Miss Manners^®

DEAR MISS MANNERS: A male friend sent me a very nice Christmas card describing our friendship. It was pretty accurate; however, a very nice pair of earrings was sent along with the card.

We are both married (to other people) and he is considerably older than me. I am fond of him, but only as a friend. I thanked him for the card and the gift, but told him I could not accept a gift like that and that it made me uncomfortable.

I offended him. Was there a better way for me to have handled this situation?

GENTLE READER: It does not matter whether his indignation is because your assumption -- that the gift suggested something more than friendship -- is right or wrong.

As in many etiquette situations, Miss Manners warns you that you will have to take the blame upon yourself: You are so embarrassed, it is just the way you were brought up, etc. As your parents will not be present to defend themselves, your friend will have to accept this answer if he wishes to maintain the friendship.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I’ve known my brother-in-law since he was a teenager. So recently, when he was telling his daughters about job offers he’d had in his youth, I knew the only truth to what he said was the location and time frame. The rest was absolutely ridiculous.

Then, at a family party, when we were discussing his daughter’s new job, her sister said she was “teaching classes”; her mother said she was “teaching classes and was in charge of the curriculum”; and when my brother-in-law caught me, he said, “My daughter’s boss is having her run the entire company.”

What is the protocol for dealing with these massive exaggerations?!

GENTLE READER: The proper protocol is a big smile. Whether you are smiling to acknowledge how important the job is or to indicate that you realize that your brother-in-law is exaggerating for effect should, Miss Manners cautions you, be ambiguous to everyone but yourself.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: Our group of ladies gets together every couple of months for lunch, to reminisce and catch up. If there is a noteworthy occasion coming up, one of the members always appears with a sweet concoction: pie, ice cream cake, etc. After the meal, she produces it, then asks the waitress for a knife, extra plates, forks and napkins.

I am always uneasy. Do we think the restaurant sweets are unworthy? How can we ask for implements for food they haven’t provided? I generally decline the treat, pleading diet or some such.

GENTLE READER: Restaurants, like hosts, provide food. Miss Manners reminds everyone that it is impolite to pack your own, something the restaurant has no doubt already told your friends if they are so unwise as to pull this trick more than once at the same establishment.

Declining the treat does not relieve you of all responsibility. It is better privately to convince one or two members of your circle, who can then help you bring the rest around to a better policy for future celebrations.

(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, Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.)

DEAR MISS MANNERS: During the time I was with my now-ex-fiance, I treated his kids like my own and purchased small gifts for Valentine’s, birthdays, Easter, Christmas, etc. I bought his ex-wife a small box of chocolates one Christmas, and a tin of flavored popcorn the next year as a gesture of politeness.

I did such because despite my parents having had a nasty divorce, they never bad-mouthed each other and made certain the other had a gift from my brother and me. So, I was raised seeing that positive and mature behavior from my parents.

While the kids said thank you, I never received a thank-you from the ex-wife -- she never told my fiance to thank me, never told her kids to tell me on her behalf, nor did I receive such via a holiday card.

To clarify, I didn’t expect a gift in return from the ex-wife or kids. I realize that the ex-wife might have taken my gesture as an attempt to suck up to her, which it wasn’t. Yet I find it incredibly rude that she never said thank you on any level.

Now I am dating again. What should I do if I find myself in the same situation? Were my past actions too nice?

GENTLE READER: “Too nice” is not a concept with which Miss Manners is familiar, and she never wants to discourage generosity. But there is a difference between keeping up customs with someone you have divorced and doing so with a stranger that someone else has.

If the presents were intended to come from the children, the ex-wife would have had no reason to thank you. But if you considered her indebted to you for providing them, you would have given the lie to that and left her understandably flummoxed.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: We’ve been close friends with a couple for over 15 years, frequently going out for dinner together, spending weekends away together and hosting each other in our homes. We’ve always spent a few days away celebrating New Year’s with them.

This year, I asked if there were plans, and hadn’t heard anything for about a week, so I just asked again. They replied four hours later, stating that they were away with another couple for the weekend and they would be home on New Year’s Eve, late afternoon, if we wanted to go to a party they were invited to. They wanted us to tag along.

I am disappointed that they so casually tossed us aside like this after so many years of being together! What and how should I respond when they text us to see if we are able to go with them? I prefer not to even answer, I’m so hurt, but my husband says it’s rude to ignore them.

GENTLE READER: And also to expect that they were bound forever to a standing date.

Miss Manners agrees that they handled this awkwardly by not responding to your first inquiry. Perhaps we can allow for the possibility that their travel prevented them from getting your message.

But asking you to attend a party to which you were not invited by the hosts is beyond awkward. Of course you cannot go. A polite response that would force your friends to rekindle normal social relations with you would be to send good wishes for the New Year.

(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, Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.)

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I have a longtime friend who constantly texts me with information and photos about people I don’t know, their vacations, that their planes have landed, personal marriage information, etc.

This is done at all hours of the day. I don’t care about this mostly useless information. I used to feel obligated to answer every text, but it is wearing on me, so I have begun answering only the ones I feel are important. Then I get a text asking if I’m OK.

If she is telling me all of this, what personal information of mine is she giving out? How would you handle this? She is a very sensitive person, and I can be quite harsh sometimes.

GENTLE READER: You mean she is touchy. Sensitive would mean being sensitive to your feelings, interests and schedule. But she is not thinking, “Oh, Caitlin will want to hear that the Mumfords landed safely, but that their marriage is in danger,” or “I should wait until a decent hour before texting.”

Miss Manners would think this particular friend would be a good correspondent not to have. What she sends you is irrelevant, intrusive and boring, and you can’t trust her not to spread information about you.

If the friendship is worth keeping for other reasons, at least stop pretending to tolerate the gossip. The answer to whether you are all right is that you are, and to why you didn’t respond is that you had nothing to say about it.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: Every Christmas, I am the recipient of a card from a really darling relative. This relation makes a charitable gift to a third party, and then sends me the card as an acknowledgement of her giving (which is noted as being done on my behalf).

It is, of course, a thoughtful gesture. However, I am unsure exactly how to respond. Do I thank her for thinking of me? Or do I thank her for thinking of others (the third party)?

I understand her charitable giving. What I do not understand exactly is how to acknowledge her efficiency in getting the two birds with one stone (a card to me and also a donation to a charity). I feel almost chastised for not having made the charitable gift on my own (which I recognize is not at all her intention). But how does one properly respond to such a “gift”?

GENTLE READER: Having always deplored this two-fer trick, Miss Manners finds this neither darling nor thoughtful nor truly charitable.

The advantages to the giver are obvious: money saved by counting the donation as also fulfilling the obligation to buy a present; the satisfaction of feeling doubly charitable, and a tax write-off besides. The recipient gets -- nothing. Not even a choice of charities. Miss Manners has even been told of people being “honored” with donations to causes they oppose.

No wonder you are puzzled about giving thanks.

Still, you cannot politely ignore the gesture. Try: “Thank you for thinking of me. I hope that your favorite charity appreciates your generosity.”

(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, Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.)