Oh, Behave!

The classiest ways to split a bill, send your sympathies,say no, and more.

- Lenore Skenazy

WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME you sent a thank-you note to a friend after being invited over for dinner? Forget? You know why? Because you probably never did. No one does that anymore. Somewhere between unfriending and Instagramming every aspect of our lives, the rules of decorum that we’d all lived by changed. Well, we’re going to correct that. We polled our friends for the etiquette conundrums that vex them most. Then we asked experts to assess the correct way to proceed. Oh, and if you like what you read, feel free to send a thank-you note. That would be nice.

Sending Condolences

Your friend’s husband dies. You didn’t know him that well. But still. The thing is, we all know the right thing to do when we hear of a friend’s or relative’s loss: Write that sympathy card and mail it already!

But what if you don’t have a sympathy card around? Or you do, but the corner’s kind of bent? Or what if you don’t know your friend’s snail mail address offhand and keep forgetting to look it up until it’s 11:30 at night and you’re drifting gently off to sleep when suddenly you remember, I STILL HAVEN’T MAILED THAT CARD!!!? And now your heart is pounding, and you are electrified with self-loathing ... but still too toasty under the covers to actually get out of bed and do anything? If you’re tempted to text a sad-faced emoji just to get something out, don’t. That’s right up there with “liking” the news on Facebook. But here’s the good news, sluggards! When it comes to expressing sympathy, “there’s no time limit,” says Anne Klaeysen of the New York Society of Ethical Culture. In fact, sometimes it’s even nicer for a mourner to get a note a little after the initial flurry of attention, when life for everyone else has returned to “normal.”