From Craig Brown
Q. As I get older I find myself more and more afflicted by dindinitis, which is probably best defined as a morbid dread of dinner parties. Within ten minutes of sitting down, I find that I am tongue-tied and so too is everyone else. Short of ‘You must give me the recipe’ or ‘we much prefer Waitrose’ or ‘Next time, you should try the B1033’, I can think of nothing to say. I don’t like to appear rude, Mary, but how can I refuse all further dinner parties without giving offence?
A. Bad dinner parties are like bad flights: one is enough to put you off for ever and start to promote a phobia. And even a good dinner party with scintillating fellow guests can be arduous if your social phobia is advanced. Actually there are perfectly good reasons for dreading these occasions — no one likes sitting upright between two strangers for three hours and then going out into the cold night to tackle the journey home — but most people are prepared to suffer for the sake of bonding and the abstract rewards which will come later. Lunches are quite different though as they offer the possibility of escape into daylight at any time and no need to feel guilty about leaving after 90 minutes. So why not ease yourself back into social life by refusing dinners but accepting, or offering, lunches?
From Arabella Weir
Q. I have a VERY FAMOUS, RICH, CLOSE FRIEND whose girlfriend’s birthday is on Christmas day. He and I usually exchange generous Yuletide gifts (his more generous than mine, for obvious reasons) but now that he is affianced I don’t want to cause offence by giving the same gift I ordinarily would, plus one. Should I acknowledge them as a couple and give them a dreaded joint gift? And should I also select an entirely different one for her, acknowledging thereby her birthday at the same time (even though I wouldn’t ordinarily be giving her a birthday gift if, for example, her birthday were, off the top of my head, 11 June), to show my beloved friend I am prepared to love her too? Or should I spare myself the expense and the angst?
A.
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