Show right

I went to a fancy college where, between bits of studying, integenerational wealth likes to show off its materialism and reify structures of power. If you know me at all, you know this is improbable, because I have always been like this. Clearly the college gave me two cease-and-desist orders before I would graduate from it.

I’m not here to talk about the cease-and-desist orders, although that will someday make for some pointily good text. No, I am here to talk about etiquette class. On the first day of new student week, everyone had to take an etiquette class. This was, I guess, an excuse to have a nice dinner, with multiple forks and spoons at a table, and someone lecturing you on how to be the next wave of the aristocracy. It was also an excuse to meet a bunch of people during perhaps the most psychically open time of your life for doing so.

Etiquette class taught me two lasting things:

1. If you ever find yourself at a meal where all of the forks and knives are out on the table, take them from the outside in – or, better yet, run screaming in the opposite direction.
2. Being a successful rich person is all about having the right boundaries. Etiquette class was a lot of structure, of saying no to things, of eventually learning the right thing to do by carving away all the things you shouldn’t do.