DEAR MISS MANNERS: My lovely wife and I have been married for two months now. We were both virgins before we wed. I mentioned this detail to my mother a few weeks before the wedding, and since that time she has told everybody she knows. (She has since apologized.)

Therefore, we will be in the supermarket or something and someone will walk up to us and say, "Hey, I heard you two were virgins before you got married. That's great!" Then they want to chat about it, in a casual-topic sort of way. It is intrusive and mortifying. I know my mother told whoever she came into contact with, but I feel that info like that should be kept private! What do we say to these people?

GENTLE READER: "We didn't know we had a choice."

Now wait. Before you shouted "WHAT?" you paused for a minute, didn't you? That's because you were dumbfounded by Miss Manners' suggestion.

This is exactly the effect she intends. You don't want to deny the truth of their comment, but you don't want to admit it, either, because, as you have found, that leads to even more intrusive inquiry and patronizing observations. In that moment that they stand open-mouthed, trying to process the implications of that rejoinder, you should say, "I think the produce aisle is this way" and move on.

Now let's go back to the chief culprit. As preposterous as it is for anyone to make such comments, your mother's monstrous indiscretion misled them into believing that you agreed to make this public knowledge. That she apologized is a good thing, but Miss Manners cautions you to preface any other confidences with warnings not to tell.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: A friend and I recently planned to meet for lunch. As she had been extremely busy at work, I offered to meet her on a Saturday at a location nearer to her home.

After I had waited 20 minutes on the appointed day, I left a voice message at her work (she has no home phone), wondering where she could be. I waited around 15 more minutes, then drove home. The drive and wait amounted to an hour and a half to two hours.

The following week, not having heard from her, I called her office expressing concern for her. I was directed to her extension, leaving me to assume that she was all right and at work. I left her another message wondering what could have happened and saying I hoped everything was OK.

After more than a week, I finally reached her and she informed me that she had been in an accident on the way to meet me. We had a genial conversation, and before we hung up I asked her why she hadn't called me. She answered rather curtly that she had been very busy and had a lot of things on her mind. We hung up on good terms.

I am thinking of terminating my relationship with this person, even though I have a feeling she won't even notice.

What do you think?

GENTLE READER: That she probably wouldn't, and that you probably should. But what worries Miss Manners more is that she often says that the only excuse for not showing up after accepting an appointment is being run over by a truck, and forgot to mention that the victim is supposed to apologize anyway, presuming she is conscious.

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Social problem No. 1: Children are growing up too fast. Elementary school children are routinely exposed to sex and drugs, and not just in the television shows they see and the video games they play. Ten-year-olds are dressing like world-weary tramps and thugs. The young are extremely touchy about being treated with respect. At tender ages, they start rebelling against authority.

Social problem No. 2: Adults are refusing to grow up. Middle-aged people are watching animated shows, playing games at work, collecting stuffed animals and paying high prices at restaurants for comfort food. Businessmen protest against wearing business clothes to work, and partygoers protest against wearing party clothes to parties, all with the claim that they only feel comfortable in their simple and sturdy play-clothes. They are insulted at being treated with respect. At advanced ages, they are still rebelling against taking responsibility.

It has thus become possible, Miss Manners notes, to go through one's entire life dissatisfied with one's own age and pretending to be another.

It strikes her that there might be possibilities here of arranging a swap. Children would be in charge of running things, keeping their sins private and their tastes privileged, while adults would forfeit respect but gain respite from responsibility.

Or has that already taken place?

In the manners realm, it would certainly seem so. It is a favorite complaint of adults that children don't know how to behave toward them, but it seems to Miss Manners that the little ones are learning the manners that the big ones are teaching them.

These stem from the great modern prudery, which is not about sex (as you may have noticed), but about age. Adults have taught children that it is rude to notice that they are much older than the children themselves:

"Don't call me 'sir' -- that makes me feel old."

"I'm not Mrs. Wiggleston; that's my mother-in-law. Everyone calls me Muffin."

"Why are you getting up? Do I look as if I'm too old to stand?"

"How dare you offer me a senior citizen rate?"

Adults who are busy assuring one another that they look implausibly young, taking drastic measures to sustain the illusion, and condemning aging and death as the result of improper health care and attitudes, are not going to take this sort of thing from the young. What they are teaching is that any violation of the elaborate hoax that nobody ever ages is an insult.

Having defined the teen years and 20s as the only desirable ages to be, they can hardly be surprised that children share their pretensions. As each age group ridicules or deplores the other's falsifications, an idea of how their own look might arise.

Each has its excuses, Miss Manners understands. Children can't remain in the artificial comfort of childhood when they are so blatantly exposed to the harshness of the real world. And adults who are beleaguered by the harshness of the real world naturally want to retreat to the comforting artificial one.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: My daughter is having Thanksgiving dinner at her home this year. She is planning on no TV football games during dinner and, when the football game is on, the volume will be on mute. Is this correct? She also plans on having games. Help!

GENTLE READER: Your daughter wants to have live conversation at the family holiday table, and afterward she expects people to play games with one another rather than slump around separately watching strangers play games?

Has she no sense of tradition?

As your daughter is the hostess, you must go along with her outrageous wishes. You may actually find yourself feeling thankful for this sociable treat. The only help an unsympathetic Miss Manners offers you is to suggest that the dinner be scheduled after the games -- or before or after a particular game in which this crowd is most interested -- and that the other guests be warned.

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DEAR MISS MANNERS: We recently buried my mother-in-law. I was not involved with the funeral arrangements or the writing of her obituary or biography. However, reading the obituary and bio, it was clear to see that it was written to show how the deceased felt about certain family members.

The authors of my mother-in-law's obituary chose to list devoted in-laws and undevoted ones. I was listed as one of the undevoted in-laws. Needless to say, I was offended.

What is the proper etiquette for listing family members in an obituary and a biography? Also, how can I bring this proper etiquette to the author's attention without being as rude as the author?

GENTLE READER: Now, now. It didn't really say the lady was survived by her undevoted son-in-law, did it? It merely applied that conventional adjective unevenly, and it happened to be omitted before your name.

Not having mandated the description of survivors' emotions in the first place, etiquette has nothing to say about this -- except that public declarations of devotion have a peculiar way of suggesting opposing feelings.

Miss Manners hopes she can comfort you by pointing out that if you were devoted to your mother-in-law, it is unlikely that the lady countenanced a posthumous expression of antipathy toward you. Wills, not obituaries, are the place of choice for that.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I work for a large independent day school whose constituency is wealthy, generous, but busy with their many activities. When we send out invitations to a group of parents or alumni for an event such as a luncheon, we ask for RSVPs so that we can plan for food, room size, etc.

After the deadline for RSVPs has past, it has become our modus operandi to call on the people that have not responded to make sure they received the invitation and ask if they plan on attending.

I believe this is a waste of time. I believe that if they planned on attending, they would let us know. Granted, the courtesy of replying to an invitation is a lost art, but do we really need to follow up with these people, especially given their social status?

The responses I get to my follow-up phone inquiries border on rude, as if I am pressuring them to attend. (Did I mention I work in the fund-raising office?)

GENTLE READER: It is worth mentioning. Invitations that imply that the guests should attend accompanied by their checkbooks, no matter how sanitized or glamorized the event, are not in the same category as invitations for their company alone.

Heaven forbid that Miss Manners should offer the slightest shelter to those who fail to answer invitations. It is unconscionable to keep in suspense those kindly people who only want to shower hospitality.

But while it is undeniably inconvenient for those planning charitable or business events when their invitations are ignored, they cannot expect everyone they choose to put on their mailing lists to be as diligent. If people had to respond to all the fund-raising "opportunities" being offered these days, they would have no time available to help the needy.

So Miss Manners agrees with you that calling these people is unnecessary. Alas, that is only what private hosts must do when their offers of no-strings-attached hospitality is rudely ignored.

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