are guests at a party expected pay their own way?—Stuck with a bill
Dear Stuck,
If you have to pay your own way you are a participant, not a guest, and the person(s) who invited you are not hosts, but merely organisers.
The “hosts” should have made it clear when they invited you that the event would be “Dutch treat.”
Dear Queenie,
I was invited to a wedding and sent my regrets immediately (this was a couple of months ahead) because I had another commitment, but a week later that previous event was cancelled so I called the wedding host right away and told them now I was free to attend, but the host said once I declined the invitation I could not change my mind.
Queenie, is that a rule of etiquette?—Invitation Etty Ket
Dear Etty Ket,
No, it is not – that is, assuming you give the host(s) notice of your change of response well before their plans are finalised.
Dear Queenie,
My brother lives on another island and did not visit our parents here for years. But when our mother died he came for the funeral and carried on about how sad he was and how much he was going to miss her.
Queenie, if he missed her so much, why didn’t he ever come to see her when she was still alive? She would have loved to see him! And why bother to come for the funeral?—In mourning
Dear Mourning,
You could ask him that question, but of course it is too late to do your mother any good.
Is it possible that there was some sort of estrangement that kept him away?
