GENTLE READERS: That it is acceptable to be rude so long as you provide a justification for your behavior is not, Miss Manners assures you, correct. But neither is it an unusual ploy.

Take the cases of a young lady who detests carrots, a young gentleman recently converted to vegetarianism out of concern for the planet, and an older gentleman with a life-threatening allergy to shellfish.

The older gentleman has spent a lifetime quietly avoiding shrimp cocktails. His friends and relatives know his situation and keep an eye out for him. But he must still wearily abide the rude dinner partner who insists on knowing why he is not eating the clam chowder -- which she assures him is really delicious.

The young gentleman is passionate that it is everyone else, not himself, who is at fault: They are either unaware of the cruel and destructive nature of the meat industry -- in which case he is doing a public service by educating them -- or they are indifferent to it, which crime pales in comparison to anything he could say.

The young lady, though not yet 14 years of age, has already realized that it is simpler to tell everyone she meets that carrots send her into anaphylactic shock than to admit the truth, which is that she hates them.

The younger sufferers would be unhappy with the older gentleman’s quiet acceptance. It is bad enough to have to navigate a dangerous world. Must the older man also spend a lifetime apologizing for something beyond his control? Or, as they would put it, apologizing for who he is? Injustice!

To Miss Manners’ thinking, all three can benefit from her advice.

To the young lady: Dislike is not recognized as a medical condition, and falsely claiming it as such, while making your life easier, makes other people’s lives harder. Your fib provides one more reason for callous hosts to dismiss assertions by people who really are in peril. Not being your mother, Miss Manners is not going to tell you to stop whining and eat your vegetables. But she is going to point out that you can push them to the side of the plate.

To the young gentleman: Rudeness is not justified by righteousness. Haranguing the other guests, who are just trying to have a pleasant evening, is not only rude, but will also fail to win you converts.

Gentle readers who thought Miss Manners was going to applaud the long-suffering older gentleman are only partly right. She can appreciate his thinking of others before he thinks of himself. But she rejects his belief that any prior discussion with a host with whom he sometimes dines -- including, perhaps, an apology -- would be rude. Nowadays, a good host will inquire and keep notes.

To the young pair who object that an apology is out of the question, Miss Manners answers, “grow up.” The apology is not for the gentleman’s condition, but for potentially inconveniencing his host. Being able to stomach the hypocrisy of making an apology without feeling overly contrite is a basic life skill to which no one can claim to be allergic.

(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 relative who lives alone and who calls me every week to chat. This would be fine, except the calls are always over an hour long, and the person only talks about their own interests and doesn’t really let me get a word in.

I find an hour is a long time to just sit and listen, but any polite attempts I make to end the call are ignored. I’ve tried, “I should get to bed, as I have work in the morning,” “I think I’ll head out for a walk while it’s still light out,” and “I have dinner reservations at 7:30,” among others. But the relative either ignores me or launches into “one last story” that goes on for 30 minutes.

I don’t think they mean any harm -- I think they may just have difficulty understanding social cues -- and I don’t know how to tell them how I feel without hurting their feelings. I’ve started to avoid answering their calls because I dread how long they go on. What should I do?

GENTLE READER: Your relative has, perhaps unintentionally, stumbled on a technique well known to telemarketers: If they keep talking, a polite person will be reluctant to interrupt or to hang up. This is the right impulse, as one rudeness cannot justify another. But that does not mean you must be a helpless victim.

No one can actually speak without taking a breath -- and when they do, dive in with a short, complete sentence such as, “Thank you, goodbye” and hang up before the person can restart. This requires careful timing and is not comfortable, as it means not waiting for the normal full stop from the other person or leaving a breath before hanging up.

With your well-meaning relative, you will still have to preface it with multiple gentler attempts to end the conversation. For telemarketers, it was enough, in the ancient days of landlines, that they not hear the receiver impacting the telephone base.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: Last July, one of my adult daughters died. I placed the obituary in the Sunday paper, cross-referenced to my maiden name so my relatives would be sure to notice it.

With the pandemic, we did not have an open funeral. But not one of my 29 second cousins on my father’s side even sent a sympathy card, and only four of my 37 first cousins on my mother’s side did so.

Now one of them has died, and I’m having mixed feelings about how to respond. I did send a sympathy card. But attend the funeral Mass? Why should I? They can’t even send a sympathy card. Why should I go out of my way for any of them?

GENTLE READER: The lack of family acknowledgment when your daughter died is heartbreaking. But the reason for attending a funeral is to show respect for the dead. This remains a central tenet of etiquette, irrespective of what you believe happens after death.

Nonbelievers can agree that there is comfort for the living in bearing witness, even if the subject can no longer appreciate your effort. Miss Manners therefore recommends you attend -- not for the sake of your aunt or uncle, but for the sake of your cousin.

(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 come from a large, itinerant family, consisting of my parents and eight siblings. We moved frequently as I was growing up, our possessions packed up and shipped over a dozen times, with some things arriving damaged or going missing in the process.

Money was never overly abundant, and though my mother loved to set a nice dinner table for us all, she quickly gave up on having any matching tableware. Instead, she used whatever was available, interesting and affordable. As time went on, no two pieces ever matched, and I came to think of this as eclectic and charming.

Now that I’m grown, I’ve continued my mother’s custom of mixing things up, as it brings back fond memories of my family and my youth. My tableware is all different designs and makes, and I even use jelly jars as juice glasses in my kitchen.

The problem is that when guests come for dinner, many seem perplexed with my non-matching table items, and will tell me where I can purchase matching sets cheaply. I politely tell them that things are exactly as I want them to be, and that money is not the issue. Rarely does it sink in.

A friend sent me a full matching set of tableware, thinking that she was doing me a favor. If I return it, it will hurt her feelings, yet if I use it, my finely constructed collection of mismatched items will completely be disrupted. What should I do to make her happy, yet continue using the items that I’m so fond of?

GENTLE READER: Your friends must be unaware of a put-down once used by snobs: “the sort of people who buy their silver.” Mixed patterns are a sign of having inherited it instead.

Never mind that your tableware was bought and that it may not be silver; Miss Manners was just reaching for a way to support you against people who have no business criticizing your hospitality. Thank that friend and use the matching set for picnics, when it won’t matter.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: My husband has a close friend, Burt, whom he has known since high school and who is part of our social circle. Last year, we learned that Burt’s mother had died, and my husband called him with condolences. A week or so later, we saw him at a brunch (this was pre-pandemic). I told him that I had known his mother from church, and gave him my sympathy.

In the course of our conversation, I asked how old she had been. He snapped at me, saying something like, “I don’t see how that’s relevant.”

I was embarrassed and wondered if I had made a faux pas or been insensitive. However, the next day, the obituary was in the newspaper, and her age was plainly stated immediately after her name.

Was I wrong or rude to ask Burt his late mother’s age? I was not intending to pry. In my experience, that’s a common question when someone dies.

GENTLE READER: But not when the lady is alive. Miss Manners deplores the notion that it is shameful to age, but recognizes that unfortunately, many people have internalized it.

Burt could still have been reacting to what his mother would have said if he told her age. Instead of snapping, he could have just told you, “She wouldn’t want me to tell.”

(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.)