DEAR MISS MANNERS: A few nights ago, I had an informal wine and hors d'oeuvres party at my home. ?I was expecting eight to 10 people; when six had arrived, I noticed that though ?everyone was standing around the food, no one had touched any. I didn't want ?to force plates upon people, but I worried that my guests weren't eating ?because no one wanted to be the first person to begin.

So, I cheerfully announced, "Oh, I'll start," and took some food. Everyone else immediately followed my lead. Because I hadn't eaten all day (busy cleaning and ?cooking), I filled my plate a few more times throughout the course of the ?evening -- never taking the last wedge of brie, mind you, but eating enough to keep my growling stomach from interrupting conversation.

When the guests had left, my boyfriend said he was disgusted and appalled at ?my behavior. He claimed that as hostess, I shouldn't have been the first to ?eat, and said that good hosts would have either waited until the guests had ?left before snacking at all, or they would have sneaked bites in the kitchen rather than fill plates in public.

I come from a family where entertaining is casual at best -- guests are often ?encouraged to "help themselves" to the contents of the refrigerator -- and am ?concerned I've done the wrong thing. Can you set me straight?

GENTLE READER: On how to open a buffet table while all the guests cluster foolishly nearby without venturing to begin -- yes. On whether you made it look as if you had been on the verge of starvation -- no. Apparently, your gentleman friend thought you did, and he was there.

Unlike a seated dinner, where the hostess signals the time to begin by picking up her own fork, buffet meals require her to wait until her guests have served themselves. The way to make this happen when they hang back is to hand out two or three plates to those nearest the table and say, motioning to the food, "Please help yourself."

Yes, that is the same phrase you have been using, but in what Miss Manners considers a less hospitable context. Polite people are going to be intimidated by being given the run of the refrigerator without knowing which of the contents you were planning to use for what. Not everyone is like that, of course, but do you really want those who are not messing around in your refrigerator?

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I am currently taking time off from teaching at the university in order to write. Sometimes I waitress, but not lately. Living in a small town, I am known by most folks to be working on selling my first novel while writing my second. Still, not many days pass before an acquaintance will ask me, "Have you found a job yet?"

If I take the question seriously and answer that I have a job, they ask what it is, and when I answer, "Writing," they wink and nod like that's either a lie or a good joke. I've thought to be glib, but answering, "You know I'm always working at something" makes me sound like a reprobate.

I'm seeking the middle ground, but can't seem to come up with the right answer myself. Might Miss Manners, ever so good at crafting gently pointed phrases, be of some help? It would be most appreciated.

GENTLE READER: "I've been too busy working to think about it."

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DEAR MISS MANNERS: I was invited by a friend and his girlfriend to a movie about which I knew nothing. I had no idea as to whether or not this was a preplanned occasion, but I paid for myself, and then sat with them as we watched the movie.

Needless to say, I found the movie tiresome and laughable, and, as did many of the other observers, laughed openly during the movie, which by its very nature entailed some obligatory jibing at its fantasy components.

When we left the theater, about five minutes passed, and he asked me what I had thought of it. I told him that I felt the film was horrible, that the characters were not developed, that the acting was hackneyed, the ending incomprehensible, etc. While I was not exactly "attacking" the film, I made my opinions known.

He expressed, later followed by his girlfriend, that he liked the film. I continued to debate the finer points with them for about five to 10 minutes in the parking lot. It turned into a larger discussion of movies proper, and then we all left. Later, I sent an e-mail to him of a review of the same movie which included many of the criticisms I had offered.

A month later, over lunch, he informed me that he felt I behaved in a rude manner, and that others he consulted had concluded the same. I stated that I had not felt, and do not feel now, that I was rude, that he had asked me what I felt about the movie, that I paid for the film myself, etc.

He said that the sending of the e-mail was not appropriate, whereas I felt it was a thoughtful reminder of where I was coming from, which was not just one man's subjective opinion.

What should have transpired here? I do not feel that I was rude, either by laughing at a movie which required some laughter at it, or by my criticism afterwards. Instead, I feel that he took my criticism of the film itself as a criticism of him having liked it, which I saw as patently internalistic.

GENTLE READER: You and your friend do have much in common, however. Miss Manners notices that neither of you knows when to let something drop.

So you didn't like the movie, and they did. Is this something you had to fight out to the finish? Furthermore, some people like to dissect films, and others just want to be left to enjoy popular entertainment at face value.

Such people should not attend the, ah, cinema together. If you didn't realize the mismatch when the others failed to join in your derisive laughter, you should surely have noticed their reaction to your parking-lot critique.

It was time to stop haranguing them; the e-mail was excessive. Yet to be so offended as to poll others and still be smarting a month later is also excessive.

And now it is time to be big about it and say, "I'm sorry I carried on about the movie," while suggesting you get together again, but for a different sort of entertainment.

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DEAR MISS MANNERS: I will be ordering my wedding invitations soon and hope that you can clear up a question about the proper etiquette for the wording.

I want the event to be for adults, but I have guests coming in from out of town with children. I have arranged for a childcare room at my site, complete with children's food, games, toys, movies and paid childcare. I feel that by providing this, it will help those who cannot get childcare, cannot afford it or simply live out of town. By providing this, free of charge, of course, I feel it would not be rude to let the guests know it's an adults-only party and that if they bring their children, the childcare room would be MANDATORY for them.

How do I word this on the invitations clear enough so they know children are not allowed in the event but cordial enough where they feel the provided care is a generous alternative gesture?

GENTLE READER: "MANDATORY" is not an enticing word to put on an invitation. Nor is it a good spirit in which to issue an invitation. Hospitality requires that you tell people what you are offering them to enjoy, not what you are ordering them to obey.

Miss Manners hastens to add that she does not mean that you must have children attend the wedding, charming as she happens to think that is. Technically, all you need do is to issue your invitations in the names of the parents only; that should be enough for them to understand that their children are not included.

Ha. You know those people, and they will bring them anyway. Or they will wheedle to do so.

So here is what you do: You send separate formal invitations in the names of the children only, inviting them to a children's wedding party that takes place at the same time as the wedding itself.

Note that Miss Manners specified that the invitations were to be formal. No balloons or circus animals, for once. They should be somewhat in the style of the wedding invitations and should ask for the favor of a response. On the families' arrivals, the person in charge of the children should stand at the door to greet them, and bear them off, saying, "I believe you are one of my special guests."

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I have encountered this situation for years, but it seems that lately it has become even more frequent -- this behavior that some women seem to have of looking you up and down, as though they were appraising you. I try to be considerate of others and mindful of my own behavior, and I am wondering if these women who do this are so in the behavior that they are not aware that they are doing this or that they are very much aware of what they are doing -- basically, assessing others. It certainly doesn't seem like welcoming behavior to me.

GENTLE READER: A nasty habit, Miss Manners agrees. From whom could they have learned such a thing?

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