DEAR MISS MANNERS: I've read that it is acceptable to treat bacon strips as "finger food." A friend of mine argues that it is also acceptable to treat breakfast sausage links as finger food. I believe sausage links should be sliced and eaten with a fork.

Assuming we agree that breakfast sausage is not finger food, I have one more question. My friend will sometimes use a fork with her breakfast sausage, but she doesn't slice it into bite-size pieces. Instead, she stabs one end of the sausage link with her fork and then just bites off chunks as she goes (never really putting the fork down). I also believe this practice is improper. Who's right on this one?

GENTLE READER: Not the person who eats sausages as if they were lollipops, that's for sure. Why you choose to start the day with her, Miss Manners cannot imagine.

Sausages are eaten by hand only when they are discreetly enclosed in buns and eaten during baseball games. If you are eating breakfast at a reasonably formal restaurant, even bacon would not be finger food (which is a shame because it shatters when you attempt to eat it with a fork). If you share a home, Miss Manners would advise getting up after she has left the house.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I am attending a trade school and there is a woman who attends the same school. We joined the same month and were in the same class for the first month. We sat next to each other in class and got along quite well. We then went off into separate tracks where we still see each other during breaks.

Here's the problem. I am convinced she is following rules from a book that strongly advocates that the female play hard-to-get. From what I remember, she is following its prescriptions to the letter.

I have never been suave with females and someone playing coy does absolutely nothing for me. If this whole idea is based on not communicating with me, how do I go about communicating the fact that she's completely wasting her time with these cutesy games and doing absolutely nothing to make herself more attractive to me?

I'd truly hate to give up on her as there did indeed seem to be something between us during that first month but I'm not about to play along and suggest that her game-playing did her any good.

GENTLE READER: You are therefore requesting a way to show interest in this lady while informing her that her behavior discouraged your interest. You are not asking much of Miss Manners, are you?

All right. You show interest in her by asking her out. If she refuses, you reply cheerfully, "Well, I know how busy you must be, so I won't pester you. But I'd be very pleased if you called me." And then you do nothing but greet her pleasantly when your paths happen to cross.

If she calls you, you were either mistaken or she has given up playing hard to get. If she never calls you, you are free to believe that it was out of coyness rather than disinterest, but the result is the same.

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DEAR MISS MANNERS: My husband and I were invited to a dinner party at which my husband was seated at the main table next to the hostess, and I was seated at a far table in a corner, with my back to the other guests.

I made the best of it by engaging in warm conversation with those seated with me, but left at the end of the evening feeling like I would not care to accept another invitation to this woman's house. My husband only noticed when I brought it to his attention on our drive home.

Can you offer me any thoughts on the situation and advise me on how to respond if and when we are invited again? It certainly is a good reminder to be thoughtful and sensitive when we do seating charts for dinner parties. I don't need to be seated next to my husband, although many couples were, but I didn't appreciate being seated out in Siberia!

GENTLE READER: You have been exposed to too many headwaiters. They are the ones who invented the idea of Siberian tables, reaping a tidy side income from those buying their way out. You make it sound as if you were put in time out, facing the wall, but Miss Manners notices that there were other guests with you. She doubts that the hosts meant to insult them.

Yes, seating should be done sensitively, but it is attitudes such as this that make hosts give up and say, "Oh, sit anywhere."

And then people find themselves next to those with whom they have nothing in common -- or too much in common, as is the case with married couples. The purpose of a dinner party is to mix people with others who might interest them, not to give couples a night out to focus on each other.

Except at official functions, where rank might have to take precedence over compatibility, the only rules are to place a guest of honor, or the oldest person present, or the newcomer in a familiar circle, next to the host or hostess. After that, it is a matter of pairing people who are apt to discover conversational topics of mutual interest. If there are several tables, one way of avoiding the appearance of favoritism is to put one spouse near a host and the other not, so no one family would be given one position or the other.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: Many decades ago, I took a female high school classmate to the prom. For many years, I blamed her for the crummy time we had that evening.

Now, through the wonder of a loving and caring partner, I have come to realize that it was entirely my fault. My attempts to be "funny" were insulting and rude. I feel terrible about this. Should I attempt to contact this person and apologize, or is it better to avoid reminding her of what must have been a horrible experience.

GENTLE READER: It depends on how thoroughly you have gotten over your high school arrogance. Miss Manners can imagine your making this into an amusing, self-deprecating story that could well be appreciated. But if there is any danger of your implying that you were of such importance to the lady that she must still be smarting over this decades later, it would only go to show that you had not really changed.

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DEAR MISS MANNERS: I am engaged to a young lady and would like to purchase an appropriate wedding gift. I am currently looking at strings of pearls, which, if given as a wedding gift, I would hope she could wear on the day of the nuptials.

Is it appropriate for the groom to give the bride a set of black Tahitian pearls with matching earrings? Would it be improper or a fashion error for her to wear the black pearls for the ceremony, or should I shop for white? She, of course, will be wearing a white dress.

GENTLE READER: Even if this question were not in the context of your forthcoming wedding, Miss Manners would have known that you were not yet married. You apparently have never dealt with the paradox of a wife's loving to be surprised with an extravagant present but resenting being told what to wear.

Black Tahitian pearls are a magnificent present, and they go with everything, except possibly a wedding dress. That is not a dictate from Miss Manners, who has not seen the dress or been able to guess how strictly your bride wants to adhere to the tradition of wearing white. It is merely a warning that your bride may think so, and -- however much she may appreciate the pearls -- not appreciate having her look changed at the last minute.

It would be safer to spoil the surprise, although not the pretense of the surprise, by asking the opinion of the bride's mother or her maid of honor or anyone else you can count upon to break your confidence, tell her, and come back with the right answer. Another approach would be to give her the pearls on your wedding trip.

Or you could give up and give her white pearls, which are the classic accompaniment to wedding attire. But although Miss Manners doesn't know how the lady feels, she hates to give up on the black ones.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I have finally graduated college at the age of 28. My family strongly feels that I should send out graduation announcements to the extended family and friends not only because they are proud of me, but for the monetary gifts that might result.

I, however, am rather embarrassed that it took me so long to graduate and do not want to trumpet the fact to my friends and relatives. I also am uncomfortable with sending out the "plea for money" that graduation announcements seem to entail at my age.

Is it wrong for me to strip my parents of their pride in my graduation by not sending out announcements or is this something that I can quietly sweep under the rug as I would like to do? BTW, my education was paid for entirely by myself so I do not "owe" my parents anything in terms of showing appreciation to them for my education.

GENTLE READER: You would not be stripping your parents of their pride. Nothing is stopping them from writing letters to everyone they know telling them of your graduation. For that matter, nothing is stopping them from sending around fundraising pleas, if that is what they wish to do.

However, Miss Manners congratulates you, first on your graduation and second on your refusal to use it to shake down others. A graduation announcement is innocent enough in itself, but in this case tarnished by the hopes that would be pinned on it.

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