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Boston Globe

Can I have a word? When a conversation is cut short.

C.S. / Newton The good news is it doesn't just happen to you! The logically inevitable bad news is that it's endemic and no one else knows what to do, either. You'd think conversation hijacking would be the kind of bad practice that social media could ameliorate, wouldn't you? With so many ways of getting in touch with people, how can anything in person be urgent enough to warrant such rudeness? And yet it happens all the time. The person you're talking to when interrupted (P1) often can't do anything to forestall the hijacking, although, let's face it, a lot of P1s don't even try. And the situation can easily lead to a domino effect—your chat with P1 gets cut off by P3, so the next time you see P1 you immediately rush in to finish the thing you'd been talking about last time, and now you've become someone else's dreaded P3 conversational hijacker. Or else, abandoned mid-topic by your conversational partners, you pull out your phone to give yourself something to occupy your hands (because, what, it would be better to have a cigarette?) and a dozen people write in to Miss Conduct about how folks like you are destroying civilization and the art of small talk. You are handling the situation as well as anyone can. Would that that were greater comfort. My 34-year-old nephew, who is single and in grad school, visits occasionally. He is polite and intelligent, but smells horrible. It's not a physical disorder. I have offered to do his laundry, shown him where he can do it, and given him a towel to shower. I'm not sure if he has, in the few days he's been here before, and declines the laundry invitation. I pity the person who will sit next to him on his bus ride home. Do I just put up with it or say something? L.A. / Boston The issue isn't whether to speak up, but how. As a host, you have the right to require that your guests maintain a minimum level of hygiene. As an aunt, it is not your job to help your nephew better himself. Do you see the difference? 'Do you mind having a shower before dinner? We'll eat in 30 minutes' is fine. 'Let's talk about hygiene and why you don't have a partner'—not fine. It's going to be an awkward exchange regardless, because no degree of appropriateness or tact makes it pleasant or easy to tell another adult that he or she needs a wash. Would you rather suffer momentary awkwardness or several days of stink? And this is about you, not about your nephew. I'm not sure why you included his work and relationship status—maybe for the sake of novelistic thoroughness, or so I could dub him the Smelly Student instead of the Noisome Nephew, if I chose—but it does indicate a certain mission creep. This isn't about your nephew's ability to get grants or partners. It's about how much Febreze you need to buy after he leaves. Advertisement Miss Conduct is Robin Abrahams, a writer with a PhD in psychology.