Modern Etiquette is a tricky beast these days, and only yesterday I found myself facing a difficult dilemma. I generally try not worry too much about what is the conventional norm within society, but there really is no escape. We are shaped by our environments, by our upbringing, we are wary of what social behaviour is acceptable at any given time. Of course this is all second nature and we rarely give it a thought. Most of us have adapted to society, and decided which rules of etiquette to stick by and which to give a miss. Saying please, not pointing at somebody, holding open a door, not chatting when you are eating. A lot of these manners were passed down from our parents, and their parents – but this generally only covers the most important areas of etiquette, what happens when you stray into a grey area?

I stumbled in to such a grey area yesterday. Maybe by sharing my experience I can help others who bump into a similar experience. My ultimate aim is that together, we can work at passing our newly discovered wisdom down to our children. Before you know it this could become part of mainstream etiquette.

Okay, so here is the scenario: -

I live in a small village in East Sussex with my lovely girlfriend. Diagonally opposite is a petrol station with a little SPA shop. It is 9:50 pm, and we are out of milk. The shop shuts at 10, and I am dressed in my pyjamas and neither have the time or the inclination to get changed into something more suitable. Fair enough, I grab some money, open the door to the porch….and here comes the dilemma - what choice of footwear do I go with!? After all I am wearing pyjamas and going into the outside world, I haven’t been trained for this.

I very quickly get my choice down to 2 pairs, ruling out my hiking boots and my work shoes (I’m no idiot). This leaves me with my running shoes (trainers) or my slippers. There are pros and cons to either. Take trainers for instance, they were made to be worn outside, and have been designed for speed. However, trainers are the easy option, the obvious option – but also the wrong option. I mean, imagine walking into a shop with pyjamas and trainers on, you would look ridiculous, and quite probably be picked out as some sort of mental case. I wonder how many poor unguided souls have fallen into this trap, all because we haven’t as a society established some sort of ‘outside pyjamas usage’ etiquette.

Anyway, with trainers ruled out, this of course leaves slippers - our footwear of choice. Okay they are a little bit of a compromise as they were designed for indoor usage, but on the plus side they were also built for comfort. The biggest plus for slippers is they fit perfectly with pyjamas. Now picture the image, you walk into the shop wearing a matched outfit, stylish but subtle - and standing out at all. Thus through a newly established etiquette, you will have cunningly side-stepped looking like a complete fool.

Just to ensure that you know this addition to modern etiquette has been tried and tested. It was a successful mission - I got the milk, and nobody noticed a thing.

Posted by Andrew on Thursday, May 24th, 2007 at 12:16 pm.