Common Queertesy: A Queer Etiquette Column
let's not beat around the bush
When I was about 10 years old, I found a huge book in a cardboard box in our basement. It was called Miss Manners’ Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior, by Judith Martin, and it was dusty and very heavy. I lifted this book out of the box, wiped it off with the sleeve of my sweatshirt, and took it up to my room.
Within a week, I’d finished it– devoured all 711 pages of it, like an anaconda swallowing a dead leopard whole, and when I was done, I immediately started it over again. It wasn’t enough to have read this book; I needed to absorb its nutrients; I needed to have it be part of me.
Inside the book were chapters called “Basic Civilization” and “Unpleasant Facts of Life” and “Marriage (for Beginners)” and “Social Disasters.” Inside were clear instructions for what to do in every situation imaginable. From a casual perusal of Miss Manners’ Guide, you could learn what to wear to a cocktail party, how to correctly announce your engagement, what to say when receiving a terrible present, how to introduce a gay couple to a bunch of straight people (this was in the “Advanced Civilization” chapter), what to do when your friend puts their toddler on the phone to “say hi,” and how to properly set a table for both family dinners and visiting Russian dignitaries.
I need this, I thought, flipping the pages on my bed, a 10-year-old child with a beaverish overbite and thick plastic LensCrafters glasses. Surely there will come a time when I need to shush someone in front of me at the opera, or introduce my spouse to the First Lady at the White House.
The future was hazy but sure to be glamorous, and from Miss Manners, I learned life was comfortingly simple to navigate, if you only knew the correct thing to do. And I intended to study until I always knew the correct thing to do.
…Except, as an adult, I’ve learned there is rarely a single “correct” thing to do. And as a queer adult, I’ve noticed something: No one in my social circle ever wants to talk about the correct ordering of courses for a formal French meal (weird!!! and also please call me if you ever want to discuss this!!!), but people do want to talk about behavior. All the time.
Sit down with any gay for any amount of time and you are probably going to discuss behavior at some point– usually how behavior relates to norms in a sorta-shared queer culture. How to behave; how their friend acted last night; what this lady at the bar was doing; who’s invited to the hangout; who was rude when they met; what their houseguest said; what their partner wore; why they’re annoyed about what happened at brunch; what this stranger on the plane did; why someone in the friend group is mad at somebody else.
And you know what behavior is?
Etiquette. It’s all etiquette, baybee.
Etiquette is the set of norms of personal behavior in society. It is also the art of making people comfortable. I love that.
The world is full of shades of g(r)ay, and I want to talk about how to navigate the specific etiquette scenarios that come up for queers. And while I am absolutely not an expert in etiquette (ask Davin, I eat like a starving velociraptor and I have the opposite of a poker face when I’m annoyed), I have read everything Miss Manners has ever written, and I’m gay, and I like to help other people feel comfortable. Plus, I’m nosy as hell. I love to discuss etiquette.
What if we do it together? What if we read the queer etiquette questions people send in and then decide together what we would do in each scenario?)
You in???
Excellent.
Let’s get into allll the petty details in Common Queertesy: A Queer Etiquette Column.
We’re starting off with a question I made up, because this is a new column and I don’t have many questions from other people yet, and also I really really wanna talk about this:
Q: If I bring a beverage to a party, is it ever OK for me to take it with me when I leave?
A: No.
No, it is not. It is not ever OK to take a beverage you brought for a party home with you.
That’s the TL;DR version. But but but
I want to talk about this so much because this is a phenomenon I’ve witnessed almost exclusively at queer parties, dinners, hangouts, etc. I first noticed it in Chicago: Queers would arrive at someone’s house to hang out, bringing with them a six-pack of beer, a bottle of cheap wine, a case of La Croix, a box of Franzia, or a liter of ginger ale and a fifth of the kind of whiskey that comes in a plastic bottle. They would deposit their beverage on a table with all the other drinks. During the party, they would only drink the beverage they brought, and if they wanted something else, they would be sure to ask: Who brought the seltzer? Could they have one? At the end of the party, everyone would then carefully collect the remains of their beverage– even if it was a single bottle left over from a six-pack– and head for home.
This was common, accepted behavior.
It is hard to shock me, my good homos. But I was shocked when I began to encounter this at get-togethers. Once, before I understood how things worked, I tried to open a bottle of Bud Light Lime I found on a table full of other drinks. My then-girlfriend actually snatched it out of my hand, putting it back on the table while hissing, “You didn’t bring this, you have to ask.”
Listen: I am still shocked. Je remain shocked. Because it’s still happening. I am in my 40s and it’s still happening, I am going to gatherings and people are bringing, drinking from, and leaving only with the beverages they brought.
No. No. NOOOO. (Picture me rage-howling at the lesbian moon before transforming into a werewolf Kristen Stewart thinks is hot!!) If you bring something to drink to a gathering, that is an offering. That is– along with your stunning presence and sparkling wit– your gift to the party, my darling homosexual lambkin. If there is a lot (or anything) left over, that is a bonus for the host of the party, who deserves it, because they hosted you and maybe even hid their sex toys and locked their mean cat in the basement for you. Mittens McFlufferson is probably rage-pissing on your host’s stored camping gear right now, so your host gets the leftover booze.
Now, I know all this stems from queers not having a lot of money. I know. I understand that. But let us put an end to this ridiculous practice. You bring what you can afford to bring, and everyone puts their drinks together on the table, and everyone drinks whatever they want, without asking for permission.Your friend with a fancy tech job brought a 24-pack of special German beer? Good! Drink that shit! They brought it because they can afford it! It does not matter that you brought Fireball and two Diet Coke minis! It is all for the party! Neither of you can take any of it home with you, OK???!!!
The ONLY exception is if you’ve brought something the host of the party hates and they are literally shoving it into your arms as you leave, saying, “Oh my god, please take these, I hate IPAs, they’ll go to waste, I really really hate them, please take them, I mean it, take them.” Then you can take them. Fine.
Otherwise?? THIS HAS TO STOP, GAYS. This kind of outrageous behavior has been normalized for TOO LONG. Are you with me???
Q: If I see someone I briefly dated a long time ago out in public, do I have to say hi?
-Viola
A: Yes.
I’m so sorry, Viola. I mean, do whatever you want, obviously, but the polite thing to do is to acknowledge that person’s existence.
You’re out. You see this person. They see you. This shit does not have to get weird!!! Brief eye contact, a “hey,” or a nod, or even that dickish chin-upwards move will suffice. Then you can ignore them. Feel free!!
Just: Don’t do The Thing. I’m begging you. Wherever you live, the queer community is small, and doing The Thing is needlessly rude and sometimes even cruel, and it makes whoever’s doing it look like a jerk baby.
What’s The Thing, you ask, Viola?
You know what The Thing is.
The Thing is when you see someone you once ____(past tense verb)____ with and then ghosted, or it just didn’t work out for some reason, and they see you, and you ignore them. You know they’re there– you are as aware of them in your peripheral vision as you would be a hornet in your bedroom– but you look anywhere but at them. All night. And then, if trapped, you act surprised, like “oh, hi!”
Gross. This is not the move. Don’t do The Thing.
A simple acknowledgement of someone else’s existence. That’s all we’re asking for, here. You can do that!
Of course, all bets are off if the person in question did you dirty– in that case, I wish I was with you to see what you do next!!! Are we leaving immediately? Are we confronting? IS THERE GONNA BE A FIGHT??? Ahhhhhh tell me again what they did!!!
That’s it for this first round of Common Queertesy: A Queer Etiquette Column! Thanks for reading!
Do YOU have a queer etiquette question?
I am poor - generationally poor! lifelong poor! worryingly poor! - and I completely expect a host to keep whatever I bring as an offering, smh. It's a GIFT. What is the world coming to??
As a neurodivergent person who is constantly wanting structure for social situations, I find etiquette absolutely alluring. I remember reading several etiquette books aimed at teens growing up. A lot of it was difficult to relate to due to the, y'know, poor thing, but much of it can be useful! I look forward to this as a new column!
(Me looking at the release form section on the submission page and seeing that it could be used for "future projects:" Krista, if your next book is a queer etiquette book I WILL SCREAMMMMM.)
I grew up with the UK equivalent, Debrett's Etiquette. As I sit on the sofa shovelling food into my mouth I am haunted by the diagram of the two correct ways to eat green peas.