DEAR MISS MANNERS: I love scrapbooking and physical photo albums, and I have several proudly displayed on a shelf in my living room. We love to entertain, and while guests usually see the albums on the shelf, they rarely ask about them and almost never pull them down to look through!
The albums contain photos of family and friends through the years, and I’d love to share them. I don’t want to commit the faux pas of forcing photo albums on others, but would it be OK for me to strategically place one on my coffee table, to subtly encourage folks to look through it?
GENTLE READER: This is the lower-tech version of passing around your telephone, or, before that, showing home movies of your children’s birthday parties and family vacations. Usually, people only tolerate this in hopes of showing their own pictures.
But while Miss Manners believes you should let this notion go, she will do her duty to help you.
Sure, leave an album or two on the coffee table. But it is not as though your living room is a waiting room, where people will grab anything, even old medical journals, to read.
What you can do is tell an amusing story about one of your friends or relatives, and then ask, “Would you like to see a picture?” Your guests can hardly say no. When you open the album to the person mentioned, you can then hand it to your guest, who may or may not look more into it.
Just please promise that you will take the album back as soon as they try to return it.
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(Please send your questions to Miss Manners at her website, www.missmanners.com; to her email, dearmissmanners@gmail.com; or through postal mail to Miss Manners, Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.)