Q. My wife and I both work from home. We happen to have three friends called Sue, all of whom ring up on a regular basis. On the telephone they all sound identical, and so when one of them rings to speak to my wife I struggle to find a tactful way of identifying which one it is without making her feel she is not important enough to allow me to recognise her voice immediately.
—N.A., Glos
A. You can sidestep the natural offence that a perception of interchangeability might cause in the Sues. Simply reply to their inevitable query how are you with ‘Hmm. How was I when we last met?’ The Sue’s reply will give you the data you need — e.g. ‘You were fine when we met at the Blahs.’
You can then say, ‘Oh well, I didn’t say anything but I was sure I might be going down with flu but I was absolutely fine the next day.’
Q. A woman I know socially is being very nosy about the break-up of a couple of our acquaintance. She rightly assumes that I know much more about this than she does and keeps trying to have tête-à-têtes with me to find out more. I have fobbed her off so far but I don’t have many excuses left. I feel like saying outright that I’m not going to discuss the subject if I do agree to meet her, but I fear this looks suspicious. She keeps trying to pin me down to lunch and dinner dates.
—Name and address withheld
A. Do not deny that you know anything, but stall the nosy parker by saying portentously, ‘Actually there is about to be a significant development, but for the moment it would be mad for me to talk about it. I’m sure you understand.’
In this way the nosy p may suspect you are referring to some kind of rapprochement or other surprise outcome which would render irrelevant all interim gossip. Carry on stalling for as long as it takes for the facts to emerge publicly of their own accord without your having had any part in the matter.
Q. For various reasons I often sleep in our spare bedroom. Because of the size of the bed it is very difficult to make and I find it annoying when overnight visitors think they are being helpful by stripping it after a one-night stay and bringing the linen down to the laundry room, because I like to slip in there myself and don’t care about clean sheets. I don’t like to tell them this, though, because it seems like ‘too much information’.
—Name and address withheld
A. Why not say, as you show them into the room, ‘don’t please strip the bed tomorrow. It’s the only job our cleaner really enjoys.’ Or, ‘just leave the sheets tomorrow. I have a young man coming next and I may not give him clean sheets as I know he lives in a rathole normally.’
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