Never act as if you’re looking for someone;
they should be looking for you.
Those early lessons helped turn young Jacqueline into an elegant figure, even as an adolescent. When she made her New York society debut in 1947, many people were not at all surprised when Igor Cassini, a New York city gossip columnist and younger brother of fashion designer Oleg Cassini, named her Debutante of the Year. Five years later, in 1952, her grace and elegance also came in handy when, at a dinner party in Washington, D.C., she met a handsome young senator from Massachusetts named John F. Kennedy.
Perhaps the most poignant piece of relationship advice a parent has ever given a child was contained in a letter that Caitlin Thomas, the widow of Dylan Thomas, wrote to her eighteen-year-old daughter, Aeronwy (she was named after the river Aeron in Wales). In the letter, which was ultimately published in a 1963 book titled Not Quite Posthumous Letters to My Daughter, Caitlin Thomas reflected on her disastrous marriage to the legendary Welsh poet, and dearly hoped her daughter would not make the biggest mistake she had made in her life. She expressed it this way:
Never depend on immersion in another person
for your personal growth.
In the remainder of the chapter, you will find many more relationship neverisms. In future chapters, I’ll focus more specifically on romantic, spousal, and familial relationships. In this chapter, though, we’ll be stepping back just a little as we examine the many mistakes that can be made in the broader arena of human relationships. Most of the advice will be serious, but a number of humorous ones will also be included to lighten the mood and perhaps even give you a chuckle.
Never rush a hug.ANONYMOUS
As we’ve seen in other chapters, some of the best relationship neverisms come from anonymous sources. Here are a few more:
Never take another person for granted.
Never mistake endurance for hospitality.
Never answer a question before it’s asked.
Never make another person your “project.”
Never lose yourself when you find another person.
Never assume that you completely understand another human being.
Never let someone be your priority when all you’ll ever be is their option.
Never say something about somebody that you wouldn’t say directly to them.
Never make someone your everything;
’cause when they’re gone, you’ll have nothing.
Never try to joke with young people because
it’ll just confirm their suspicion that old people are crazy.RUSSELL BAKER, in a 1993 New York Times column
Baker was quoting from a list of “rules for old people” that a friend shared with him. It inspired him to create one of his own rules: “Never try to be pleasant to a young woman because everybody will think you’re a dirty old man.”
Never desire to appear clever
and make a show of your talents before men.JOHN STUART BLACKIE
Blackie, a Scottish university professor, was one of the most respected classical scholars of his time. Today, he is remembered less for his scholarly contributions than for “Lessons for a Young Man’s Life,” an 1892 article he wrote for London’s Young Man magazine, and which was later expanded into a small book. He also advised: “Never indulge the notion that you have any absolute right to choose the sphere or the circumstances in which you are to put forth your powers of social action.”
Never forget what a man has said to you when he was angry.HENRY WARD BEECHER, in Life Thoughts (1866)
You’ll find this thought presented in slightly different versions all over the Web and in a variety of quotation anthologies. This is the correct version, taken directly from the 1866 book.
Never fail to know that if you are doing all the talking,
you are boring somebody.HELEN GURLEY BROWN, in Having It All (1982)
Never say bad, cruel, crummy, unhappy, unpleasant,
critical things in a letter.HELEN GURLEY BROWN, in I’m Wild Again (2000)
Brown described this as a “cardinal rule” of social and business life. The longtime Cosmo editor added: “If they must be said, try to say them in person or at least by telephone. Put the good things in writing.”
Do not judge.
Never presume to judge another human being anyway.
That’s up to heaven.RITA MAE BROWN, in Starting from Scratch (1989)
Never idealize others.
They will never live up to your expectations.LEO BUSCAGLIA, in Loving Each Other:
The Challenge of Human Relationships (1984)
In the book, Buscaglia also offered this thought: “Don’t take yourself so seriously, but never fail to take the other person seriously.”
Never injure a friend, even in jest.MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO
Never claim as a right what you can ask as a favor.JOHN CHURTON COLLINS
Never ask a bore a question.MASON COOLEY
Never say, “I know just how you feel!”
even if you are absolutely positive that you do.LISA J. COPEN
This appeared in Copen’s Beyond Casseroles: 505 Ways to Encourage a Chronically Ill Friend (2007). She also offered these helpful admonitions:
Never say, “You shouldn’t feel that way.”
Never say, “You need to get over this and move on.”
Never question if your friend is exaggerating her pain level.
Never—ever—tell her it’s all in her head.
Never have fools for friends; they are no use.BENJAMIN DISRAELI, from Lady Bellair
in Henrietta Temple: A Love Story (1837)
Never put a man in the wrong;
he will hold it against you forever.WILL DURANT, in The Pleasures of Philosophy (1953)
Never expect women to be sincere so long as
they are educated to think that their first aim in life is—to please.MARIE VON EBNER-ESCHENBACH
Never speak of yourself to others;
make them talk about themselves instead:
therein lies the whole art of pleasing.
Everyone knows it and everyone forgets it.EDMOND & JULES DE GONCOURT