DEAR MISS MANNERS: Since I moved to a small town three years ago, I have had the good fortune to have made many, many friends and acquaintances through work, fundraising groups, professional associations and church.

I am happy to be so popular, but I find that I tend to get invited to every wedding/baby shower that comes along. Many times, I only know the person casually (we don't get together socially, only interact though our organization).

I am single and on a tight budget. At the last baby shower I attended (for a woman I didn't know that well from my youth group at church), I felt embarrassed that I could only spend $15 on a gift, when all the other women (with big double incomes) could afford entire playsets, strollers, etc.

I have been invited to another shower in two weeks for another woman in my church that I don't know at all. I was one of only eight people invited. I have $30 in my checking account that needs to last two weeks.

Should I attend and not bring a gift? Offer to help in some other way? Or make up an excuse and skip it?

Many of these women have two to three showers, one for church, one for family and one for friends. This is the eighth shower to which I have been invited, and I am getting bled dry. Not to mention that after the obligatory thank you card, I usually never hear from the person again.

GENTLE READER: So far, you haven't mentioned any friends. A friend would be someone you have gotten to know and like well enough so that, for example, you rejoice that she is expecting a baby. And someone who likes you well enough to treasure any token present you gave her.

Participating in financial competitions to honor near-strangers does not constitute friendship, and frankly, does not sound like much fun, either, if you ask Miss Manners. The solution to your problem is to decline any such invitations with thanks and congratulations.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I have a walking routine which I love, where I pass five times the same places. Now, with the nice weather, I often walk by elderly people sitting on their porches. How often do I have to acknowledge them?

I would like to say a hello the first time I pass and goodbye on the last round, but there is one person in particular who says something to me every time I pass his house. Is it necessary for me to respond every time? I feel guilty when I do not, but at the same time, I enjoy my privacy and my own thoughts. Is twice enough?

GENTLE READER: You are not walking fast enough. By the time a neighbor spots you and says something, you should be out of earshot.

This is not to say that Miss Manners wants you to ignore these people. She is just trying to protect you from getting caught. If you wouldn't mind lifting a hand in greeting, you should be able to get away without breaking your pace.

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DEAR MISS MANNERS: My son is engaged to a wonderful, well-educated young woman from a conservative family, and my husband and I love her dearly. The church wedding is still months away.

The bride-to-be decided that she wanted to purchase her wedding dress from a charity so she and her mother attended the event (they asked me to go along but I couldn't on that date) and purchased a dress for an amount equal to what they would have paid in any store. The dress isn't white (or any shade of white), but it is gold. The dress itself was once a beautiful dress and probably expensive, but now it looks worn and the gold color looks like something that would be worn for a second-time bride.

When she showed me and wanted my reaction, I couldn't lie; I was shocked that she would select this dress as it is totally out of character for her. I'm afraid my reaction and subsequent urging to select another dress has caused hard feelings.

Many will be attending the wedding who do not know the bride, and I feel they will definitely get a different impression of who she really is. It truly hurts me to see her wear this dress. Her mother likes it because it is "different." I have apologized to the mother for my reaction and have tried to explain how my husband and I can't help feeling the dress is so wrong.

My son who is so laid back and wants no problems says he could care less what she wears and wants me to be quiet, so now I feel like a complete heel but can't help dreading an event that should be one that I am looking forward to. I know the family of the groom has little to say about the wedding but is it too much to ask that the bride wear white? We didn't try to tell her what dress to wear, we're simply ask that she not wear that one. Were we being totally out of line?

GENTLE READER: Yes. You are ruining your relations with a wonderful, well-educated and beloved future daughter-in-law and her family, to say nothing of what you are doing to yourself -- over a costume.

Beloved as the white wedding dress may be to many, brides are not required to be in uniform. Time was when ladies were married in their favorite dresses. Then Queen Victoria married in white, and the rush was on.

Furthermore, the symbolism soon turned ugly. The vulgar idea got around that white dresses offered a peek at the history of the body inside -- or rather, the promise that it had no such history. Not a few wedding guests were given to speculating about whether the bride was "entitled" to wear white.

What with white now being worn by fourth-time brides, pregnant brides and brides who are attended by the couple's own children, Miss Manners thought that at least she had heard the last of that. But now you are suggesting that the guests will think the less of this bride because of her dress. If so, it is they, not she, who will be exhibiting bad taste.

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DEAR MISS MANNERS: When my husband and I were visiting his childhood home, we had dinner with a couple he has known most of his life. The wife was a bridesmaid in his first wedding, when my husband was in college and met and married his first wife. It did not last long. He and I have been married 30 years.

The wife of this couple proceeded to tell us that my husband was not the first choice for a husband in his first marriage. Apparently, the woman was dating two men at the same time. She wanted to marry the other guy, but he married someone else instead. She ended up marrying my husband and of course divorcing after two years or so.

I was appalled at the story. Not that it happened but that this so called "friend" would tell it to us over dinner with other people at the table. I was shocked and still am.

I wanted to say something to her at the time but could think of nothing to properly tell her how rude she was in telling that story. We are supposed to see them again next month and I am dreading it. Please tell me what I should have said and what I can say to her next month. My husband thinks I am making too much of this but it makes me mad every time I think of it.

GENTLE READER: When this happened, you could have said, beaming at your husband, "I'm enormously grateful to her. She made it possible for me to have my first choice."

Miss Manners is only sorry that while that would have smoothed over the embarrassment, it would not have sufficiently taught discretion to your rude hostess. But anyway, that moment is past. If you must see them again, you could open the conversation by announcing cheerfully, "Mary Sue, this time we want to hear an embarrassing story about your past."

DEAR MISS MANNERS: My niece has begun a new career as a financial adviser with a well-known investment/brokerage house. She has been given extensive training and informed that she must produce a certain volume of business in a specified time to make the cut.

She emailed a copy of her "complimentary consultation/introductory bio" letter to her personal mailing list.

Alarms went off and I replied: "Most of us who have lived past our teen years have had the uncomfortable experience that a friend in a new sales career is looking at us as a possible client rather than as a friend. Try to avoid creating that feeling in your friends (they tend to last longer as friends that way)."

She is, I'm sure, offended. Just how far over the line have I gone?

GENTLE READER: All the way across contemporary thinking, to what Miss Manners hopes will eventually be out the other side.

You, Miss Manners, and civilized people believe that the best use of money is to support personal life. Others believe that the best use of personal life is to make more money.

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