Ladies And Gentlemen, Here’s McEmily Post

Excuse me, but as part of my duty as McNokia, a.k.a. connecting people, it’s now time for me to trot out the following article below. I found it a couple of years ago while surfing over the Internet looking for answers to an animated discussion my friends and I had over rounds of beer: Is there proper etiquette for couples (especially newly-minted ones) to behave around their friends (especially the single ones)?

Read on and see if you agree or disagree.

In the following article, Bob Morris of the New York Times says he was single for the longest time. But then he found the love of his life, Ira. So now he feels awkward dealing with couples in love. As he puts it so clearly: “So now that I’m coupled, I’m racked with single survivor guilt.”

Read the rest of his article below: THE AGE OF DISSONANCE; My Single Valentines.

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Last spring, a friend was coming over to meet Ira, my demonstrative beau, for the first time. I asked Ira to avoid any public display of affection. He thought I was being neurotic. I thought I was being polite. But it made me wonder, are there proper ways for couples to behave around singles? Or should the two groups avoid each other entirely?

“Anyone in a new relationship should not be allowed out in public,” said Liz Tuccillo, a co-author of He’s Just Not That Into You, a best-selling dating advice book. “They should just stay home and not inflict themselves on their single friends until they’ve become slightly bored with each other.” As the single friend, she has had to endure lunches with those whose boyfriends keep calling on the cellphone and evenings where they have brought dates along, making her feel like a third wheel.

“Sometimes people in couples don’t think,” she said.

On the other hand, sometimes they think too much and end up overcompensating.

“I think that it’s the job of a friend in a couple,” said Genevieve Field, the married editor of Sex and Sensibility, a new anthology of essays by single women, “to make single friends see how fantastic they are and not let them think they have to settle for the wrong man.” She ends up arguing with them to the death that they won’t end up old maids. Cindi Leive, the editor in chief of Glamour, finds herself feeling apologetic when a single friend ends up at one of her parties of mostly couples. Then she goes overboard to engage them, ignoring the rest of her guests—to make sure they don’t feel they’re standing out.

In Nerve’s Guide to Sex Etiquette, several pages are devoted to the sticky issues of newly coupled friends. Thinking of bringing the new squeeze along to a drinks date with old friends? Ask them first. Thinking of blowing off your pals because your loved one suddenly needs you? Think again. And by all means, make sure that the first words out of your mouth when greeting a friend you haven’t seen in a while are not, “So are you seeing anybody?” That immediately conveys the message that you think they’re lonely. They may not be. Let them bring it up first. Also, take care not to gloat about how happy you are now that you’re hitched. That isn’t just alienating. It’s boring.

“Try to limit altering your behavior when in a new relationship,” advised Emma Taylor, who is a co-author of Nerve’s sex etiquette guide with Lorelei Sharkey under the names Em and Lo. “So that when you go out with old friends you’re the same person you always were.”

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I wonder. Does this include online as well?

For the full article, click here.