One of the side effects of serious illness is a sudden drop in the level of tact to which the sick person is exposed.

You might suppose that those who are sensitive enough to show concern for the afflictions of others would have the sensitivity not to contribute to their discomfort. Miss Manners is sorry to report that you would be wrong.

Illness often brings out the worst in the well. They accost strangers. They point out physical symptoms. They ask nosy questions. They offer unsolicited and unsubstantiated medical and physiological advice. They relate tales of others with the same or a similar disease to make the point that miraculous recoveries should be expected. Or they relate such tales to make the point that there are much worse cases, which the person they are addressing should feel lucky not to have.

Why do they do keep doing this sort of thing?

They'll tell you why. It's because they care. And because they want to cheer up the sick.

These are noble motives, and Miss Manners does not doubt that some of the people who claim to harbor them actually do care. It all goes to show that good feelings can be bad guides to good behavior.

Two of the most natural reactions to serious illness are curiosity and fear, and these are the ones that prompt the worst behavior. The curious fire off questions that not only invade the privacy of the ill but keep them conversationally confined to that one topic. The fearful just shun them. Both kinds defend themselves on the basis of their own emotions ("I was just curious" or "I can't stand to see him like that") without so much as considering the emotions that their behavior is apt to cause.

This makes it difficult for Miss Manners to count them among the caring. But even those who do care, to greater or lesser degrees, are mistaken if they believe that they can always depend on the simple and direct expression of their feelings to make anyone feel better. Other than themselves, that is.

They have to learn to gear their expressions of concern to their general knowledge of the sick person and on-the-spot assessments of that person's mood at a given time. Even inquiries about someone's immediate state of health can be annoying if they are too frequent, or if they come at a time when that person was feeling chipper enough to concentrate on something else and didn't need to be reminded.

Discussions of the disease should be initiated -- or not -- by the person who has it. Miss Manners has never yet heard such a person beg someone who neither has nor treats the disease to cough up every scrap he has heard about it and every case history he knows, but these should not be offered without an invitation.

Those overdue calls that people make on hearing bad news can be welcome or depressing. The ones that take the tone of "I miss you" are usually welcome. The ones that take the tone of "I figured I'd better call before I miss you" are not.

A question sympathizers might ask themselves is not only how the sick person feels now, deeply as they may worry about this, but how that person will feel after their concern has been expressed.

DEAR MISS MANNERS -- I am recently divorced after 21 years. Family and friends have come up to me many times and have said, "We never liked him. Did you know that?" They were so proud of themselves. They may have thought they were trying to make me feel better, but I assure you, it hurt and still does. I consider it an insult. What can I say to them that will stop them dead in their tracks?

GENTLE READER -- "Well, I did." And, presuming that you can reasonably add this, "as a matter of fact, I still do."

Miss Manners understands how galling it is to be told that people with whom you socialized were secretly disparaging your spouse all along, even when things were going well. Makes you wonder about their opinion of you, beginning with how naive you were not to see his undesirability when they did.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I am recently divorced after 21 years. Family and friends have come up to me many times and have said, "We never liked him. Did you know that?" They were so proud of themselves. They may have thought they were trying to make me feel better, but I assure you, it hurt and still does. I consider it an insult. What can I say to them that will stop them dead in their tracks?

GENTLE READER: "Well, I did." And, presuming that you can reasonably add this, "as a matter of fact, I still do."

Miss Manners understands how galling it is to be told that people with whom you socialized were secretly disparaging your spouse all along, even when things were going well. Makes you wonder about their opinion of you, beginning with how naive you were not to see his undesirability when they did.

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DEAR MISS MANNERS: My husband and I have very different views on what is a proper amount of time to stay after dinner when we are dinner guests in someone's home.

He wants to leave shortly after eating because he is uncomfortable, and I think it is rude to appear to "eat and run." However, we both agree that we don't know what a proper interval should be and how to leave without appearing rude or ungracious.

GENTLE READER: Why is your husband uncomfortable after eating? Should he be consulting his tailor about that?

If you are merely talking about the discomfort of having to hang around with people of whom he is beginning to tire, he is out of luck. Miss Manners is afraid that dinner guests must linger a bit rather than reveal that they came only for the eats.

"A bit" is more easily defined when the hosts serve coffee in the living room. It takes perhaps half an hour to serve and drink the coffee, after which you are free to go. When stranded at the table after the meal is long finished, it is necessary to ascertain that no relocation is planned, so it may take somewhat longer.

Not too much longer, however. You don't want the hosts to begin to think that the guests came not just for the meal, but for the duration.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: My employer has offered to pay for tickets to a public event for each employee, his or her spouse, and his or her children, but has made it clear that others the employee wishes to invite will be at the employee's expense. Since the event does not interest me, I had previously stated my intention not to attend.

However, a fellow employee has asked me to register, fraudulently, to attend the event, so that, apparently, when I fail to appear, the person in question can use my (ill-gotten) ticket for someone who does not meet the specified criteria. I suppressed, perhaps wrongly, my initial reaction, which would have been a somewhat indignant, possibly loud, "Excuse me?! You are asking me to steal from our employer on your behalf?!"

An alternative I am considering is to conveniently "forget" to register so that the fellow employee can be left in the position of paying at the gate. However, this person will likely follow up with me before the event, as my having failed to register will be on a viewable database.

Can you provide me an appropriate response? In the course of my continued employment, I must interact with this person, so I am at a loss as to what to say. Also, I'm baffled as to why this person would think I would comply, as I do not, I believe, give the impression of being larcenous.

GENTLE READER: Nor should you give the impression that your colleague is larcenous. Suppressing your initial reaction was a really good idea.

The approach Miss Manners favors is to assume that your colleague acted out of mistaken goodwill. You can then kindly explain, "Oh, I don't think that's what Mr. Boss meant when he was so generous. But I'll ask him, and if it's all right with him, I'd be glad to."

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DEAR MISS MANNERS: I just came home from three days in a hospital to replace a knee. I wore only a hospital gown, open at the back and (for a tall man like me) barely covering the pubic area. A book for hospital patients explained that this is necessary for medical measurements and procedures and particularly for emergencies.

Often, during manipulations and exercises, the gown gave no protection at all. As the nudity was appropriate in the situation and the staff was professional, I did not feel at all uncomfortable. The book said (though the hospital staff never mentioned the matter) that at some point during the hospital stay, when the immediate danger was over, a patient who did feel uncomfortable could request additional clothing. I never did, especially since it was difficult moving to the bathroom and the gown made other arrangements easier.

But on the third day, the physical therapist, a woman, looked away as she worked with me, and I wondered: Do good manners require a male patient to wear pants when possible out of consideration for the overwhelmingly female hospital staff?

GENTLE READER: Good manners require that both patient and hospital staff pretend that there is nothing personal about the naked human body -- that it is merely a biological specimen that one of them happens to inhabit and the other is trying to fix. Etiquette is full of such injunctions against taking notice of the obvious, Miss Manners is proud to say.

However, patients are less practiced in maintaining this particular fiction, which is why the hospital was willing to admit that some of them might not want to snuggle up in that indecent garment they call a hospital gown longer than strictly necessary.

But in your case, it seems to have been the therapist who blinked. Had she visited you in your home, she would have been right to be alarmed. To find a hospital patient wearing -- or trying to wear; Miss Manners assumes you did not intend to flash the lady -- a hospital gown in a hospital room ought not to have startled her. Steadfastly maintaining the convention by refusing to notice that she had noticed would be preferable at this point to your also abandoning the convention. At the same time, and while maintaining an aloof expression, you should be looking for an opportunity to cover up as best you can.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: Last week I flew on a red-eye that left Lima at midnight and arrived in Atlanta at 8 a.m. I was in an interesting conversation with a charming Peruvian when the gentleman in front of her turned around and asked us to keep quiet, as he was trying to sleep.

Since I didn't want to end the conversation, I offered him some earplugs. He declined and stalked off in a huff. Fortunately, there was an empty seat to which he repaired.

Now, if this were a theater, he would be perfectly correct in asking for quiet. If it were a daylight flight, I would be perfectly correct in refusing. But this is a grey -- or red-eye -- area, which only Miss Manners can adjudicate.

GENTLE READER: It is a red-eye matter, Miss Manners is afraid. After-hours in an airplane are considered beddy-bye time, however much the scanty seats and pillows make this into a mockery, and voices should be kept to a whisper.

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