The Different Degrees Of a Cold Shoulder

Dear Miss Manners:

My mother taught me not to mess with a lady's purse, but when I go to socials, I often find all of the available seats occupied by purses and coats. The ladies are chatting in the kitchen while the men are standing on sore knees in the living room.

Are these chairs reserved for the ladies whose purses occupy them? Where should the ladies properly place their coats and purses? Am I allowed to remove a purse or coat and put it in its proper place?

You gentlemen would be less uncomfortable if you stopped standing on your knees, Miss Manners would imagine. And if you understood that messing with a lady's purse means opening it, sitting on it, tossing it across the room and, in extreme cases, stealing it, but not carefully placing it out of your way (and where she will be able to find it).

Gentlemen may not appreciate the fact that there has never been a satisfactory solution to the problem of where a lady should park her purse. If she puts it on the floor, you will step on it. If she puts it on a table, you will spill your drink on it. If she keeps it on her arm, it will tire her and also hit you in the wrong place if you try to hug her.

Coats are another matter. Presumably there is a closet, or you gentlemen would have strewn your own coats on chairs. So why don't you hang up the ladies' coats? For that matter, why didn't you do so when you and the ladies arrived?

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.

2008Judith Martin