If the Big Fish, when offering the invitation, inquires if you play golf and/or tennis, know that if you say yes, he will get you up at dawn and drag you to on the links/court as often as he thinks it’s fun to play, not necessarily as often as you think it’s fun to play. More important, do not admit to playing golf, tennis, bridge, backgammon, badminton, or any other variety of fun where there is a winner and loser unless you not only play well enough to let the Big Fish win without making it obvious you’re throwing the match to curry favor, but also have the gamesmanship to guarantee that if teamed up with him in a game of doubles and/or in a foursome of golf, you have the skills to ensure victory.
Generally, the Great Weekend Guest is expected to be a gracious loser when playing any games where score is kept with his or her host.
Being a good loser and making polite conversation through three meals a day are just part of what is expected of a great guest. You also have to say yes to whatever activities or pastimes the Big Fish thinks of as de rigueur for a weekend to qualify as “great,” i.e., touch football on the beach with the Big Fish and his son who plays middle linebacker at Stanford and likes to hurt you, the eight-mile jog through the bear-infested woods, or being forced to swim to the lighthouse through a school of jellyfish, etc., etc., etc. All of which is exhausting. And if there’s a Wild Boar in the house, it will be doubly exhausting. Think of the weekend not as a marathon but as a series of social climbing sprints.
You will need time alone between events to recharge your batteries and regain your sanity if you want to be at your best at dinner. How does a great guest escape his or her host or hostess for a few hours without seeming rude?
Here are a few excuses that have worked well for us. Announce when you first arrive on Friday that despite your reputation as a bon vivant, devil-may-care kind of guy or girl, you are in fact deeply religious, and hope that they will understand if you take an hour or two off to drive yourself to the nearest synagogue, church, or mosque. If you are in a part of the country that has no minarets, steeples, or enough fellow Jews to form a minyan, you’re still in luck if you’re a Muslim, because you can simply retreat to your bedroom five times a day and pray to Mecca.
For those social climbers who are known atheists, we suggest that when you first receive your invitation for the weekend, you reveal to your host or hostess that a relative of yours is buried in the local cemetery and that you hope they wouldn’t mind if you skipped away for a few hours to visit the grave. Big Fish rarely like to visit cemeteries for the simple reason that they don’t like to consider the possibility that the world could go on without them.
What do you do while your Big Fish host or hostess thinks you are attending religious services or visiting the cemetery where your relative is not buried? Look for better opportunities to climb.
Slip a pair of binoculars and a bird book in your pocket. Drive/bike/walk far enough from the Big Fish’s weekend retreat that you cannot be observed by the Big Fish or any of their equally exhausting guests or relatives. Now wander onto the property that belongs to the Big Fish your host or hostess bragged about when you Google-mapped the village where they own their second home.
If these neighboring Big Fish you’ve never met but would like to get to know ask you why you are trespassing, pull out your binoculars and bird book. Inform them that you stumbled onto their property by accident while you were “birding.” Seem excited, look up into the branches of the trees, or point to a stretch of beach grass and whisper, “I’ve just spotted an Acadian flycatcher (or a piping plover).” Whatever species you choose, just make sure it’s “endangered.” Yes, there is the small risk that the Big Fish might actually call the police or sic their rottweilers on you, but you will discover most Big Fish homeowners will be immensely pleased to learn an endangered species was spotted on their property because it will give them another thing to brag about.
A word of caution: Do not immediately volunteer the name of the Big Fish you are spending the weekend with. Chances are that they if they were friends with the Big Fish you’re staying with, your host would have mentioned the fact and invited them over for dinner, lunch, or touch football with the son who likes to hurt people. Hence, it is prudent to merely say that you first spotted the endangered species of bird over by the house of the Big Fish where you are spending the weekend. Now, if the Big Fish you’ve just introduced yourself to announces, “Those ghastly people?” it is wise not to mention the fact that you are staying with them. However, if the Big Fish says, “That’s my cousin Bill,” of course reveal that you’re Cousin Bill’s guest, but also add that you can’t stay and talk anymore about piping plovers or endangered flycatchers because you’re late for church or synagogue, or have a date with a dead relative at a local graveyard.
Every social climber, even if they are the greatest of guests, sometimes finds him- or herself trapped in a hell weekend: Rain and sharing a double bed with a fellow climber who snores. Rain and an infestation of bedbugs. Rain and a couple with three children under the age of four whose nanny has just quit, etc. Big Fish being Big Fish, your host will of course be offended by and suspicious of any attempt to cut a Rain weekend short, except of course if you give them a reason to want you to leave early.
If the nearest pharmacy is an hour’s drive away, announcing that you left your antiseizure medication back in the city will usually suffice—they will not want to drive you to the pharmacy, and, seizures often being messy due to a loss of bladder control, they will be happy to let you go home early. Feign a back injury that requires them to carry you to and from the toilet and they will not protest when you volunteer to depart ahead of schedule. If the Big Fish has small children, announce you’ve recently been exposed to dengue fever, and they will force you to leave early.
For the single social climber, it’s worth pointing out that the most difficult weekends are often those where your Big Fish host or hostess has forgotten to mention that they have invited you out to the country/beach/mountains because they want to set you up with someone who doesn’t meet your standards in the looks/status/fame/fortune/charm/oral-hygiene department.
Because the loser will have invariably been told by your host or hostess that you like his/her type, know that he/she will insist on accompanying you if you try to escape to a religious service or visit the graveyard. If your host or hostess is too big a fish to offend and leaving early is out of the question, your best bet is to limit your unwanted suitor’s mobility early in the weekend. Volunteer to help in the kitchen, and drop a Crock-Pot full of hot beef bourguignon in his/her lap. Accidentally on purpose let your nine iron or tennis racquet collide with a part of his/her body that will not do permanent damage but will keep him/her off the beach and out of your hair until you depart on Sunday.
Last but not least, if you are a weekend guest where there is staff, always remember to tip the maid who cleans the room. Why? Because maids are usually locals. And locals gossip, i.e., there is an excellent chance he or she knows you weren’t attending church or synagogue or retreating to your room to pray to Mecca. Fifty dollars is the customary cost of purchasing domestic silence in regard to any misbehavior that does not involve the maid’s perjuring herself in a court of law.
Note: If you are a social climber who is sleeping your way to the top and you have surreptitiously bedded down with the Big Fish’s spouse and/or a guest other than the one you’ve been set up with, the maid will know and fifty dollars will not be enough.
Thank-You Notes
If you have been invited to any of the social functions previously mentioned, you will need to write a thank-you note. Or in the case of the funeral, a letter of condolence. Which is in essence a sad thank-you note. We are old-school when it comes to written thank-yous. Not because we are slaves to outmoded social conventions, but because the handwritten thank-you posted in the mail is the most cost- and time-effective gesture a social climber can make to ensure he or she is invited back.
Emailed thank-you notes send a
subliminal message that you think your host or hostess isn’t worth a fifty-cent stamp and a walk to the mailbox. Texted thank-yous such as “tks 4 aweso w/end” will give your host or hostess the impression that you don’t know how to spell. And tweeted thank-yous, however widely circulated, will imply that your gratitude is limited to 140 characters.
Thank-you notes should be written in ink by hand.
Younger readers who have become so dependent on keyboards and T-9 that they now point with their thumbs and find writing difficult should invest in a fountain pen and take a calligraphy course. Google Noël Coward. We don’t expect you to be able to write like him, but with a little practice, you can print like him.
In the ill-mannered age we live in, composing a handwritten thank-you note is as impressive as the composition of a sonnet was in Shakespeare’s time. It is both quaint and formal, especially if written on expensive stationery that includes a nonexistent family crest or is embossed with the silhouette of that stately home your family has, unfortunately, never owned.
EMPOWERING THOUGHT #23
A well-written thank-you note, providing that it has no spelling errors, will make you seem better bred than you are.
Those of you who have never written or received a thank-you note, use the template below. Substitute the fawning adjectives and appropriate nouns in our all-purpose thank-you and you will seem better-mannered, more eloquent, and more grateful than you probably are.
Dear ____________ (Always use a nickname.)
Your ____________ will always be ____________ to me. You are truly ____________. The ____________ and ____________ were inspirational. I had no idea you possessed such ____________; so many ____________. My ____________ is still sore from the ____________ you ____________, and I can still taste the ____________ of your ____________(s). Your generosity ____________ me. I can’t wait to ____________ you again.
I must ____________ you, ____________ and ____________.
Best ____________ ever,
____________
(If you crashed the party you are thanking your host for, it is best to include your last name. Why? Because if your thank-you note is charming enough, they’ll want to invite you to their next party.)
PS: Your secret is totally safe with me.
(This will guarantee future contact regardless of whether there was a secret told and especially if drugs and/or alcohol were consumed during the event. Your host, uncertain of exactly what they said, will be inclined to solve the mystery of any possible indiscretion on their part by immediately calling you up and inadvertently revealing a secret they hadn’t actually revealed. Now they will be forced to invite you back because they know if they don’t keep sucking up to you, you will reveal the indiscretion. Knowledge is power.)
HANDLING HORMONALLY CHARGED EVENTS: ENGAGEMENT PARTIES AND WEDDINGS
We have devoted a separate chapter to engagement parties and weddings, because these hormonally charged events present Mountaineers with opportunities and challenges not found at other social functions. While love and marriage never did go together like a horse and carriage, we at The Social Climber’s Bible are happy to report that weddings and social climbing are still inexorably intertwined.
Know that you are not just going to a party where people throw rice, catch bouquets, and cry because they are happy. You are attending a sacred event. A pageant based on traditions designed, choreographed, and costumed so that when coupled with alcohol, those witnessing the spectacle will be prone to succumb to a form of mass delusion and magical forgetting that blinds them to the realities of modern-day nuptials, i.e., that statistics prove that there is a better than 50 percent chance the couple who just promised to love, honor, and obey each other in sickness and in health till death do them part will soon be fighting over the wedding presents in divorce court.
The same romantic wedding fantasies that inspire normally level-headed, intelligent wedding guests to repress the fact that the virginal bride in white has a live-stream sex show on the Web (which they themselves frequent) and/or ignore the rumors that the dashing groom is still on Grindr will inspire them to “forget” any and all of the less-than-flattering things they have heard about you.
What’s important for Mountaineers to know is that this magical forgetting also prompts individuals who would normally spot you as a climber a mile off to fall under the delusion that you are a person of sterling character whom they should do something to help.
But before you can capitalize on the tactical advantages weddings provide the climber, you must first, of course, get invited to the wedding. Which brings us to the subject of:
Engagement Parties
Note: Mountaineers who have been invited to the engagement party because they are the ones getting married should immediately flip ahead to the following chapter, Dating, Love, and Marriage, and find out how to make the most of the social climbing opportunities when you’re marrying up.
For those of you who are single and fancy-free, your first job at the engagement party is to do whatever it takes to make sure that you will be invited to the wedding. Know that in these financially uncertain times, you may be worth cocktails and pigs in a blanket but might not be deemed worthy of a three-course meal and a Dom Perignon fountain, especially if they know you can’t afford to buy any of the wedding gifts they have registered for at Tiffany’s. As with all social functions, you can increase your chances of making the cut if you plan ahead.
The social climber should always be the one to organize a group of the bride’s or groom’s friends to each donate fifty to one hundred dollars so they can get the betrothed couple a special present. Volunteer not only to collect the money but also to make the purchase with your credit card. We don’t suggest you do anything as crass as claiming to have paid for this present entirely by yourself. Simply forget to include the gift card that lists the names of those who contributed and accidentally leave your credit card receipt in the box that contains the present, and the bride and groom will assume you paid for it by yourself.
A great present will get you off on the right foot at the engagement party. But to actually secure an invite to the wedding, you will also have to make a great impression. And to do that, you must navigate the undercurrent of anxiety that is ever present at all engagement parties due to the fact that there’s no guarantee that the engagement party will be followed by a wedding party. And as such, the engagement will turn out to be both a waste of money and a social embarrassment. Usually, whoever’s paying for the party is “the party” that most wants the marriage to go through, i.e., either the bride is pregnant or one of the betrothed’s parents hopes for financial gain before the balloon payment on their mortgage comes due.
The high hopes, higher stakes, and uncertain outcome of engagements kindles a giddy sexual energy that prompts some to make the mistake of offering a toast that references the future bride’s or groom’s previous romantic indiscretions. Resist the temptation to turn the engagement party into a roast. The mother of the future bride will not feel inclined to send you an invitation to the wedding if you raise your glass to wish them well by offering up an anecdote that includes the details of her daughter’s or future son-in-law’s first ménage à trois, especially if it involved you. Play it safe and get off on a good foot by deliberately mistaking the bride’s or groom’s mother for her or his older sister.
If you want to sleep with the bridesmaids or groomsmen at the wedding, do not sleep with them at the engagement party. Think of the engagement party as a research trip. Say you have only just met the betrothed and you’ve gotten yourself invited to the engagement party because you heard the wedding’s going to be held in a château in Uzbekistan; sounds great. The only trouble is that in certain parts of Uzbekistan, a château is simply a home where the donkey doesn’t sleep in your bedroom.
Likewise, it is prudent to discreetly find out what kind of presents the bride and groom plan to give their attendants before you start lobbying to be picked as maid of honor/brid
esmaid/best man/groomsman. Obviously, paying hundreds of dollars for a bridesmaid’s dress that’s designed to make you look fat and the bride look thin is a good investment if the bride’s father is going to give you diamond clips from Tiffany’s. But agreeing to rent a cutaway and springing for strippers at a bachelor party is a decidedly bad investment in return for a ceramic beer mug with the date of the wedding hand-painted on it by the groom’s mother.
If you are a friend of the bride and upon arriving at the engagement party discover that the groom’s family and friends have infinitely more to offer you in terms of connections, future invites, and better vacation homes, this is the time to change your alliances and become the groom’s new best friend. If you find yourself thinking, I would get more out of this fascinating clan if I were the bride- or groom-to-be, do not hit on the future bride or groom at the engagement party. Wait until they begin to argue about china patterns and prenuptial agreements before telling them that they seem unhappy and volunteering to give them a backrub to help them relax.
In our view, it is perfectly socially acceptable to steal your friend’s fiancé if you do so before the wedding invitations have been mailed.
The engagement party isn’t always a win-win affair for the betrothed, but it can be for you. Except, of course, if one of the two people getting engaged is your Swan. Once a Swan says “I do” to someone other than yourself, he or she is no longer your Swan but becomes someone else’s ride to the top.
Yes, being a caring person, you want to see your Swan happy. But are you going to be happy if she brings her fiancé instead of you to all those swell parties? Sure, she will let you tag along at first, but after the wedding, how much love will be left for you? You care about your Swan—are you going to stand by and let her be used by someone other than yourself?
The Social Climber's Bible: A Book of Manners, Practical Tips, and Spiritual Advice forthe Upwardly Mobile Page 10
