You do not need to know which fork is for fish. You need to know how to sit at a table and not embarrass yourself, which is a lower bar than it sounds and one that a remarkable number of men fail to clear.
Social
The eyes do more work in a conversation than the mouth, and most men have never been taught to use them.
The letter is dead. The email is dying. What remains is the text message, which is to correspondence what a grunt is to conversation.
Most people do not listen; they merely wait for a gap into which they can insert what they had already planned to say.
"I don't mind" is not a decision. It is an abdication that someone else must now clean up.
I am informed that there is now a reading community, which is a phrase so dispiriting that I required several minutes and a strong cup of tea before I could bring myself to continue.
Condescension is an insult dressed in the clothes of helpfulness.
The man who wins a confrontation without raising his voice has won twice.
Boredom is not a condition that requires treatment. It is a state to be endured with grace.
The modern gentleman's difficulty is not knowing what to do; it is knowing what will be misread.
There will come a moment, in a place not of your choosing, when the matter becomes urgent.