DEAR MISS MANNERS: All right, I admit it -- the world has changed. I understand that almost nobody sits down and writes out traditional, formal invitations to parties, dinners, dances and the like -- the kind of invitation that most people associate with weddings and embassy balls, but written out by hand rather than engraved or printed.

Having said that, my wife and I are hosting a dinner, and we would like to send formal invitations to our friends. Please tell me how I might word such an invitation to our home.

Should I use titles even though these are good friends? (Mr. and Mrs. George Washington request the pleasure of Mr. and Mrs. John Adams' company for dinner....) Or would our full names suffice? (George and Martha Washington request the pleasure of John and Abigail Adams' company for dinner....)

May we say "for dinner" and let everyone infer that they'll get cocktails and chat, too? Or should we say "for cocktails and dinner" so that they don't pack their own bottle of wine?

GENTLE READER: Even though Miss Manners considers the formal dinner party just about the finest recreational activity we have (not counting the afternoon nap, with which it combines perfectly), you worry her.

Are you, in fact, giving a formal dinner? If so, are you inviting people you assume would enjoy this, whether because of their experience or their openness to new experience? If not, it would be pretentious and silly to attempt it.

The beauty of this form is that it is a set piece, its formal details --invitations, timing, clothes, food, service -- intended as a flattering frame for the participants. You don't mess with those details to make it seem -- well, less formal. Honorifics are always used, and the request is for the guests' company "at dinner" (not "for" dinner; the roast is for dinner, as old-fashioned wags were wont to say). "Dinner" is understood to include drinks, talk, and, for that matter, bathroom privileges, so you need not spell these out.

If you are simply giving a decorous dinner party, not one of high formality, a less formal invitation, but no less charming, should be issued. This is written in the first person: "We would be delighted if you could come to dinner..." with your names, minus honorifics, at the bottom.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: Is it appropriate for a party to walk out of a restaurant without paying when the service has been terrible and the guests have had to wait for their entrees for over 90 minutes?

There could not have been more than 20 people in the restaurant! Upon leaving, we looked for the hostess or a cashier, but to no avail.

GENTLE READER: Did you miss hearing the fire alarm?

As you know how long the food took, Miss Manners assumes that you stayed until it arrived and consumed it. In that case, you owe the restaurant the cost of the food. An optional extra would be the reason that the experience cost them your good will.

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DEAR MISS MANNERS: I wrote a novel several years ago and submitted it to many agents and publishers, but it was never accepted for publication. When I reread my work now, I'm embarrassed at its poor quality and amazed that I ever considered it to be good enough to be published. It's the only piece I've written, and I've since stopped writing altogether.

When I meet up with friends that I haven't seen in a long while, they often inquire whether my work was published and whether they can read it. I am embarrassed to show them the manuscript, but they are offended if I refuse. Is there any polite way of refusing their requests without admitting to how badly written it is?

GENTLE READER: Miss Manners suspects your friends of having ulterior motives. In her experience, everyone in the world is writing a novel, even if it never quite gets to the paperwork stage, and nothing except love and self-sacrifice can get anyone to read someone else's novel in manuscript form, no matter how fervently they beg.

She therefore concludes that your friends are trying to lure you into their debt so they can force you to read their own manuscripts. If you were to answer the question simply by asking another one -- "Have you ever thought of writing a novel?" -- the conversation would probably never get back to yours. Or you could agree to house each other's manuscripts for a decent amount of time before returning them with vague praise.

Of course you can also just say, "It's not ready to be read yet, and I'm not sure it ever will be." But Miss Manners is afraid that would defeat your purpose, as it would make you sound like a professional writer who hasn't managed to get down to work.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I've been dating a successful man for a few months. The problem? When we go out to dinner or lunch, he orders only one plate and tells the waiter this is enough for now, but we may want to order more food. Which means he expects me to "share" his plate.

The first time, I wasn't really too hungry, so I was all right with it, but into the fourth dinner date I noticed that this is the way he is. He will also tell me to order a drink, and I notice he enjoys "sharing" this, too.

I can afford my own lunch, dinner or drinks, so I'm not going and expecting him to pay, but what do I say? And do I have the right to feel funny about this?

P.S. He also has the habit of handing me a soda can or coffee cup that has only the very end left and telling me to "go ahead and finish it." Yuck!

GENTLE READER: How many more half-dinner dates is it going to take to convince you that this courtship is going nowhere?

It is not even so much the question of whether you can stomach eating his leftovers and letting him nibble away at yours as it is whether you can stomach him. If that "Yuck!" answers the question in Miss Manners' mind, surely it should give you a hint.

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Would you have to be crazy to snarl at your spouse, child or parents?

Miss Manners would say so, with the understanding that she is using "crazy" in the household sense of "What -- are you crazy?"

There those people are, not just knowing where you live but possessing their own keys. Would a person in possession of his or her faculties antagonize someone who is constantly lurking around the house?

Inevitably. What are families for, if not to drive one another crazy? You declare your undying love for people, share your life with them, and look what they do:

Monopolize the bathroom. Leave the gas tank empty. Mess up their computers by once again doing exactly what you told them not to do, and then expecting you to drop what you're doing and fix it.

So, naturally, there are words. A key question is how many words, how often they are spoken, and, for Miss Manners, which words they are.

Another profession, one with a less benign definition of crazy, is interested in this matter. The American Psychiatric Association is considering classifying abrasive family relationships as symptoms of mental illness in otherwise presumably healthy individuals. The explanation offered is that constant battling between couples or parents and children could constitute "relational disorders" of a pathological nature.

Its focus is, of course, on behavior of an entirely different order of magnitude than the common bits of friction Miss Manners has just delineated. Domestic discord ranges from mere squabbling to sustained hostilities to criminal acts, and she recognizes that etiquette's jurisdiction is over only the mildest sort, while the justice system must deal with domestic violence.

Psychiatry has long treated the middle range, and Miss Manners would not dream of interfering in its present, ah, family squabbles over how this should be regarded. Her modest desire is only to offer the principles and lessons to be gleaned from her end of the domestic continuum.

In the etiquette business, we use neither medical nor legal terms. Rather than sickness and health, legal or illegal, we think of the alternatives of human behavior as being natural and bearable. Our aim is to twist what is natural into something bearable.

We notice that those who arrive in a family with no previous behavioral record of any kind, receiving huge welcomes by other residents who put themselves out to meet the demands of the newcomer, behave the worst. To a person, they scream and cry at the least inconvenience they encounter, and sometimes when all their conditions are met but they happen to feel fussy anyway.

Yet we are also aware that these people cannot survive alone and that even when they reach the point when they may be able to do so, few choose to live in isolation. They must therefore learn to make themselves tolerable to their housemates and to the larger communities in which they dwell, hence the practical justification for etiquette.

This is why etiquette has never gone in for the volatile methods of dealing with domestic conflict that have been popularly adapted from the other disciplines. It cares less about legislating contributions and privileges to achieve parity than it does about whether people can be accommodated reasonably. And rather than encourage honest communication of everyone's feelings, it recommends suppressing expression of the nasty ones and knowing when to substitute kindness for openness.

Those who ignore the dictates of domestic etiquette will have ample opportunity to try the full range of legal and psychiatric solutions, as home life is bound to get worse.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I was invited to dinner via phone, two weeks before the date, and accepted. Four days before the dinner, I was called and uninvited because the table seats only eight. I felt very hurt by this, and I wonder how I should respond to another dinner at their home.

GENTLE READER: Politely, of course. Miss Manners suggests, "How kind of you to invite me again after all the trouble I must have caused you last time. However, I'm afraid that, once again, I will be unable to attend."

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