Manners

Title: On Roasting and Toasting

When you wish to give someone your “Best Wishes,”

I believe you should really DO it,

and that you really should tell them those feelings
earnestly and honestly and “to their face.”

But I believe doing so in a forum SO PUBLIC is:

synthetic, artificial, affected, contrived, phony, insincere, ingenuine and condescending

for it is obviously not intended
to convey those good feelings of love and affection to the addressees …

it is instead OBVIOUSLY intended, to deliver them

IN FRONT OF OTHERS.

And in spite of the fact that sponsers of parties often seem compelled to make this thing happen at parties,

I do not believe
that I am “alone” in my feelings

about the inappropriateness of “Roasting and Toasting” either

for whenever I have seen this done, the guests seem to perceive and appraise “roasting and toasting” the same way I do:

AND THE GUESTS REACT TO IT THE SAME WAY I DO:

1. THE FLATTERY PART IS SIMPLY DISBELIEVED,

2 .the “TEASING” IS VIEWED AS QUITE RUDE.

3. the audience DOESN’T SEEM TO APPRECIATE it, as they clap very little.

4. and THEY DON’T THINK IT “FUNNY”

(as they laugh almost “not at all” at the “jokes”
and when they DO laugh, they laugh, NERVOUSLY)

5. and they seem ALMOST UNABLE to wait “for it to be over“

To me, this is NOT something you do to someone you love.

And, I chose not to participate in what I think is both”INAPPROPRIATE and RUDE”