Miss Manners^®

DEAR MISS MANNERS: My husband and I dine out about once a week. He is fond of "people-watching" and likes to look at other diners while we are eating. I think, however, that he tends to stare at people. He says one cannot have an expectation of privacy in a public restaurant. I think it's rude to stare.

Can Miss Manners please explain the difference between staring and people-watching?

GENTLE READER: Staring is when you get caught.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: My 3-year-old daughter was asked to be a flower girl for the wedding of her father's cousin. Her father and I are no longer together.

While I understand my not being invited to the reception, I feel like I should have been invited to the ceremony to see my daughter as a flower girl (this is her first, and maybe only, time). I know the couple personally, although we are not friends. Space would not be an issue, as the venue is quite large.

Am I being unrealistic with this feeling, or is the couple in the wrong?

GENTLE READER: While it is understandable that you would want to see your daughter in the "role" of flower girl, this is not a pageant, but a family event -- a family of which you are no longer a part.

Miss Manners understands that people confuse weddings with entertainment nowadays, what with wedding parties being chosen for their looks and guests all but charged admission under the guise of "honeymoon funds." Nevertheless, weddings are not intended to be theatrical events, and stage mothers are not required.

So please send your daughter off cheerfully to enjoy herself at the wedding. There will be plenty of her relatives there to look after her. And there will doubtless be pictures, and perhaps videos, that you will be able to see later.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I have golfed for over 30 years and am female! I love the game and the etiquette of the sport, rules, peacefulness, etc.

In the past two years, I have experienced folks, male and female, who play music on the course! When asked to shut off the music, some do -- however, most are offended!

Please ask new and old golfers to bone up on rules of golf course etiquette! I am tempted to start singing at the top of my voice next time! Trust me, they don't want to experience that!

GENTLE READER: They should try corresponding with you! The experience might be similar!

Miss Manners presumes that the music being played is portable and not piped in through speakers on the golf course. You could politely ask management to make and enforce a blanket policy about music so that you are not put in the position of policing and educating your fellow golfers. Miss Manners fears that that is why these players are taking offense, more than at the request itself.

(Please send your questions to Miss Manners at her website, www.missmanners.com; to her email, dearmissmanners@gmail.com; or through postal mail to Miss Manners, Universal Uclick, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.)

DEAR MISS MANNERS: Having finally become familiar with my mobile phone, I now find I conduct both personal and professional conversations by texting or instant messaging with some frequency. It's the real-time implications of these conversations that baffle me.

I ignore my phone at home while it charges (still having a landline and desktop computer), and have it set not to ring when out and about. I feel it's something I may check entirely at my own convenience, though I do try to at least pay daily attention.

My question is about responding to text messages. Should I be conscious of being distracting or intrusive when replying, i.e., while that person is working, sleeping or involved in some important life event? Since I feel so empowered to ignore my own phone at will, somehow it doesn't always occur to me that I might be interrupting someone else if I'm still awake after midnight or unaware of their daily activities.

GENTLE READER: Just as you have mastered the ability to silence your own cellular telephone, it is reasonable -- if not necessarily accurate -- to assume that your correspondents have done the same.

Absent explicit requests, Miss Manners would not expect you to keep track of when others are working, sleeping or involved in important life events. She hopes that technology continues to permit at least a modicum of mystery to remain on the subject.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: My grandkids are 12 and 11, and my daughter wants to go on a vacation. She has asked me if I would come and sit at her house for two weeks, except for the one weekend when my son will keep them.

I have a husband who is not my child's father. He feels this is wrong of her to ask me to do this.

GENTLE READER: If your husband and you do not wish to baby-sit the grandchildren, you have Miss Manners' blessing to decline to do so. You do not have her permission to invent rudenesses. There are too many already, without adding requests to watch the grandchildren to the list.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: What is the etiquette regarding online gift-giving for the holidays with respect to wrapping? I have four children and have received numerous gifts for them from relatives that were ordered online where wrapping was an option.

Yet several of them chose to call me and ask me to wrap the gifts when they arrive so they could save a few bucks. Now I have to spend the few evenings before the holidays up late wrapping other people's gifts.

GENTLE READER: And what about the relatives who show up for Christmas, but have not been able to wrap their presents (or have had them forcibly unwrapped) because of airport security?

Miss Manners may be lulled into an excess of holiday goodwill, but she would suggest keeping an extra roll of wrapping paper on hand to comply with the advantages and disadvantages of modern life. Presumably you should be able to count on others to do the same for you.

(Please send your questions to Miss Manners at her website, www.missmanners.com; to her email, dearmissmanners@gmail.com; or through postal mail to Miss Manners, Universal Uclick, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.)

DEAR MISS MANNERS: Every year we receive a Christmas letter from a couple we see frequently and therefore we are up-to-date on what's going on in their family. Their annual letter seems to be nothing more than an opportunity to brag about vacations, vacation homes, their children's careers and their purchases.

If there was a death in their family and thus a duty to mention it, it is reported as the best funeral ever! Of course after the boasting has been thoroughly covered, the last sentence always includes a wish for our family to have a holiday filled with peace and joy.

I find this type of form letter to be shallow, self-serving and in very poor taste. What was once a means of keeping in touch with distant friends and relatives and conveying the spirit of the season seems to have morphed into a very different agenda. What is your opinion of these letters?

GENTLE READER: Astonishment that you get this only once a year.

Have these people not discovered that on social media, they could post every single day, even multiple times a day -- boring not just you, but untold numbers of people, including some they don't even know? That they could supplement this with pictures, including of every meal they had?

Miss Manners notices that selfie press releases, passed off as "news" about oneself and one's family, have become a year-round nuisance. The object is to cast the subject in a favorable, if not enviable, light. No doubt your correspondents think of their tone as being cheerful, even when reporting a death.

But they, like nearly all social media posters, suffer from the fatal fault of failing to consider their targeted audience. Personal news should be sent only to people who do not otherwise know it and yet can be presumed to be interested.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: My ex-husband and I remained friendly after our divorce in 1979. He passed away 23 years ago. I have never remarried, and now I do not see myself as a divorcee, but a widow. Would it be incorrect to call myself a widow?

GENTLE READER: It doesn't bother Miss Manners, and it certainly can't bother your former husband; presumably, he did not leave a subsequent widow. But if you want to be fastidious, you can achieve the same effect by saying simply, "My husband died."

DEAR MISS MANNERS: My niece was married 12 years ago at city hall with only her parents in attendance. She regrets having no pictures of the day.

I would like to surprise her with a vow renewal ceremony. Is a surprise a bad move? Many people are telling me to involve her in the planning.

GENTLE READER: First, allow Miss Manners to say how sweet it is that you want to do something for your niece and her husband.

Next she is obliged to tell you that surprising people with a set-up that requires them to go through a ceremony to which they had not agreed is an appalling plan. Please just ask them if they would enjoy your giving them an anniversary party.

(Please send your questions to Miss Manners at her website, www.missmanners.com; to her email, dearmissmanners@gmail.com; or through postal mail to Miss Manners, Universal Uclick, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.)