Gunn's Golden Rules

I am trying to get better at saying no. Someone gave me these hilarious cards to hand out that, instead of a name and phone number, simply say, “Thanks, but no thanks.” I’m too polite to use them, but they crack me up.

Once at a book signing, a woman came back to the table, pointed at her signed book, and said accusatorily, “You didn’t sign this!”

I looked at the book.

“Yes, I did,” I said. “Right there.”

“You printed!” she said angrily. “That’s what I expect from an elementary school student! I want a signature.”

I explained to her that that ismy signature. That’s how I sign a check. I print, because I studied architecture at one point and block printing rather than cursive became ingrained in me.

She ranted and raved to anyone who would listen about how I didn’t sign her book. Luckily, there are a thousand lovely people for every one like that.

But let’s talk some more about the bad ones, because they’re the most fun to gossip about, and they deserve a little public shaming.

I receive a lot of fantastic e-mails from fans. I don’t have time to respond to all of them, though I read them all. I feel so lucky that so many lovely people enjoy what I do. Only, some love me a little too much! One woman in Chicago said that her boyfriend said he’d marry her if I performed the ceremony.

I wrote her back. I said I’m not ordained, and I’m not a ship’s captain or we could go out on Lake Michigan, so she should tell her boyfriend it’s not going to happen. I wrote that if they loved each other, they should go ahead and get married.

She thanked me but made another appeal. “Tell me when you’d be available,” she replied, quite seriously.

At that point, I’d already gone out of my way. Her expectations were way too high. And I think that’s a good lesson for all of us. Don’t try to manipulate other people into responding. Remember Rule 2: The World Owes You … Nothing? Well, I want to tell these people, I also owe you nothing! I mean, I am happy to pose for pictures, sign autographs, and participate in shows and speaking engagements that people might find entertaining or useful, but once I do all that, I don’t have a lot to give.

A father has been stalking me since my Parsons days about meeting with his daughter and giving her an indoctrination into the fashion industry. They showed up at a book signing in New Jersey and cornered me. I was, I thought, lovely to them both. I talked to his daughter and encouraged her to go to a summer program when she’s sixteen (she was eleven at the time). That’s done,I thought, when I’d exhausted my advice and moved on to the next person on line.

But no. Still the father calls me every three months to plead for a Liz Claiborne Inc. tour for this daughter, a girl whom I can’t imagine is as desperate to see our conference room as her father thinks she is. It really does seem to be all about him and what he wants for her rather than what she wants for herself.

If she is in fact just as pushy, then she has my pity. In my world, the squeaky wheel doesn’t get the grease. Instead, I just stack the sandbags higher. People have even called my boss and said I wasn’t being responsive!

Well, I immediately shut out anyone who does something tacky like that. I will write to the person and say, “I must not have been making myself clear. This isn’t going to happen.” It’s like negotiating with terrorists. You can’t let rude people win.

Hilariously enough, it’s frequently the people who hold themselves up as paradigms who are the worst behaved. The countess from The Real Housewives of New York Citywrote an etiquette book and e-mailed to tell me she’d told her publisher that I might write the foreword. I thanked her for asking me, but said I had a conflict of interest with my own publisher and so would have to decline.

She responded that if I wouldn’t do it, she’d write it for me.

I said, “Ha-ha. Very funny.”

“I’m serious,” she said. This was for a manners book!

Perhaps sometimes forewords are really written by the author and then reviewed and signed by the foreworder and this was what she was contemplating, but I’d already made it clear that the issue wasn’t about having time to write but with using my name.

I told her that if she was serious, then her lawyer should talk to my lawyer.

I never heard more from her.

IF YOU DON’T SET boundaries, it can get to the point where nothing’s ever enough.

Case in point: I joined the board of directors of GMHC, the wonderful AIDS organization that I’ve long supported. I’ve hosted the event Fashion Forward for them since its inception and have been happy to do so. But then they made me a board member, about which I felt thrilled and honored at the time. I didn’t think it would change my life very much, but it totally did. Suddenly, I was signing letters asking people for money. And I kept hearing back from fancy people saying, “If I help you with GMHC, you need to help me with this.” I really couldn’t give any more time or money to anyone, so I thought, I need to scale back here.

After much consideration, I said I had to bow out as a board member.

Well, guess what? They wouldn’t let me. Their CEO said, “‘No’ to me means ‘later.’ You can just do these things for us later.”

She said using my name had really helped them, and that was enough.

“Really?” I asked.

“Really,” she said and talked me down off the ledge.

She reassured me that I was off the hook and they would stop asking me to do things all the time.

I relaxed and thought, Phew, no more obligations, no more invites, no more events.Two hours later I got an e-mail from her asking when I could go on a retreat!

Luckily, I now have an agent who handles charity requests, and he can say no for me. What I’ve learned from him is that boundaries are very liberating. They can be readjusted all the time, but it’s important to have them. Always. When you don’t have a shopping list, you can easily go astray in the cereal aisle. If you burn out, no one’s going to benefit. So it’s in everyone’s interest for you to do what you can and then make it clear that you can do no more.

Carry On!

NOW THAT WE’RE WRAPPING up our conversation, I think it’s time to talk about the eternal mysteries. I was raised as a loose Episcopalian, but I’m fascinated by all religions. God knows they’re at the core of every