DEAR MISS MANNERS: I work for a major airline, where our first-class trays are preset and the flatware is wrapped in a napkin, already on the tray. If I place the tray down properly, the entree is closest to the customer, salad and bread are at the top of the tray, and the flatware roll-up is on the right.

This bugs me, because I believe etiquette dictates flatware should be on the left. Do I continue to badger the company and our caterers to place it on the left? Or, because it is rolled-up flatware and not a formal place setting, can it be casually placed on the right?

GENTLE READER: Continue badgering the company, although Miss Manners wonders if some airlines have not become immune to constructive criticism. You may also rearrange the flatware yourself before serving -- assuming catering has not responded to your suggestions by shrink-wrapping the lot.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I have been dating a wonderful man for a while, but he has the unfortunate habits of loudly chewing with his mouth open and not covering his mouth when sneezing.

When I first noticed his chewing, before I could think of how to tactfully say anything, he offered up a story about how his unpleasant stepmother used to embarrass him in public by telling him to chew with his mouth shut, and how it has given him great anxiety, and how traumatic it was to have it called to everyone’s attention. He said he did it because he had trouble breathing due to allergies.

When he has repeated this behavior, I eventually tried asking if his allergies were bothering him, instead of directly mentioning that his mouth was open, but he always said no and continued to masticate clamorously.

As he has intense anxiety issues in other areas, I am afraid to bluntly discuss the issue after the story about his stepmother. I’ve also noticed he sneezes without covering his mouth or nose, which I find quite disgusting. When he did so in a closed car with me, I directly asked him to please cover his mouth when he sneezed, to which he replied he hadn’t had time, but he has continued the behavior both indoors and out.

I’ve repeated the request, and he has pretended he didn’t hear me. Otherwise he is quite clean, but is there any way to salvage these manners?

GENTLE READER: Your boyfriend knows his behavior is unpleasant, indefensible -- and that it bothers you. This puts you, who do not wish to hurt his feelings, in an uncomfortable situation. Yet rather than help you out, he has added a new obstacle: If you raise the topic, you are told you will be equated with a stepmother who traumatized him.

Miss Manners might agree that this behavior is, under the correct use of the word, awesome, but not that it is wonderful. Fortunately, it is also inept. Express horror that his stepmother would have corrected his behavior in public, but understanding that she was trying to protect him from the revulsion many people have to such behavior. You would never publicly embarrass him, but you care about him too deeply not to say anything in private.

(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 often host two close friends at my apartment for meals. I sparred with them after they suggested I make something other than what I originally pitched when I invited them for a meal. They maintain that it’s polite to cook what your guests request, in order to make them feel comfortable and to please their tastes.

It’s not the first time they’ve done it, but, despite the fact that it’s impolite to question others’ manners, I decided I’d say something this time. I told them that it was incorrect to suggest a different menu if someone is hosting you in their home, and that the correct response was to either accept or decline the invitation, not to scrutinize the menu. Am I correct in my thinking, or should I bend to their requests?

GENTLE READER: Strange that your friends are more interested in host manners than guest manners, considering that they are guests.

Menus have become battlegrounds, now that people care more about what they eat than with whom they eat. And while it is true that hosts should make reasonable accommodations to guests’ food restrictions and preferences, that is not license for guests to order their food as if they were in a restaurant. And Miss Manners has been told that even restaurants, now accustomed to offering gluten-free and vegetarian options, are refusing to go beyond that and accept idiosyncratic special orders.

As you invite these friends often, you are presumably generally familiar with their preferences. Of course you will use that information to try to please them. But guest manners require them to appreciate that without dictating to you.

If they want specific meals, why don’t they invite you for dinner?

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I have terrible skin allergies and cannot use most soaps. I use a hypoallergenic hand sanitizer after using the restroom, but honestly have started just running some water so folks don’t make assumptions. It’s always good to remind folks not to assume.

GENTLE READER: Indeed. And to refrain from monitoring other people’s bathroom habits.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: Many years ago, I acquired a lovely set of antique silver ice cream forks. They had caught my attention as something I’d never encountered before, and for their innate whimsy. They would certainly be conversation starters at dessert!

However, I do not really know for what type of ice cream desserts they would be used, or in what circumstances they are appropriate for my dinner guests. How does one use these delightful oddities without subjecting one’s guests to certain spills and drips?

GENTLE READER: Aside from providing whimsy, delight and conversation, ice cream forks are good for eating ice cream. Miss Manners prefers them to spoons, because the curved tines can cut into solidly frozen blocks or lift out bite-sized bits of any accompanying matter, such as cake.

Even if they are new to your guests, she wouldn’t worry about the spillage. Those tines curl around a bowl that can hold soft ice cream, better than, for example, those flat wooden paddles that come with some ice cream cups. And coping with drips is a skill most people learn in childhood.

(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: What is proper about gifts given at Christmas -- i.e., a tablet, jewelry or other expensive items -- when there is a breakup two weeks later?

GENTLE READER: Don’t tell Miss Manners that the person who received these presents wasn’t already planning to end the relationship. It is not customary to lavish luxuries on someone you are about to dismiss. On the contrary, it might have been a pathetic attempt to hold on, which the recipient knew was already doomed.

So yes, please give it all back.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: When I receive business calls, the callers say, “Is [my name] there?” Or “I’m calling for [my name].”

I have always thought it was correct for a caller to identify him- or herself before asking to speak with the person they are calling, especially if the caller is not known. This behavior is annoying to me, but am I being too fussy by clinging to past standards of propriety?

GENTLE READER: It is not the standards that are past so much as the technology. People are getting used to the fact that their names appear to the recipients of their calls, even before the telephone is answered -- which is why it often isn’t.

But while Miss Manners asks you to understand this, she advises you to achieve your objective by asking, “Who is calling, please?” before you admit to being you.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I spend the holidays with dear family friends whom I’ve known my entire life. It falls to the family matriarch to host the meals, as “she has the perfect house for it” and “everyone loves Mom’s cooking.” She enjoys it, but it’s tiring for her. My own house is tiny, but I help as much as I can by bringing desserts and side dishes.

At the end of the meal, the adult children excuse themselves to have a walk or a nap. The grandchildren -- who range in age from 10 to 35 -- and the spouses of the older ones excuse themselves to play with the dog or their phones, or to toss around a ball. Maybe one other person and myself clear the table and do the dishes.

I am more than happy to help our exhausted hostess, but I resent cleaning up after able-bodied children and teenagers (especially as I always did cleanup duty when I was their age).

As I am not a blood relative, I can’t suggest they change their family tradition to lighten the load on their mother, nor can I correct their children’s manners. Frankly, I’m shocked that a 10-year-old isn’t asked to clear her own plate or help her elderly grandmother at all. Is there anything I can say?

GENTLE READER: As you point out, it is neither your house nor your family. Criticism is not in order.

However, Miss Manners wants to help, although not by clearing the table. She suggests, at the end of the meal but before people have left the table, you say heartily, “I’m volunteering to head the cleanup crew, so our hostess can relax. Who wants to join?”

At least some of them will not be able to slink away fast enough.

(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.)