Every culture in history has its own etiquette practices. Western Civilization is no different! Today, many great practices have fallen by the wayside for one reason or another. Let’s explore a few forgotten etiquette customs that should make a comeback!

RSVPs … including officially canceling. Enough no-showing. Ghosting anyone, for any reason other than an emergency, is simply irresponsible. Whether it’s a first date, a wedding invitation, or just a dentist’s appointment, people and businesses deserve enough respect from us that we should (a) respond clearly with a yes or no and (b) officially cancel if something changes.

This takes commitment to our own schedules—we ought to respect ourselves and our communities enough to actually commit to an event. It is still rude to remain noncommittal just to “see if there’s something better to do that day.” (Yes, that is a word-for-word response to some invitations I have sent out in the past.) And building on that, we should respect others enough to let them know when our plans change for whatever reason. Especially in our world of technological advancement, we can all take a few seconds to send a text or leave a voicemail.

Informative invitations. Essentially, this requires the inviter to know four things: who, what, where, and when. Who is being invited, for what occasion, where, and when. This is very simple information that takes all the guesswork and ambiguity out of making plans for pretty much anything. This can be done in real, physical invitations for things like weddings, or in text blasts for birthday dinners out, or even for spontaneous in-person plans.

Take, for example, asking someone on a first date. Obviously, young men don’t need to print out embossed paper to ask a girl out for coffee, but they can include the who/what/where/when formula to cut ambiguity and gain clarity. “Want to hang out sometime?” is of course flattering, but it lacks any concrete plan. “If you’re free on the 15th, let’s meet for lunch at that coffee shop on 4th Street,” is clear and straightforward.

Calendars noting dates relevant to relatives and friends. Keeping track of notable events of our nearest and dearest serves as a natural way to connect with important people in our lives—especially those we might not see in our everyday lives.

Every year when I get a new calendar, I transcribe important past dates into the coming year, such as birthdays, wedding anniversaries, and even a few death dates. I also add others’ upcoming milestones, such as moving days, new jobs, or vacations. Then, most importantly, I do my best to reach out to each person as each important date arrives. It can be a simple text saying, “Good luck on your first day!” or something fancier, such as sending a bouquet of flowers to a friend or relative who lost their spouse a year earlier.

Remembering others’ important life events in this way used to be commonplace. I won’t say this practice has actually died; rather, it has moved to the world of social media. It’s the norm to post a picture on our birthdays or a wedding photo on our anniversaries, and friends online all click “like.” Sure, this is remembering an important event, but publicly digitizing it removes the chance for personal connection. Keeping our own calendars and intentionally reaching out, one-on-one, helps us maintain a more humanized connection with our greater community.

In-person clubs and groups. I will credit social media for being pretty darn handy for organizing groups and clubs. New-mother groups and Bible studies in particular seem to be easy to find and access online in my area. The element of clubs I would like to see resurrected would be to make more of them in-person events, rather than forums online.

Developing real-life friends who share a niche interest or activity can be more difficult than joining a forum, of course. Enter the club. Childhood extracurriculars—such as 4-H, sporting events, or dance classes—are often organized by activity and regularly scheduled months in advance. We adults can use this same framework to form our own groups. Before the internet took over, popular groups included book clubs, amateur sports groups, and even card-playing cliques.

The benefits of hosting or being part of a group include prioritizing in-person visiting, a rhythm of socializing, and the ease of prioritizing a labeled event (i.e., people are more likely to show up for something with a given name and activity). Clubs can be formed around nearly any activity or hobby, and they are a great way to kickstart our traditionalist communities.

Introductory scripts. Introducing oneself can always be awkward, so having some sort of ready script can keep things running smoothly.

Before the 20th century, most social circles depended on mutual connections to gain introductions—in other words, friends introducing an acquaintance who is a stranger to the group. Even the middle decades of the American 20th century had various forms of introductions (read: they still knew how to do it), but the rise of technology seems to have sapped the remains of this skill.

Generations Z and Alpha are more likely to swap Snapchat handles rather than last names or addresses, and it’s safer to stay in a clique of friends than to venture around the room and meet new people. It’s not complicated to relearn how to introduce oneself and to teach our children to do the same.

Essentially, it boils down to this formula: name, connection, and question. This formula is easy and invites the other person to respond similarly. At a wedding, for instance: “I’m Cadence, one of the bride’s cousins. How do you know the couple?” At work: “My name is John. I transferred here from New York. When did you join the company?” At a single’s mixer: “I’m Mary, and my friend from church drafted me to be her wingman tonight. Have you seen anybody promising yet?” (Delivered with a dose of humor, of course!)

Social call rulebooks. In Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household Management, several pages are dedicated to proper social calling. Obviously, I don’t think we need to plan which color hat to wear when spending ten minutes in the receiving hall (never the parlor!) of a newly bereaved widow, and other such passé details. That said, however, Victorian society had one thing straight: the value of guidelines.

A social rulebook, when accepted and used by an entire society, takes the guesswork out of socializing etiquette. I particularly liked Mrs. Beeton’s protocols for determining how long to stay as a guest, depending on the level of acquaintance and the occasion. How many of us these days let uncertainty persuade us away from connecting with others? We wonder how long to stay at a new acquaintance’s event—or whether the risk of company overstaying their welcome outweighs hosting them in the first place. Nobody knows what is generally acceptable anymore. A social rulebook would offer clarity in these muddy waters, bringing back hospitality to replace the current loneliness epidemic.

My practical recommendation here is the idea of the “third thing” to facilitate connection and conversation, a concept I found reading Habits of the Household. For example, it’s more comfortable meeting a first date at a third location such as a movie theater, rather than at either of your homes. Discussion with a colleague is more easily done while getting coffee together as a third activity, rather than standing awkwardly chatting in a hallway. Going for a walk serves as a third thing to help a troubled friend open up.

Embracing “third things” also offers us natural cues to end social encounters we might otherwise find awkward. When the movie is done, dates can say goodbye—or not. When the coffee cup is empty, time to go back to the office. When the walk is over, we go our separate ways. In our modern world, where everything is ambiguous, third things can help us navigate a variety of awkward etiquette situations.

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Image credit: public domain