DEAR MISS MANNERS: It is now three months since my ex-boyfriend told me that he wanted to be alone. We had been friends for eight months before he made the official move of kissing me to signify that he wanted to date.

We dated for 15 months before he broke the heart-breaking news. About one month before he decided that he wanted to be alone, he told me that I was an awesome person and that if he were to be married, that he would marry me, but if he didn't marry me, that he would not get married at all.

After we separated for a month with only business contact (we invested in a rental business together), we crossed paths at a spiritual retreat. We talked, and I was very comfortable. About two weeks later, we spent four days in a row for about four to six hours per day, talking and sharing, while we were dealing with our rental business. Again, I was very comfortable around him and he around me.

During the conversations, he commented that we had some incompatibilities (items I think that can be easily resolved with proper communication). He assumes that we will fight and not talk to each other after marriage because my strong personality reminds him of his sister and aunt.

I have never exhibited tantrums nor been queen-bee with him. At the end of all this, I casually asked him what kind of woman he was looking for. He said a "soul mate" and that I was not his soul mate. This contradicts his early dating comments that his definition of a soul mate was someone who walks beside him. While we were dating, he told me that I was one of the few people who understands him. He told me after we broke up that I walk beside him.

I keep getting mixed signals from him. He wants to be friends and we can talk for hours on the phone or he invites me for lunch or dinner.

Many of my friends tell me to simply cut him off completely (including selling our profitable business). I only get anxious and depressed when I think about having no contact with him. I love him dearly and want to be friends with him (and in some small way still hope to spend a lifetime with him, but do not have any expectations).

I know that it will take longer to "get over him" if we continue to be friends, but I think that two things can come of it -- either our friendship will grow stronger and we get back together, or our friendship will die a slow (dully painful) death. I would like to know what you think and appreciate any advice you can give.

GENTLE READER: Since Miss Manners does not give either lovelorn advice or business advice, she will address this as a matter of etiquette. Fortunately for her, there is hardly any aspect of life that she cannot cast into a matter of etiquette.

Ask yourself if you could do the polite thing in either of the following situations.

1. Your friend suddenly looks radiant and confides that he has finally met his soul mate.

2. Your business partner tells you that he will need some time off for his wedding and honeymoon.

If, in either case, you would choke on a cheerful, "How wonderful! I'm so happy for you," you should get out and buy or sell out.

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DEAR MISS MANNERS: What is the proper ?way to decline a gentleman's marriage proposal, when the original answer ?was a request for time to think it over?

I would like to know what is now ?the correct way to raise the issue, and the best way to deliver the ?answer. Also, I would like to know if the lady should expect that the ?relationship with the gentleman will automatically be dissolved.

The lady ?in question would prefer the relationship to continue as it was before the ?marriage proposal, but she realizes this may be an unreasonable hope.

GENTLE READER: And it would give the gentleman unreasonable hope. Besides, that hangdog attitude that says "Are you growing to love me?" is not conducive to friendship.

Miss Manners is not saying that the lady and gentleman might not eventually become genuine friends, once their respective romantic interests are directed elsewhere. But it is only fair to the disappointed gentleman to allow that to happen by dashing his present hopes definitively.

The traditional opening is, "I am highly honored by your proposal, and have given it serious thought." The gentleman will then know that he is doomed, and you need only add that you must decline and that -- another sign of doom -- you hold him in the highest esteem.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: My partner and I have been together, and very happily so, for over a decade. He is completely welcome in my family (and was a pall-bearer at my mother's funeral) and while the same is true on one side of his family, it is not the case on the other side, which I have basically never even met.

I don't know whether there is a connection, but a domineering grandparent on that side of the family died this year and now -- lo and behold -- I have been invited to a family party.

It seems needlessly petty to refuse to go, and yet I can't help feeling like a jack-in-the-box. How do I handle this graciously? If I am asked by cousins why we have never met, may I say, "Because I have never been invited before" or must I try and finesse that in some way?

Note that I am not projecting the uncontestable lack of welcome onto all the relatives. I want to be a good guest, but 12 years of being ignored simply can't be dismissed as casually as an inadvertently spilled glass of wine. If it is relevant, I will mention that I have only two eyes and I do bathe every day.

GENTLE READER: Now, now. Do you really want them to be reluctant to invite you to the next party purely on the grounds that you are unpleasantly bristly?

Miss Manners doubts that you will be asked the question you anticipate. Do you imagine that the family hasn't been talking the situation over for all those years? Or that your partner has never complained about your omission?

But if you should be asked, a reply that would make your point and yet satisfy Miss Manners as being polite would be a bewildered (rather than sarcastic), "I really don't know -- Kurt and I have been together for more than a decade."

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DEAR MISS MANNERS: Every year I go to the doctor for my annual prostate, anal, and over all checkup. I am always offered a gown to put on. While on the exam table, I am asked to scoot down or turn over a few times, and it is difficult with the gown on.

Would it be out of line to refuse the gown, or is it required by the doctors? I am not modest in front of my doctor, and it would be more comfortable without the gown. I did not mention that I have a woman doctor.

GENTLE READER: Would you want naked people running around your office?

Well, doctors don't dream of your doing so, either. What they examine are body parts, uncovered one at a time so as to dispel any notion that they are feeling up individuals. Before they deal with their patients as people, they tell them to get dressed.

Miss Manners assures you that this convention works to your advantage, immodest though you may be. You want your doctor to evaluate your body medically, rather than aesthetically.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: What do you think about receiving an invitation to a wedding but not the reception?

A friend and I were discussing another friend who was invited by a neighbor to a wedding for the neighbors' daughter, but not included in the invitation was the invite to the reception.

The friend and I felt it is extremely rude to only invite people to the wedding and feel that it appears as if a gift is desired, but that the host is not interested in paying for a meal. We both feel that if one is not close enough to be invited to the reception, they should not be invited to either. What is your opinion on this?

GENTLE READER: That it is a fine and useful example of etiquette's not being enslaved by tradition. For indeed, it was once commonplace to discriminate among the guests at what were considered fashionable weddings. Some received reception cards in their invitations, and others did not.

Why the latter group did not think, "Why would I want to witness their marriage when they don't want to see me afterwards?" Miss Manners cannot imagine. It was rude then, and it is rude now.

For blameless table manners, send a long, self-addressed, stamped envelope and $2 to Newsletter, P.O. Box 167, Wickliffe, OH 44092 and you'll receive "Miss Manners' The Etiquette of Proper Eating." Address your etiquette questions (in black or blue-black ink on white writing paper) to Miss Manners, in care of this newspaper.

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