This is the weekly Amplify newsletter, where you can be inspired and challenged by the voices, opinions and insights of women at The Globe and Mail and our contributor community. A note to readers: Amplify will be taking a break for the festive season, but we’ll be back in your inbox on January 5. Happy holidays!
This week’s newsletter was written by Toronto-based journalist Hope Mahood.
My dance partner and I lock eyes and join hands in the centre of the ballroom.
The strings and piano swell as we move through the steps, other couples swirling around us in a slow blur of coattails and long dresses. They didn’t have dances like this on the farm where he grew up, my partner quips. I smile, a bit distracted. The string used to tie my dance card to my wrist is starting to itch.
The dance ends. I curtsy as my partner bows. As we rise, he leans in and asks: “Can I get your Instagram?”
I’ve been a lifelong Jane Austen fan. Every Christmas growing up, my family watched the 1995 BBC version of Pride and Prejudice. I read the book for the first time in Grade 7 and then the rest of Austen’s catalogue through middle school and high school. I’ve reread at least one of her books every year since.
Like thousands of Austen fans, I’ve fallen in love with her windows into a simpler world. Characters in Austen novels are never really concerned with high-stakes matters – a breach of etiquette, finding a dance partner at the ball or, at worst, looming financial trouble that would require the daughters to – gasp! – find work as governesses. Etiquette rules the characters’ lives; there’s proper behaviour for every occasion and, when it comes to socializing, dancing is always the order of the day.
So, when a friend invited me to a Regency-style ball in Toronto earlier this month, I was all in. Basic Regency etiquette would be followed at all times: Men had to ask women, women would wear dance cards to help them keep track of whom they were promised to, and everyone had to bow and curtsy. I was happy for any excuse to dance and dress up (period-appropriate costumes were not required; I wore a black silk slip which, while almost floor length, likely would have scandalized half of Meryton and given Mrs. Bennet an attack of nerves). But more than anything, the ball appealed to me as a way to briefly step back in time to a simpler era of dating.
The 2023 Yuletide Ball, a Regency-era-style dance, was held at Grace Church on-the-Hill in midtown Toronto on Dec. 8.Hope Mahood
It’s no secret that the dating scene today is pretty wishy-washy. There are whole blogs and TikTok and Instagram accounts dedicated to demystifying modern dating etiquette. Who asks what and when? How long do you need to talk on the app before it’s okay to ask to meet in person? Do you exchange phone numbers before you meet up? How many messages should you send a day? Worse yet, the online sources claiming to have the answers often disagree: On the topic of ghosting someone you meet online, some say it’s always rude unless your safety is at risk, while others insist it’s entirely acceptable to drop off the map if you’ve only been on one date.
It’s the Wild West of etiquette out there, and everyone is playing by a different rule book.
Formal etiquette can often get a bad rap today, and for good reason – a series of meaningless, gatekept social codes rooted in patriarchy and racism have historically been used to exclude outsiders from high society. But there is another side to “good manners.” At its best, etiquette is “merely a collection of forms by which all personal contacts in life are made smooth,” as Emily Post argues in her 1922 manual Etiquette (a favourite of Joan Didion’s).
If everyone is following the same rule book, you can anticipate how your entire interaction will go. For those of us with any degree of social anxiety, this is a paradise matched only by Googling the menu of a restaurant and deciding your order hours beforehand.
The author's dance card at the 2023 Yuletide Ball in Toronto.Hope Mahood
The ball, compared with dating apps, was a breeze. I knew if I mingled, people would approach me and ask to sign my dance card. They knew that I would say yes unless my card was already full. As Ms. Post would say, “To refuse to dance with one man and then immediately dance with another is an open affront to the first.”
The guesswork was gone. And that dance card? As uncomfortable and objectifying as it first felt to have people sign up for a “turn” with me, it became an absolute lifesaver when the third dance came and I couldn’t remember my partner’s name. I think we should bring them back for cocktail parties.
Still, while the ball took uncertainty out of the equation, it was startling to let go of the control the apps give. There’s something to be said for living in a world where you can screen your partners for how they present themselves and what they say they’re looking for, and then choose whether to swipe.
We thankfully don’t live in 1812, and going into my mid-20s happily single doesn’t mean I’m doomed to impoverished spinsterhood – or a career as a haggish governess. So, I’m happy to take the time and decide for myself who belongs on my dance card, unpredictability and all.
What else we’re thinking about:
A holiday tradition in my family is baking cookies – lots of them. Growing up, the days leading up to Christmas were filled with my grandmother’s raisin spice cookies, my father’s rugelach and my aunt’s wonderfully kitschy gingerbread people, decorated with colorful icing bikinis and swimming trunks. I started my Christmas baking this week with a batch of my grandma’s shortbread, which uses some unconventional ingredients to create a melt-in-your-mouth – and, in my unbiased opinion – superior version of the classic cookie. Here’s the recipe:
- 1 cup butter
- ½ cup fruit sugar (sometimes sold as berry sugar or instant dissolving sugar at bulk food stores)
- ¼ cup cornstarch
- 1 ½ cups flour
Cream the butter and sugar together in a large bowl, then stir in the cornstarch and flour. Shape the dough into one-inch-diameter balls, place them on a baking sheet and press flat with the prongs of a fork. Bake at 325 degrees F for 10 minutes.
Marianne
Marianne Kushmaniuk for The Globe and Mail
Inspired by something in this newsletter? If so, we hope you’ll amplify it by passing it on. And if there’s something we should know, or feedback you’d like to share, send us an e-mail at amplify@globeandmail.com.