"But what about me?" is not a thought that can be easily held while maintaining a socially presentable facial expression.

The lower lip ventures out and the eyes narrow. This is a peculiarly unpleasant combination, lacking both the pathos of sorrow and the strength of anger.

And it overcomes some people just when their faces are supposed to be glowing with vicarious pleasure in someone else's good fortune. A friend or a relative gets engaged or promoted, or receives an honor or expects a baby. Others are making a great fuss about it. In their midst, however, one who seemed fine before this, or at least reconciled to fate, and who is supposed to be joining the rejoicing, is nursing a sense of the injustice of the world.

It can even be ill fortune that leads to this reaction, if that has garnered flurries of sympathy. In that case, "Why did this happen to him and not to me?" is replaced with "Why are they making so much over his problem when I have suffered so much worse?"

Or it can focus on a more immediate claim to injustice: "Why is she getting all the attention when I contributed, too?"

A lady who feels "insignificant" because her husband's school friends refer to "John's wedding" and "John's house" proposes saying, "with a smile and a laugh, 'I was at the wedding, too, and I put too much planning and money into it not to have my name attached to it' or 'Well, I think I live here, too,'" but acknowledges that she might sound curt.

A gentleman whose wife alone received flowers after the birth of their baby, from the office where they both work, asks if he has to "grin and bear it, or is some subtle polite way of letting them know that I was offended" available, because although "she was the one who did most of the work, I feel like I deserve some of the credit for the creation of our beautiful daughter."

A lady whose in-laws proposed giving her husband a surprise 40th birthday party with no mention of her own 40th birthday, three days earlier, is afraid that she will have "to plaster a smile on my face and not say anything, because I don't want to start a big fight and spoil my husband's party."

Yes, but even the quality of these laughs, grins and smiles frightens Miss Manners. She could propose jokes ("It was a great wedding, and I was so happy to be able to be there"; "I couldn't have done this without her"; "I'm so glad you're no longer too young for me"), but knows that pouters will not be able to pull them off.

Relief lies only in learning to enjoy other people's pleasure, most especially when the other people are spouses. As for the generalists who feel slighted when anyone at all has a wedding, birthday or baby, their only hope is to realize that the amount of happiness in the world is not finite. Other people's happiness does not detract from theirs, it only adds to the amount of happiness in the world.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I'm hoping that you will be able to tell me if it is ever OK to tell someone they are being rude?

GENTLE READER: No, because that would be rude. OOOPS!

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DEAR MISS MANNERS: As with so many other people these days, I'm on quite a specific diet; in my case, a popular and well-known diet which has been mandated by my doctor. While there are no foods I'm forbidden to eat on this diet, I do have to be careful to stay within my daily nutritional allowances. I have a small booklet of nutritional values that helps me with this task.

As I spend more time on this diet, I'm becoming familiar with the values of most common foods, but I am occasionally confronted with something new and need to either reference my booklet or decline the offer (or possibly both, depending on what the booklet has to say on the matter). Is this checking something that can be done politely or should I simply decline treats of unknown nutritional value?

GENTLE READER: Were you planning on asking the hostess to hold off a minute while you looked it up in your book? And while the other guests chimed in: "What's the calorie count?" "Is it all natural ingredients?" "Any carbohydrates?" "What's the fiber content?"

Miss Manners admires your determination to stick to your diet, but you must show equal determination in sticking to your duty to your hostess not to disrupt the dinner. Even if this means that you miss out on something your diet would have allowed you to have had you only known.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I received a wedding invitation last week. I had not had time to reply to this invitation before I received a phone call from the mother of the groom asking me to please return the invitation, as the bride needed to resend the invitation to another person because she did not have enough invitations!

I have never heard of such a rude request regarding invitations. I returned the invitation post haste. Should I send my regrets (my husband I are not able to go to this wedding because of a conflict in plans), and am I obligated to send a gift to the bride and groom? Am I still to be counted as a guest, or has this status been removed because of the return of the invitation? Any advice would be appreciated.

GENTLE READER: Miss Manners would not ever -- ever -- advise anyone to fail to answer a wedding invitation. (Indeed, she hardly needs to. It seems to be what people do anyway.) But this time she is tempted.

Your invitation was, after all, rescinded. The possibility that the hosts had ordered too few invitations -- or that they intended to keep passing around a sample they got free -- is not worth dignifying as an excuse. If they couldn't re-order, they could invite the rest of the list by personal letter.

What she would be tempted to do, if she were you, would be to write a letter expressing best wishes to the bridal couple and regret that you will miss their wedding. Should she manage to overcome that temptation (please bear with her, as she is getting morally dizzy), she would say to the lady in question, "I don't quite understand whether I am expected." But then she might overcome her better nature as well, and add, "So I went ahead and made other plans."

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DEAR MISS MANNERS: I feel somewhat awkward in questioning a member of the Etiquette Mavens' High Council, but, as I am confident that you, of all people, will be most understanding, I must inquire about your use of a period in the word "Ms."

I seem to recall that when the word was coined, it was touted as not being an abbreviation of anything, but a new word in itself, indicating a woman's freedom from marital identification -- neither Miss nor Mrs. Because the word was not an abbreviation, no period was required. The test would be to name the longer form of the word abbreviated by "Ms." I think you will find that there is none. I am less certain about a plural -- the Ms's? -- but I will leave that up to you!

GENTLE READER: There is a reason that people are wary of questioning a member of the Etiquette Mavens' High Council, charming as we are, and charmingly as you have done so. We have long memories.

Yours is not as long as you think. You were not around when "Ms." was coined, as we can date it back to the 17th century. The full word was "mistress," and it was respectable in those days. "Mrs." and "Ms." are both abbreviations of "mistress" and thus take periods; "Miss," another derivative of the word, squeaks by without one as a sort of nickname. Because of unfortunate subsequent connotations, we do not use "mistresses" for the plural, but rather "Mesdames" or "The Misses" with the surname.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I recently became legally joined to my same-sex partner of many years. After the service, I commenced referring to her as my wife. I occasionally receive comments on how it is inappropriate to refer to her as such. Is there another word I should be using that will act as a stand-in for the rather cumbersome "woman with whom I am legally united"?

GENTLE READER: Spouse. And please don't ask Miss Manners for the plural.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I am nine years old and I have a friend that is very forward. My friend always asks to sleep over, go places with me and my family, have snacks or eat over without being offered first. When I tell her this is not the time to do this, she pushes me over and over to ask my mom anyway.

This gets on my nerves. We have a good friendship other than this problem. What would be the proper way to get this problem to stop without hurting her feelings?

GENTLE READER: Nine is not too young to learn to say "no," and as your mother is presumably even older, she can help you.

When someone refuses to take "no" for an answer, that does not oblige you to come up with an answer that she will like better. However many times your friend asks the same question, you should give the same answer: "No, I'm sorry, this is not a good time." And the answer to "Why not?" is also "Because this isn't a good time."

You are supposed to keep this up until the other person's nerves, or rather her nerve, goes. But if you feel yours fraying, Miss Manners suggests saying, "Let's go ask my mother" so that lady can take over delivering the same statement.

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