DEAR MISS MANNERS: I am sufficiently old-school that I will sometimes answer a phone call from an unfamiliar number for which no caller ID is displayed, rather than letting it go to voicemail.
If I say hello, and the caller asks to speak to (name), is it rude of me to reply by asking, “Who is calling, please?” Also, does it matter whether the name the caller asks for is my own, or that of my spouse?
If the unknown caller asks for me by name, I prefer to know who is calling before deciding whether to proceed with the call. That seems a wise precaution against scammers and telemarketers, but I do not want to be rude or abrupt with other callers.
My wife and I have different phone numbers, but it is not uncommon that a caller reaches me despite intending to call her. I do not wish to be, nor to sound like, a gatekeeper handing the phone to her only if I approve of the caller. But I would like to tell her who is calling, so that she can decide whether she wants to take the call or not. Please advise.
GENTLE READER: It is not rude to ask callers to identify themselves, nor to say, “May I tell her who is calling?” on behalf of your wife — as long as she is agreeable to it.
Miss Manners would think she would be grateful for the gatekeeping if she is spared talking to a solicitor — or a scammer falsely telling her she will be arrested unless she pays out thousands. Which, since these are generally the two categories of unfamiliar numbers, begs the question of why you are answering these calls in the first place.
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DEAR MISS MANNERS: A couple with whom we are friendly, but not close, asked us to meet for dinner on a Saturday night. We agreed that we would meet at a certain restaurant at 7 p.m. A few days beforehand, they asked if we could push it to 8 p.m. because they had been invited to a tree-trimming party and wanted to attend.
I was a little put off, since we originally accommodated the time they requested, but we agreed and I pushed the reservation to 8. Then, the day before, they emailed us to cancel dinner altogether because at the last minute, they’d been invited to a 50th birthday party. I thought that was incredibly rude. We accommodated their first last-minute party plans, but to cancel on us altogether because something more fun came up was unacceptable to me.
How should we have handled this? I am not inclined to make plans with them again, but they keep asking when we are going to get together. How should we respond?
GENTLE READER: There was no other way of handling this rudeness other than to quietly seethe and vow not to make plans with the couple again anytime soon. (Although Miss Manners thinks it fair to pass it along if the restaurant charged you for canceling or was otherwise peeved.)
Next time they ask to get together, you may say, “We would love to, but your social calendar seems to be constantly evolving — and we don’t want to get in your way.”
