YOUR PROBLEMS SOLVED
Q. What do you do when a friend whom you have arranged to take out to dinner goes and asks two other people to join you in the restaurant'? It is not that my husband and I dislike the other two people — just that we do not wish to have to pay for their meals. Our friend, who is still earning 'funny money' in Tokyo, is not tuned in to the general climate of penny-pinching in Britain. As he is in town for three nights only, he obviously wants to see as many people as possible and embarrassment over payment will not have occurred to him. I cannot cook at home because I am working till 8 o'clock on the night in question. What should I do?
J.S., WI
A. Put the following plan into action. Stage one: you arrive at the restaurant first and greet the two extra guests with excessive enthusiasm. Say that your husband will he SO thrilled to see them — it will be a sur- prise for him because you simply haven't had time to mention that they were coming along. If you have already admitted that your husband knows they are coming, then ignore this stage of the plan. Stage two:
Dear Mary..
your husband bursts through the door look- ing flustered but good-natured. Greeting the two extras with feigned surprise but genuine enthusiasm, he calms down slightly and explains that he is late because he has locked his wallet into the boot of his car (or someone else's car) and that it cannot be retrieved till tomorrow. 'But,' he cries, childishly waving a handful of notes, 'X owed me some money so I dropped in on him on the way here.' It can then turn out that the amount of money X was able to pay back was commensurate only with the cost of three dinners not five. This will allow your friend from Tokyo to pay the difference, were he not already intending to do so. Q. After seven years with our noses to the grindstone in London, our family has moved to Tuscany for a year, possibly more. We want to write to our friends (of whom we have an incredible number) but find that we want to say the same thing to all of them — i.e. about how we are settling in, what schools the children are at, what our social life is, etc. Is it socially accept- able to send the same roneoed or photo- copied open letter to everyone, individually addressed of course?
S. M., Sovicille, near Siena A. No. Recipients of such letters are usually resentful. It is galling when a friend pre- sumes you arc mentally interchangeable with a whole herd of other people. The best procedure would be to write a highly per- sonalised letter to one close friend 'X', giv- ing all the details you mention. You may then attach a photocopy of this letter to the notes that you will scrawl to all your other friends, explaining that you have tendonitis or repetitive strain injury and, until such time as you can write to them properly, you are enclosing a photocopy of a letter to X 'which has all the news'.
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