Stamping out sympathy is not a task that appears in Miss Manners' job description.
Persuading the kindhearted to stop making allowances for those who are feeling overwhelmed is not even on her list of Things To Do Today.But would everybody please stop defending graduates, brides and mourners who don't write thank you letters? It is not only mean old etiquette you are offending by taking this position, but all those people whose only fault is to have been generous. And you are not doing the beneficiaries of this generosity any favor, either.
It used to be only the delinquents themselves who tried to excuse their shocking omissions.
"It's my vacation," the graduate will say. "I'm tired of writing from having to do papers at school. Besides, I've got to go find a job."
"I got so many presents, I couldn't possibly write that many letters," the bride will say. "Anyway, I was busy with the wedding, and now we're entitled to have some time to ourselves."
"I can't," the mourner (who would melt Miss Manners' flinty heart if anyone could) will say. "I just don't feel up to it."
All of them then plead, "I can't think of anything to say."
And the worst resort to the low tactic of blaming the victims of their rudeness. "If someone wanted to give me something," they will say with an amazing tone of self-righteousness, just as if they had never dropped hints all over town or registered in every store they could find, "it should have been because they wanted to, not because they expected thanks. The satisfaction of giving should have been reward enough."
Yes, of course. It is tremendously rewarding to throw a present or a kindness into the void on behalf of people who have neither the time nor the inclination to get in touch with you.
It is so satisfying, apparently, that some people just keep doing it for years, without getting any response at all. Those people are called "grandparents."
They are making a mistake. Those who ignore presents should be taken seriously and not troubled with them again.
The distressing thing is that some parents, who would be better employed drilling the habit of expressing thanks into their children, are instead sympathizing with their rudeness. Along with other partisans of the nonwriters, they will argue, "Oh, I know he's pleased, but he's really been busy," or "Of course she likes it, but you've got to understand, she never writes letters. Kids just don't, anymore."
Among them, they have managed to intimidate the present-givers, who either nurse their grievance in silence (well, not total silence - they do tell Miss Manners about it, and mention it to all their friends) or pretend that they really don't expect thanks but that they only want to know if the present actually arrived.
It's not true. That is, they do want to know that the present arrived, but they also want to know that it was successful in producing pleasure and that their good will in sending inspired some return warmth of feeling.
That may not meet the high standard of selfless generosity claimed by the gratitude-defaulters. But measured against alternative human emotions (for instance, such increasingly popular ones as "Who cares?" and "Why should I do anything for them?"), it's pretty nice and should be encouraged.
The argument that letter-writing is an old-fashioned habit no longer practiced is, Miss Manners feels obliged to mention, out-of-date. Since the blessing of e-mail, young people in particular have become accustomed to expressing themselves in writing. And the technological adjustments in switching from computer to the pen and paper required for thank you letters is not beyond their skills.
Miss Manners made the emotionally extravagant claim that such letters benefit the letter writer, as well as the recipient. In general, she means this in the spirit of most good-for-you formulas, which mean that the person who has to do it isn't going to like it. Nevertheless, it is true that being forced to focus on another's kindness is good for the soul and especially valuable to those bloated with good fortune.
However, the practice really does immediately benefit the unfortunate - those mourners whose reluctance to answer condolence letters, flowers and donations is so pathetically understandable. Rousing yourself from grief to acknowledge that people share your grief, provides real comfort. And acting on behalf of the deceased, in assuring sympathizers that they were highly thought of by that person, is one of the few satisfactions available to the bereaved.
Planning a wedding? If you need Miss Manners' advice on whom to invite, what to wear, who pays for what, etc., send $2, plus a long self-addressed stamped envelope, for her "Weddings for Beginners" pamphlet to: Miss Manners, in care of this newspaper, P.O. Box 4465, Grand Central Station, New York, NY 10163-4465.