DEAR MISS MANNERS: I am a female student, and most of my friends happen to be male classmates. Occasionally, when I go out for dinner with one of them, the waiter will apparently assume that we're dating and chide my friend for letting me pay my share as we're dividing up the bill.

We normally just turn a little bit red and ignore it, but is there any better way to handle it? These waiters never say specifically that they think we're dating, so we can't refute that -- and, frankly, I generally pay my own way when I'm out with my boyfriend anyway.

GENTLE READER: Miss Manners is surprised to hear that those waiters are still active. They got such a workout in the 1970s, thwarting businesswomen by chastising their clients and employees for not treating them to lunch, that she would have thought them driven into retirement by exhaustion.

Even though your response was prompted by embarrassment, ignoring this intrusiveness was the right thing to do.

You probably wouldn't tolerate questions and suggestions about your personal relationships and spending habits from your parents, so why should you attempt to justify yourself to your waiter?

DEAR MISS MANNERS: A class of 30 high school students is being instructed by a teacher in the school library where I work. The room is quite large so it is possible for others to be in the library at the same time as a class. Two other teachers were loudly socializing in the front of the library, and were joking and laughing so loudly that the teacher across the room had to shout to have his students hear him.

While I used all the body language I could to try to get a message across to the loud teachers, who were oblivious, I was at a loss as to what to say. If it were students, this would not be a problem, but with other teachers, I could hardly say "Be quiet! Can't you see a class is in session?"

Is there a polite, nonconfrontational way to tell people who should know better how to be quiet in a library or other place where loud talking of adults interferes with the rights of young students (who would never be allowed to behave this way)?

This problem occurs in many other situations where children and adults share the same space and children are expected to behave in a certain fashion, but adults ignore the rules. Many teachers just get stressed for lack of an appropriate thing to say.

GENTLE READER: Is it possible that with so many libraries turning into classrooms and activity centers, library science no longer includes rigorous training in the gentle art of shushing?

Now, more than ever, the ability to quiet people down without riling them up is a skill that everyone needs. The sticking point, Miss Manners observes, is just the one you identify -- a reluctance to correct adults, perhaps because it is rude, and perhaps because they might be bigger or more menacing than oneself.

What you could have done was alert them to a situation you know they must have overlooked -- the presence of the class, the way their voices carried -- because, being polite people, they would never have been disruptive on purpose.

This is done by flashing them a regretful and sympathetic little smile, while tilting your head toward the class and humorously laying your finger across your lips. If this fails to shut them up, to put it as bluntly as one should not, you should say, "I'm sorry, but would you please talk elsewhere?"

And by the way, authority over children should not be invoked to treat them any less politely.

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DEAR MISS MANNERS: I have attended several courses and workshops, some costly and all scheduled for a limited time period, and I am made uncomfortable right from the start.

The first thing the course conductor does is to order the participants, one by one, to identify themselves and divulge personal information to the roomful of (mostly) strangers. I don't want my privacy invaded and my safety compromised; I want the conductor to get right to the course material!

Nothing is stopping the course attendees from getting to know each other on their own if they have the inclination. I believe this time-wasting and nosy practice should be eliminated.

GENTLE READER: This is one of those leftovers from the popular therapy craze of the second half of the 20th century, when it was believed that people accomplish more when they become pals. It is in direct contradiction to what every schoolteacher knows about separating friends during class.

Miss Manners would have thought that the custom had been dropped by now. Surely we have all sat captive through enough long professional and personal resumes, in both the bragging and the whining modes, to know better.

When your turn comes, you can at least not add to the tedium. You need only state your name, your profession if it happens to be related to the subject matter of the course, and your level of ability in regard to the class. Having been regaled by others, your classmates are not likely to beg for more, but if they do, you should reply modestly that this is all that is relevant.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: Last month, my husband and I invited a former colleague of mine over for a casual dinner. After an enjoyable meal, my colleague's husband announced that he had to make an 8 p.m. conference call.

I offered to let him use our den for privacy and he emerged 145 minutes later to announce that he had just helped found a new (rather radical) political party in our state. We congratulated him on his accomplishment and enjoyed a heated political debate before he went home.

I opened our phone bill last night, shocked to see a rather large cross-country phone call made the evening of his visit. I had assumed that he used a toll-free number or at least his own calling card and am surprised that he did not mention that he made a direct-dial call. Should I confront him with the bill or consider it water under the bridge?

GENTLE READER: How deep is the water under that bridge? Miss Manners would have been tempted to pitch your guest overboard for the crime of doing business at your house during a social engagement.

But then she supposes she would have tossed him a lifeline, for humanitarian reasons and also so he could live to pay the telephone bill. Send it to him with a note saying that he probably needs this as a record for his expense account or taxes when he reimburses you.

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Could you people try talking to one another?

Oops. The last thing Miss Manners ever thought she would do is encourage what was known as, in its faddish heyday, "communication."

That was the non-electronic version, when people were encouraged to face one another to divulge all their deepest thoughts and feelings. The premise was that we were naturally so virtuous and compatible that all human friction resulted from a "failure of communication" worse than the kind the power company promises to fix so long as you'll stay home and wait for a week.

It was believed that any personal conflict could be cleared up if only we turned off that artificial, if not dishonest, inhibitor, tact. There were, however, small miscalculations in this formula that began to appear when it was eagerly adopted. It turns out that not every thought or feeling we have, even about the people we love, is benign. Furthermore, there are people whom we do not love, and when they reveal their innermost souls to us, we care for them even less.

Poor Miss Manners was still cleaning up the mess left by free and frank communication when along came e-mail. Now we could reveal ourselves to total strangers. We could say what we really thought of people we know, but had not meant to tell them -- until we hit the wrong button on the keyboard. We could bombard people with communication until they howled for mercy, and they did.

So let's not have more of that, please.

What prompted Miss Manners to encourage a simpler kind of communication was an innocent enough question:

"I live far away from my mother, who became a widow in 2000, and send lots of letters to her," wrote a Gentle Reader. "What is the appropriate way to address the envelope? She was married to my father for almost 44 years, so I want to respect that, but I don't know if I should address mail to her by her first name or Mrs. This has bothered me for almost two years."

Ever eager to be of help, Miss Manners was about to reply that a lady's name does not automatically change when she becomes a widow, as many erroneously suppose, but that the overriding consideration is how the lady herself wishes to be addressed.

But wait just a minute here. Why was this Gentle Reader bothered for two whole years without thinking of seeking relief with a simple, "Mother, what would you prefer?"

This happens to be an issue on which there is no prevailing agreement at the moment (thus creating etiquette havoc, but that is another story). Often, questions that arise among relatives or friends are about matters not even under the jurisdiction of etiquette -- little habits or failings that are known to drive another person crazy but will not be given up unless they can be officially declared rude.

Miss Manners is not trying to shirk her job. She is happy to cite rules and precedents, to referee disputes and to supply polite ways to tame the obstreperous. The words "Do whatever makes you feel comfortable" have never passed her lips.

But while it is against her professional interest to say so, there do exist situations in which personal preferences may be honored. She can at least definitively state that it is rude to annoy your intimates when information about what their personal preferences are is easily obtainable.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: Four of my friends forgot my birthday. I understand that this is something that happens as one grows older and friends move, but what do I do the next time I speak to these people? Should I mention the wonderful birthday activities I enjoyed? Or should I just be direct and remind them that they didn't acknowledge my birthday? All of these ideas seem somehow passive-aggressive.

GENTLE READER: Why, so they do. One might get the impression that you intended to shame them for a phenomena that you yourself identify as inevitable.

If you insist upon doing this, Miss Manners would prefer that you use the polite method. That is to say nothing now, and then make a big fuss over their birthdays.

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