DEAR MISS MANNERS: I am happily married to a man that I have waited for for a long time. My problem is that he thinks nothing of using the terms Hun, Sweetie, Love, etc., to female strangers such as waitresses, cashiers or bartenders.

He insists that he is just being polite. In my opinion, these are words of endearment and should only be used when addressing a loved one.

He thinks it's funny and that I'm over reacting.

I take it very personal and this hurts me. I would never think to do this to him. I have done this out of spite once to see his reaction, and he was shocked; however, he never brought it up.

Please help me accept his politeness or continue to express my feelings on the subject.

GENTLE READER: You would do better to express the feelings of others about this method of address. Your argument that those are terms that should be reserved for you is, Miss Manners is afraid, unattractive. And it isn't going anywhere.

Furthermore, it is not a valid interpretation in this context. Far from being considered polite, much less a sign of affection, this mode of address to strangers in service positions was condemned decades ago as being patronizing and sexist. In fact, this was so long ago that many young ladies so addressed now merely consider it a foolish, if somewhat creepy, habit of harmless old duffers.

Miss Manners recommends dropping the argument that as his wife, you have excusive rights to endearments. As his wife, you have the duty to alert him when he is inadvertently making himself look silly. He will not think your objection so funny if he understands that this habit makes him look old and out-of-it.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: What is the best way to get people out from behind my desk?

My office is not large, but there are two chairs and sufficient room not to feel cramped on the "public" side of my desk. The furniture is arranged to clearly delineate the occupant and the visitor sides of the room.

Still, co-workers will sometimes walk around to my side, and though I don't think any of them mean it aggressively, it really puts me on edge.

Sometimes it's necessary for us both to look at my computer screen, but I can swivel it out so that it can be seen from both sides of the desk. There is, in other words, no reason for anybody to invade my territory. How can I prevent this, short of a velvet rope?

GENTLE READER: People didn't used to do this. But wait, don't sink into a lament about the decline of manners. They didn't used to have to look at computer screens.

Please allow Miss Manners to rearrange your office for you. Swivel your monitor out beforehand when you know someone is coming who needs to look at it, and head off any approach to your desk by saying, "Please have a seat. You'll be able to see better from there."

But just in case, plant your briefcase on the floor next to your chair, with something else on the other side, if necessary. Then you can stop people by alarming them with a "Watch out!" before you re-direct them to the visitors' chairs.

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DEAR MISS MANNERS: Suppose one was a gentleman invited to a formal dinner party. One arrives at the appointed time, checks the seating chart in the hallway, picks up his tiny envelope and finds the name of his dinner partner on a card inside, and dutifully ignores her all through drinks.

Then, the butler (or gong) calls for dinner. Does a gentleman then seek out his dinner partner and escort her into the dining room, or should he escort his own escort into the dining room, leaving her to attend to his dinner partner's chair? I don't suppose this will be imperative to know at most of the parties to which I'll go this year, but one never knows.

GENTLE READER: No, one never knows, which, Miss Manners supposes, is why we all rush to get the mail. Some day, among the catalogues and bills, there will be a creamy envelope with an engraved invitation to dinner, and one should be prepared.

A gentleman's duty to the lady with whom he arrives consists of handing her out of the car, opening all doors in her way, helping her out of her coat, taking her through the receiving line, seeing that she is served a drink, and making sure that she has found people with whom to talk.

Then -- nothing until he reverses the procedure, parks her glass, helps her back on with her coat and so on. A dinner party should not be mistaken for a restaurant or club, where a couple goes to enjoy each other's company.

His duty to his dinner partner is first, as you point out, to avoid her. The idea is not to use up the supply of mutually interesting topics prematurely, because he will be talking to her for half the rest of the evening regardless.

He should manage to find her and introduce himself just before being called to dinner. He may give her his arm to escort her in. Having perused the seating chart, he will lead her to her place without having to lean over and squint at the place cards, push in her chair and pick up her evening bag, which has slid off her lap.

Meanwhile, his own lady will have been looked after by her own dinner partner. The original couple's shared fun comes after the party, when they will have twice as much gossip to giggle over as they would have had if they had unsociably stuck together.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: What is the proper etiquette when eating in a coffee shop restaurant where paper napkins are used?

I put it beside my plate when the meal is finished. My friend said she had been told to put it on the empty plate. To me it looks awful to have a soiled napkin on top of a soiled plate.

GENTLE READER: Actually, it is not a soiled napkin so much as a bit of paper trash. But if we are to pretend that it is a napkin, as Miss Manners supposes we must in the absence of decent linen, you have identified the proper place for it to be placed.

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DEAR MISS MANNERS: I'm an old guy - 60 -- and as guys we don't want to be invited to or attend office wedding and baby showers. In my day, these were by and for women.

Fine. If they like them, go for it.

But we don't like them, and we don't want to go to them. We all complain about it among ourselves, but none of us has the testosterone-makers to tell the women at the office to leave us off the guest list.

How do we get the message out? Stop the madness. Leave us guys out!

GENTLE READER: Trust Miss Manners: You don't want to make this a gender issue.

Not unless your idea of manly fun is to have the shower contingent challenge the sensitivity of your feelings toward your female colleagues at tender moments in their lives. Plus, they are bound to point out to you that as many males as females get married and have children.

But wait. Miss Manners has a plan to strengthen your case.

Make it a workplace issue. The case you should make is that personal celebrations -- which includes birthdays as well as marriages and births -- should not be celebrated in the office. Unlike retirement or promotion parties, they do not relate to work matters and should be celebrated with friends on their own time. Colleagues who have become friends will presumably want to be involved, but those with merely a working relationship should not be conscripted.

Yes, there will be those who protest at your heartlessness. But the gentlemen are already on your side, and you will be joined by those ladies who are tired of donating money, being tempted to eat cake and having their work interrupted for social celebrations on behalf of people with whom they have no real social relationship.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: One of my closest friends has three girls 13, 10 and 6 in age. When we get together, whether at a home or in public, her kids act out. Screaming, crying, yelling, doing spit balls in a restaurant.

The parents sometimes try to discipline them, but then they just end up giving in, making the rest of the parents very upset. It seems like they want the rest of us to discipline but then don't support that when it happens, or they end up mad at us for stepping in.

It has gotten to the point that people do not want to be with them if they have their children. You just cannot have a good time when the kids are around.

So some of us have started doing things without them and without them knowing, since they would be very upset that they were left out. The adults are fun to be with, but the children are in your face and eating over the food; they just do not have any manners. What is a good friend to do?

GENTLE READER: Let the parents figure out why they are being left out.

Miss Manners does not suggest this to be cruel. On the contrary: She wants to save the children from a lifetime of the social exclusion that is the result of being unfamiliar with the concept of tempering one's feelings out of consideration of others.

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