ONE OF MY BIGGEST SOCIAL FAUX PAS

My time in seminary and a few years after that were full of wedding receptions of my classmates from both seminary and high school. I have attended all the ones I was invited to: I guess my logic at the time was that if they have honoured me with the invitation, I should respond by attending. Later on I realized that only one person invited me because she really wanted to see me at her reception; to the rest of them, I was just a nebuch (charity case) fat "Russian girl", not "put together", and a BT. And, since one always has to be kind to a nebuch (even if she does not think she is one), one has to invite her to one's wedding. I do not think that particular rule is mentioned by Emily Post, but then, our education did not include the study of the icon of social rules (come to think of it, that actually might have been beneficial to some people).

So, when one of my former classmates from seminary issued a wedding invitation, I responded in affirmative right away. But then, I was presented with a problem: what the heck was I supposed to do when not dancing? Because even though the bride, despite coming from a very affluent family, was a very nice and friendly individual, her clique was a classic, textbook collection of snobs. I have already attended plenty of weddings where I would stuff myself at the buffet only because very few people at the reception were known to me, or willing to talk with me, for that matter. Then, the inspiration struck: I would just take a book along!

That solution worked like a charm. I loaded my plate once, found a quite table, and read till it was time for Chupah. Then, during the dinner, I decided to be a polite person my parents have raised me to be, and did not take out my book. My fortitude lasted for about five or ten minutes of people chatting with each other over my head. "To heck with everything" , was my final decision, and out came my romance. Apparently, they were paying attention to me, because as soon as I opened my Nora Roberts, everyone stopped chatting and started staring at your humble servant. "Wow, Barbara, you are reading!" Again, my mom's teaching prevailed, and I did not respond with "as apposed to constantly bending my head, because you are talking to each other other it!"; I just smiled and nodded. Soon, they went back to talking to each other and ignoring me, but for about five minutes after discovering the presence of the book by our table they couldn't get over the whole scene.

Since then, I made a rule of not acquiring an evening bag if it was not big enough to hold a paperback; not that I ever dedicated much time to the evening bag shopping or posses a goodly amount of those. My sis likes to reminisce about this episode as a proof my being a non-conformist; to me it was a turning point of sorts. While never accepting social strictures on just "this is the way it is done", I always hesitated in actually doing something to offend the offending party. That little romance, in itself boring and insignificant, began my liberation. I do not have to descent to the level of ill-mannered boors to at least partially demonstrate to them how disgusting their behavior is; I can also have lots of enjoyment in the process. And that is the story of one of my biggest social faux pas.