Yesterday's Cary Tennis column generated huge numbers of comments. Basically, the letter-writer's friend asked if he could come over to her place because he had a power outage in the middle of a blizzard, and she said no because she had her boyfriend over. Mitigating circumstances on both sides - read the column and the comments if you want the whole complex issue.
Now I can see both sides of the argument. I can totally see wanting to go to someone else's place if I had a power outage, and I can totally see want my friend to go elsewhere when I'm having alone time with my boyfriend.
But one very important thing wasn't mentioned in all the 181 (jusqu'à maintenant) comments on the article: why did she answer her phone if she doesn't want to be disturbed?
Am I the only one who has thought of this?
It's a perfectly acceptable practice - even Miss Manners advocates it - and that's precisely what voicemail is for! "But what if it's an emergency?" Then you should be prepared to respond to the emergency. If you aren't prepared to respond to whatever emergency is on the other end of the phone, then don't answer it. Let it go to voicemail. If you really want, you can screen immediately afterwards to see what the problem was and then decide to address it. But if you pick up your phone when you don't want to be disturbed during a weather emergency, it is perfectly reasonable for the person on the other end to expect you to be able to respond to whatever emergency they're having. It's that simple.
1 comment:
If we take things at face value (and allow that there seems to be a lot to the story that is untold), I think the letter-writer does not really count the guy as a close friend. I think you make some accommodations for a close friend, or at least you don't give them a flat-out "no."
But the friend comes off as a bit weird, IMO. Having no power and no heat besides is unpleasant, but if I were in that circumstance I think I'd hesitate to leave my house. If it's cold enough to make me uncomfortable, it can't be far from freezing/bursting pipes or who knows what damage. I wouldn't want to go off and have the house unattended. Who knows what I might find when I returned. I sure wouldn't want to go anywhere that was a half-hour away in the "height" of a blizzard. Chances are they will also be without light and/or heat by the time I get there. And then the way he demands an apology? Such drama and for what? Why not end it now since she seems to be "just not that into" him as a friend. There are too many questions about his true motivations.
And then her, actually writing a letter to an advice columnist about it all? Guilty conscience? Just strange all around, if you ask me. I think there is a whole lot more going on between letter-writer and her sort-of friend than just this issue.
Post a Comment