Q. Recently a cousin and I gave a small drinks party in the USA. She had invited a very elegant older Hispanic woman. At the end of the party, my cousin was in a tête-à-tête with this woman on the sofa and I was left with two other (American) women at the table, one of whom was telling amusing anecdotes. I deliberately didn’t interrupt my cousin as I thought she wanted to be alone with her new friend. However later my cousin said that the woman, without any prompting, had started a long story of how she’d been abused by her stepfather as a child. My cousin was longing to get away but didn’t feel able. How could she have extricated herself?
— E.S., London W11
A. Your cousin could have almost finished whatever drink she was holding, then clumsily spilt the rest, ideally over her own tights. The mopping-up operation would have caused a distraction in the room and triggered the resumption of inclusive conversation. After this ‘break in transmission’, your cousin could have fast forwarded the monologue to its conclusion by inquiring: ‘So, in a nutshell, how would you best summarise the effect this trauma had on you?’
Q. I arrived at a dinner party in London which turned out to be a silver wedding anniversary dinner party. Others had brought silver photograph frames, handmade cushions etc, and I was the only guest to arrive empty-handed. I sensed I had hurt my friends’ feelings and wondered what I could have done.
— D.J., London SW1
A. You could have left the room and used your iPhone to order a next-day delivery from Amazon.com of a pair of goosedown pillows (from £74 a pair for Hungarian goosedown to £340 a pair for Siberian).
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