Her Cause and Its Effect

Dear Miss Manners:

I am in my late 20s, and a lot more of my friends are becoming engaged, and something has really been bothering me.

I am an activist and really have issues with diamonds due to their origins. It is actually one of the main reasons my husband and I did away with the idea of rings altogether until we could find a jewelry company that thinks along our lines. (I have found several recently.)

I am happy for all my friends' engagements, but when they go and show me the diamond and ask my opinion on the ring (i.e., "Isn't it beautiful?"), I really want to explain my position on these stones.

I know that at parties in mixed company, it is definitely not appropriate (nobody wants an activist to spoil a wedding or engagement party), and I usually end up stammering and saying, "Very nice." This usually makes me feel very uncomfortable and hypocritical, like I am accepting these stones as being okay.

How do I get away from the constant feeling that I should let them know how I really feel about the ring, but that it has nothing to do with the actual engagement?

Most of these people know that I am actively involved in clubs like Sierra Club and Amnesty International but do not fully understand why my husband and I have no rings. Most just think it was because we eloped.

"Isn't it beautiful?" is not a question; it is a prompt to give the conventional compliment. But if you used the opportunity to state your position, what do you think would happen?

Struck by the righteousness of your stand, the new fiancee would pull off her ring in horror and fling it away.

No? Then what would you hope to accomplish?

Miss Manners assures you that people do not absorb moral lessons from those who trample on their feelings. Rather, they forever associate the unpleasantness of the spokesperson with the cause itself. So if the certainty that you would hurt your friends' feelings is not enough to satisfy you into mere murmured politeness, how about the certainty that you would hurt your cause?

Dear Miss Manners:

Who enters and exits an elevator first, the lady or the gentleman? (Exiting, of course, seems to be governed by the practical principle that the person nearest the door leaves first.)

I understand that the social norm of "ladies first" governs many situations like this. However, I was once informed by a well-bred Southern lady that the gentleman always enters and exits first, because doing so is a step into the unknown and, in the event of mishap, the gentleman should be the one to take the fall, so to speak.

This makes sense to me in light of the historical development of social conventions. Unfortunately, when I have acted upon this theory and entered an elevator first, I have occasionally received the icy glare of the sort usually directed at boors.

A gentleman allows a lady to precede him into an elevator. For his own safety, as well as the lady's, Miss Manners acknowledges that a fastidious gentleman might check first to see that there is actually an elevator there, and not an empty shaft.

Feeling incorrect? E-mail your etiquette questions to Miss Manners (who is distraught that she cannot reply personally) atMissManners@unitedmedia.comor mail to United Media, 200 Madison Ave., New York, N.Y. 10016.

2007Judith Martin