(EDITORS While it contains no profanity, some readers may find the theme of the first letter in this column offensive.)

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I'm a 20-year-old college student who recently had the pleasure of meeting a very nice young lady via the Internet. We talked a lot and finally met for a "date" of sorts. After returning to her place and talking, she asked me if I would sleep with her.

The problem arises in that I'm not the kind of guy who will hop right into bed with someone, regardless of what I think of her (and let me make it clear that I certainly did think a lot of this one).

I did accept the invitation to sleep beside her, each of us enjoying the other's company (in a non-perverted way, mind you), but I later learned that she was actually hurt because I turned her down. Despite my attempts to set right her presumptions, the damage had been done.

While I don't at all think that I'm lucky enough to have similar situations arise often, I don't want to lose another potentially wonderful relationship. How can I say "no" without hurting the girl or giving her the wrong impression? Would my response need to be different if I meant "not yet"?

GENTLE READER: It strikes Miss Manners that the problem here is not with your manners, but with your morals. While you decline to mate with strangers -- behavior that currently passes for high morality -- you describe someone who does as "a potentially wonderful relationship."

The manners of the young lady in question are no better than your morals, either, as she has taken insult at your offering her only your company. You would be better off deciding, as many ladies do, not to pin any hopes on someone who won't bother with you if all you offer them is your company.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: Please correct me if I am wrong, but, when you are seating 10 couples at a table at a party, does the gentleman's lady sit at his right or left? As I was already seated with my wife on my right, I was asked to move to her right. There were no assigned seats. Please help.

GENTLE READER: You are wrong, your hostess is wrong for not having assigned seating, the person who asked you to move is wrong. Yet it is Miss Manners who will be the target of incorrect corrections.

A gentleman's lady should be seated on the far side of the table, out of ear range of her husband. This reduces the temptation for them to correct each other's versions of family stories or to abandon the other guests to discuss topics of more interest to them, such as whether it is time to replace the hot water heater.

Those who will protest that their devotion makes it impossible for them to bear to be separated for a single meal should stay home and have a good time. They only get in the way of people who enjoy socializing, besides creating the impression that they don't trust each other as far as the length of a table.

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DEAR MISS MANNERS: When selling one's artwork in a class art sale or open studio, how does one answer the inevitable questions:

1. Where do you get your ideas? (One artist I know used to say that his work was like sausage -- you were better off not knowing.)

2. How long did this (etching, drawing, painting, sculpture, etc.) take you to do? (Being a gentleman of a certain age, I am reluctant to answer.)

3. Can I have a discount? ("Yes" is unfair to those patrons who don't ask, and "No" discourages sales.)

I realize that questions 1 and 2 may be friendly attempts at conversation. In response to question 3, it would be rude to inquire whether the potential patron discounts his or her professional billings upon request. How about, "I'm sorry, I don't feel comfortable giving discounts"?

I am willing to take the consequences, but I'd like to get across the fact that I and my colleagues work hard, and I, for one, am slightly insulted by this request.

GENTLE READER: Miss Manners was hoping for a fourth question, to which she happens to have a snappy answer. That question is "How do I discourage people from looking over my shoulder while I paint outdoors?"

The answer was supplied by an artist of her acquaintance: "I put a hat upside down on the ground next to my easel. It works wonderfully to keep people away, although I have to admit that it's embarrassing if people I know happen to come along."

Please forgive Miss Manners from straying from your questions. The answers are two mysterious smiles and a "No." Far from discouraging buyers, this combination confirms the popular notion that a true artist knows nothing about business, and thus increases the prestige of your work.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I work in a relatively small (15 to 20 employees) office with a men's room and a women's room that are used only by our staff and visitors. The office manager, who is responsible for ordering supplies, has noticed that the hand soap in the men's room has rarely needed replacing, while the soap in the women's room goes quite quickly!

She has deduced that the men are just not using the soap very often.

The women are a bit offended that the men are not giving more thought to their hygiene, but they are stumped on how to change the situation. Should the men be allowed to continue shaking hands with unsuspecting visitors and touching the office equipment (which makes the women want to wash their hands that much more often!), or is there something to be done? Is there any way to tactfully, politely get the men to start washing their hands with the soap?

GENTLE READER: Miss Manners does not advise confronting individuals on this issue, such as jumping back from proffered handshakes shouting, "Eeeew!" It would be preferable if management issued a statement expressing appreciation of the effort to save the office money by conserving soap in the men's room, but assuring employees that this is not worth risking the sanitation of the office.

A harder problem is how to discourage those who use the ladies' bathroom from speculating about what is going on in the gentlemen's bathroom.

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Those disillusioned with the current practices of what may humorously be called courtship sometimes claim to yearn for the dating system of 50 years ago. Back then, Miss Manners has heard the young maintain, the two sexes (there were officially only two) treated each other with respect.

Gentlemen gallantly entertained ladies without considering what they could expect in return in the way of bodily demonstrations of affection (or failing that, enthusiasm). Ladies accepted or discouraged their attentions gracefully, without calculating the level of monetary investment at which they could afford to bestow their affections.

Even very young gentlemen sent flowers and sincere Valentines, while the young ladies knitted socks and sent coy Valentines. Romance progressed in an orderly fashion, from telephone calls the day after dates to the exchange of class rings and sorority and fraternity pins to marriage.

And the universality of the practice meant that no one need be lonely on a Saturday night.

The only drawback was extreme sexual repression, which pretty much limited everyone to kisses and perspiration. Anything beyond that led immediately to forced marriage, from which there was no escape, ever.

The elders of those who believe all this should be ashamed of themselves. It is not nice to take advantage of the gullibility of the young and fool them like that.

As Miss Manners recalls, the people who were caught up in this dating system disliked it so intensely that they finally managed to destroy it. But not because they were as repressed as they led their parents (and later their children) to believe.

Dating was universal in theory, but not in practice, leaving plenty of people lonely, if not ashamed, for lack of Saturday-night alternatives. The presumption that a date was the only natural way in which the sexes could mix put a damper on nonromantic relationships that now provide a variety of other social activities.

Far from encouraging respect, dating fostered competition. Those seeking to break hearts were pitted against those striving to overcome inhibitions. The progression from courtship to marriage lacked a stage for the development of friendship.

But at least there was a pattern there, and everyone knew what it was. It is the chaotic situation today, where intimacy is tied to no stage and can disappear as quickly as it strikes, that is responsible for this uninformed nostalgia.

The reformers who tore down the rules of dating wanted outlets that would allow for the development of friendships, which might or might not proceed to courtship. They wanted both sexes to be able to orchestrate occasions from which a romance could develop, not to eliminate invitations and hosting. The idea was to add a stage for the growth of romance, not to do away with courtship.

So if there are any reformers thinking about improving the current social patterns, Miss Manners hopes they will figure out how to combine the orderliness of the past with the easiness and egalitarianism that is supposed to characterize the present.

And she warns them not to rely on anyone who claims to have experienced or discovered any period in history in which ladies and gentlemen always behaved themselves.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: Very few people seem to begin a request for directions with any polite acknowledgment of the fact that they are interrupting you and asking for a favor.

Instead of "Excuse me, can you tell me how to get to the post office?" most people now say something like "Where's the post office?"

Is there a polite way to point out their omission? If I simply respond to a demand for assistance, I suspect that I will be teaching my daughter that she needn't be polite when she "asks" for directions, which is not the lesson I want to convey.

GENTLE READER: Miss Manners is in perfect agreement that you should not lead your daughter to believe that it is all right to be rude to strangers on the street. That is why you cannot reprimand lost strangers; there is no polite way to do so.

What you can do is to comment sadly on their ignorance of manners once they are out of earshot.

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