DEAR MISS MANNERS: Due to the vagaries of fate, I now find myself having dinner once a week with the gentleman who was my favorite author when I was in high school. We are cordial, even friendly, to the point of inviting each other to private parties in our homes.

Sometimes he asks me my opinions of his recent work. Frankly, I don't read genre fiction any more, and I haven't read any of his books in decades. How do I dodge his questions without hurting his feelings?

GENTLE READER: With a bit of judicious dialogue:

"Oh, you already know I've always been your greatest fan. But tell me what sort of reaction you are getting from critics and readers. Sometimes I feel that even your admirers don't fully appreciate the depth of your work."

In Miss Manners' experience, that ought to keep any author going until you can safely say, "Oh, my, the time has flown, I didn't realize how late it is."

DEAR MISS MANNERS: My 23-year-old son is engaged to be married next summer. His finance [sic] is planning a large wedding (400-plus). My son recently informed me that, according to her, it is "customary" for the groom's parents to pay for the liquor at the wedding reception and for a honeymoon to Hawaii (as this is where all young couples now go). The estimated cost of the reception's open bar is $12,000, and the Hawaiian honeymoon nearly $5,000.

It was my understanding that the bride's family was primarily responsible for the wedding and that the groom's family paid for the pre-nuptial meal and the groomsmen's gifts. Any other financial assistance from the groom's family was optional. We are not involved in planning this wedding and are certainly not of the financial means to cover such large expenses.

Can you provide some guidance? We want to fulfill our obligations and maintain cordial relations, but we are not of a financial means to spend thousands of dollars to fulfill the bride's every wish.

GENTLE READER: Fully half the letters Miss Manners receives about engagements and weddings put an extra "N" in the words "fiancee" or "fiance," as you did. She used to think it was a typographical accident.

Apparently not. The state of being engaged is now interpreted as granting license to control other people's finances. Parents, wedding attendants and guests are told what they must allocate through contributions, sponsorship and purchase.

And what authority is there for granting this unprecedented ability to dictate expenditure regardless of the owners' thoughts or wishes?

"Etiquette," claim the finances and financees. It is only proper that others fork it over, they declare.

Oh, no they don't. Miss Manners is not going to stand for etiquette's being portrayed as extortion, and she is surprised that anyone else submits to being victimized. Furthermore, the finances and financees always prove to be ignorant of what is "customary."

Customarily, the bride's family pays for all the wedding festivities, and the bridegroom pays for the groomsmen's presents, the entire wedding trip and any other expenses the couple may incur from then on.

In recent years, this has been modified in the interest of fairness so that the bridegroom's family may offer to give a dinner the evening before the wedding or otherwise share in the wedding expenses. However, all of this, including the bride's family's assumption of costs, is voluntary, and saddling people with bills that strain their means is as improper as it is cruel.

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A prominent state official whose sudden retirement was prompted by a desire to spend more time with his wife and grandchildren, as well as by the public discovery that he had paid off an employee who accused him of sexual harassment, made a public confession:

It was true that he had committed the crime of failing to keep up with etiquette changes.

"I don't blame anyone for my troubles. Most of them I brought upon myself," he said. "But times have changed, and what was accepted in the era in which I was raised is strictly off limits today. I didn't change with the time, and if I have offended anyone I am truly sorry and I apologize."

A Gentle Reader has asked Miss Manners for a clarification of the etiquette involved: "I was born in the early 1970s," she writes, "and as a result, I have no experience with the Bad Old Days before feminism. Nonetheless, my guess is that sexual harassment was never considered correct or polite behavior, at least not in our country's short history. And yet, every time a public figure admits to having behaved inappropriately toward a woman, they claim that such behavior used to be perfectly acceptable. (Their only crime is to be too old-fashioned!)

"Putting aside the weak nonapology, have the rules really changed? What era did this man grow up in, exactly, when trapping and assaulting women was accepted? It may not have been illegal, at least in a practical sense, but surely this is a point on which etiquette has not wavered over the years. Please reassure me."

Miss Manners can reassure her G.R. that etiquette did not previously countenance forcing attentions on ladies, and then suddenly discover that there may be something improper about it, but failed to get the word out to those it had considered perfect gentlemen by its earlier standard.

As the Gentle Reader supposes, it is, rather, the law that long ignored this behavior that it has lately come to condemn.

A lawmaker who wishes to apologize for not keeping up with the times in regard to this issue should apologize for ignorance of the law.

However, the person in question here denies having harassed his accuser (while admitting to having paid her $100,000 in an out-of-court settlement), and invokes a practice that instead of being old-fashioned is what is called New Age.

He describes himself as "huggy."

This refers to the pop psychology notion that hugging a stranger or acquaintance confers a beneficence on that person. Beginning in the encounter group movement, it spread into society to the point where even churchgoers may be instructed to hug whoever happens to be sitting next to them.

Miss Manners has always been amazed that the notion that it was a good thing to grab people and hug them without their permission arose at about the same time that the law discovered that it was a bad thing to grab people without their permission.

Surely the desirability of being in someone's arms depends on whose arms they are, and being deprived of choice is an indignity whether the intent is romance or comfort -- obtaining a favor or conferring one. In either case, grabbing people has always been condemned by etiquette and always will be.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I let a friend read a complaint letter I had just composed, without asking her beforehand if she wanted to. After fitting it into my online chat screen and sending it to her, I realized it took up a lot of space, and said, "Oh, that was long." She agreed, saying it was "good, but long."

I felt offended that she agreed with me. Was my taking offense justified?

Later, I wrote an e-mail telling her I felt hurt and thought it was rude for her to offer her opinion without being asked. I felt I had committed a social faux pas. What should I have done?

GENTLE READER: What you should do right now is to get a grip on yourself. When you start complaining about your friends who agree with you, Miss Manners is afraid that you are moving from being an outraged consumer or concerned citizen to full-fledged crank.

Your forwarding your letter to your friend who had not requested it implied that you wished her opinion. Furthermore, her reply was tactful, possibly meaning that the quality justified the length. So the second thing you should do now is to apologize.

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DEAR MISS MANNERS: My boyfriend is heavily involved in the theater, and we attend shows together on a regular basis. Sometimes these are shows he is "required" to attend (because, for example, he has written them, or because he knows people performing in them), and sometimes they are pure entertainment.

Inevitably, I will be put into one of two uncomfortable situations. The first is at opening- or closing-night parties, where my boyfriend is usually one of the centers of attention. I am either brushed aside by admirers who wish to chat with him, or, if I make a point of staying nearby, utterly ignored. Even if he introduces me and I try to make conversation, no one even pretends to be interested in what I have to say. I am a very shy person, and introducing myself to people in other vicinities of the party does not seem an option.

The other situation is when we run into people he knows and they immediately begin "talking shop." I am not necessarily excluded here (unless we're already seated, and this person is seated on the other side of him from me), but it's clear I know nothing about what and whom they are talking about. My boyfriend will often say something such as, "Oh, we're being rude, talking business," but they will then go right on doing so.

I realize that these evenings, even when we go for pleasure, are "working events" for my boyfriend, and that schmoozing is important in his business. I always have the option of not going, but I love my boyfriend, and I love the theater, and there must be some sort of etiquette solution to keep the social discomfort at bay. I've considered taking a book to amuse myself until the curtain rises or it's time to go home.

GENTLE READER: Whatever actors may think, there are times when we have to let others occupy the spotlight and gracefully assume supporting roles. Unless the gentleman is manifestly bored at events connected with your occupations or interests (and reading a book when out socially is a dramatic way of displaying boredom), it does not strike Miss Manners as an unreasonable arrangement.

It need not be a nonspeaking part, however. If you open dialogues with others in supporting roles and toss compliments at others in the spotlight, you will soon receive raves of your own.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: Recently, a good friend of mine had a first birthday party for her twin boys. It was a barbecue lunch followed by cake. There was a good crowd of family and friends, about 25 adults, who came to celebrate.

One thing that struck me as rather odd and inappropriate is that they did not open up the gifts while everyone was there. They must have thought they would just do it in the "privacy of their own home." I thought this was rude.

Am I overreacting? I just felt that if people came bearing gifts to celebrate that the gifts should be opened and acknowledged in person rather than a short note of thanks in the mail three weeks later. What do you think?

GENTLE READER: That your reaction is not so much going over the top as it is heading in the wrong direction. Not to make a display of opening presents for a child too small to take notice of them indicates a sense of restraint, while writing letters of thanks indicates a higher degree of gratitude than only doing so on the spot. Miss Manners will thank you not to harbor unauthorized thoughts of this being rude.

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