DEAR MISS MANNERS: I have a "modern age" dilemma that I am really baffled how to deal with. I have joined an online dating site and simply don't know how to respond to the many married men who write to me.

A simple "I'm not interested" seems a bit meek, considering they are asking me to commit adultery and thereby harm two women (me and the wife) and usually a number of children as well in the process.

What would be a dignified and yet effective way to communicate the inappropriateness of this request? Right now I generally express the wish that the wife slaps him, throws him out of the house, and takes all of his money in a divorce settlement -- which I fear may not be quite the most enlightened way to deal with this situation!

GENTLE READER: Before you go to pieces over this, allow Miss Manners to explain a fact of life:

When you put out a notice to strangers that you are available for romance, you should not be surprised to attract some who do not share your idea of acceptable romance. For that matter, your remark about adultery assumes that any such contact would involve instant intimacy, a definition of romance that more fastidious people might find unacceptable.

In any case, a lady does not respond to an indecent proposal. Doing so only suggests that she is willing to negotiate.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I wanted to throw a party for my mother-in-law's 50 birthday. We simply did not have the room in our small apartment to host the party, so I suggested to my husband that we host it at a local restaurant.

He reminded me, and I agreed, that we did not have the money to pay the bill for all the guests. We could not decide whether or not it was rude to kindly ask guests to bring a gag gift and enough money to cover their individual meal.

My husband's solution was to ask his sister if she had anything planned. She replied by saying that she was going to arrange for a couple of her mother's friends to take her out. It never happened. We tried making up for the lack of a party by bringing her a nice bottle of alcohol. Should we have gone with our original idea?

GENTLE READER: Well, no, since your original idea was to give a party you couldn't afford. But Miss Manners wonders why that calculation always seems to be followed by the notion of getting others to pay the bills for your supposed hospitality. Why wasn't your next thought, "What can we afford to do?"

Well, eventually this did occur to you, but only after other plans fell through, and in a way that fell far short of your hopes. Perhaps if you had addressed the question earlier, you could have come up with something more festive, such as taking your mother and her friends out to tea, or inviting only her very closest friends to your house.

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DEAR MISS MANNERS: My husband and I attend football games in the Northeast in an un-domed stadium. As the season progresses, it can get quite cold. Although it is a sign of respect to remove caps during the playing of the National Anthem prior to sporting events, must one remove a winter hat placed on the head for warmth or as protection from the elements?

GENTLE READER: How many verses?

No, that is not a factor when it comes to showing respect for the National Anthem. Miss Manners was wondering just how much discomfort this was going to cost you. The answer is that winter hats count as hats, which should be removed, but fortunately earmuffs do not.

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DEAR MISS MANNERS: My friend Joe has spent Christmas Eve with my family and me for the past 12 years. He has dated Sue for the past year, so we naturally invited her and her teenage daughter to join us for dinner and board games.

Our Xmas Eve meal is a large, buffet-style extravaganza which takes hours to prepare. Sue and Joe said yes with a caveat -- they were trying to book a flight for a tropical vacation over the Xmas holidays and could not confirm their attendance until they knew their travel plans. I asked them for at least a week's notice because of the time involved in preparing the buffet.

My family and I also decided that we would forego the event if "non-family" members did not attend, in favor of a quiet, casual evening out. Another couple was also invited and they too said that they would get back to us if their other plans fell through.

Three days before Christmas, I (politely) asked Joe and the other couple for an answer to our invitation, since it directly affected our plans. Joe and the couple said they would attend, but Sue was still looking for a flight.

On December 23rd, Joe and Sue broke up. Later that day, Sue called my sister-in-law to say that she would also attend the dinner. It had apparently slipped her mind that she and Joe had split up and also that Joe was planning to attend -- even though that was one of the issues which fueled the break-up. When my sister-in-law learned about the break-up from Joe, she was faced with the unhappy task of "un-inviting" Sue. An invitation was extended for a Boxing Day event, which was declined.

I have since been told by Joe that I was unspeakably rude for demanding an answer to our invitation from both him and the other couple. He felt that we should have prepared the meal for nine people instead of four and then just refrigerated the left-overs if no one showed up.

I have been told by Sue that we were unspeakably rude for "un-inviting" her, in spite of the fact that her presence would have made us all very uncomfortable, even assuming that she and Joe did not resume their fight in front of us all.

My sister-in-law was told by the other couple that we were unspeakably rude for not also inviting them to Christmas dinner since it was obvious we were planning a big family meal and they had made it clear that they had nowhere else to go and had no intention of cooking for themselves.

Was I wrong to insist on an answer? Were we wrong to un-invite Sue? Were we wrong not to invite the other couple for Christmas dinner? How can we avoid such breaches of etiquette in the future?

GENTLE READER: Ah, yes, nothing says Christmas like a bunch of unspeakably rude people speaking unspeakable things to one another. What do you say we move on to the next jolly holiday?

Miss Manners' New Year's suggestion is that you get yourself a fresh list of guests. You can avoid such carryings-on by striking from your list everyone who doesn't give definite answers to invitations, who makes outrageous demands and who tries to cover his own rudeness by calling you names.

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