DEAR MISS MANNERS: Two of my colleagues have divorced their spouses and are now dating one another. While speculation has circulated about them dating for the past year or so, one divorce just became finalized while the other one is still being completed.

While they have told a few people around the department, they have not told me personally, and while we've seen them together on our city's subway, they have not come out as an official couple.

I am very confused on how to act around them when it comes to social pleasantries.

Obviously, it's not polite to ask how their spouses are doing, but is it polite to ask how they are doing, or how the children are doing? Or simply leave it to how the weather is today? I do not wish to make a faux pas.

At what point do the divorces become common knowledge and I should be expected to know about it?

GENTLE READER: The number of conventional inquiries one can make without running into land mines lessens every day, Miss Manners has observed. "How are the children?" seems innocuous enough -- but what if the children are siding with the deserted spouses and have stopped speaking to these ones?

"How are you?" is quite enough. Fortunately, you are not required to comment on the situation unless they bring it up, in which case you can get by with, "I wish you both well."

DEAR MISS MANNERS: In the days of dance cards, how did the men keep track of whom to dance with next?

GENTLE READER: They had cards, too, even if they did not wear them suspended from ribbons on their wrists.

They tucked them away, where the cads pretended to have lost them if they met ladies they liked better than the ones they had previously engaged. Miss Manners suspects that this may be why the custom fell into disuse.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: My husband and I have been invited to a formal wedding. The lovely invitation includes a reply card and a stamped return envelope. However, the reply card is basically blank, except for phrasing in the lower corner that asks for a reply by a certain date.

I have never seen a blank reply card before and am uncertain as to what information the bride hopes to receive in our response. Should we simply handwrite "Mr and Mrs. LastName will be delighted to attend"?

GENTLE READER: What the bride is hoping for is an answer. And she has kindly sent you a piece of paper on which to write it, which she was under no obligation to do.

Miss Manners has always considered it unfortunate that hosts, in their desperation to coax answers from their guests, began sending them so-called response cards. Thus, the notion began that if the hosts didn't do most of the work of replying, the guests wouldn't, either. And often, they don't, anyway; the ploy has not really worked.

You seem to be confused that this card is not a fill-in-the-blanks type. It is all blank. So please fill it all in. The conventional wording is "Mr. and Mrs. LastName accept with pleasure the kind invitation of..."

But Miss Manners is certain that the bride will be perfectly happy with your version, so she is not going to quarrel.

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DEAR MISS MANNERS: A while back, a creditor filed a lawsuit against me, and an officer of the court came by to serve me with the papers. I signed for the receipt, he gave me the subpoena and all the supporting paperwork indicating that I was being ordered to appear in court, and I said "thank you" as he left.

In retrospect, I'm honestly not sure whether this was appropriate or not, and I wondered whether etiquette has anything to say about such situations.

GENTLE READER: It says that you are so well trained in politeness that you say the proper thing without even thinking. This makes you a parent's dream, although maybe not the part about being sued by a creditor, Miss Manners concedes. In any case, your good manners will serve you well in court, where politeness counts a lot.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: Every year I host an open house/Halloween trick-or-treat party. As I am the hostess, I prepare several hot dishes (both meat and vegetarian) in advance as well as providing drinks and children's food.

When guests ask what they can bring, I say "Oh, please just bring yourselves, as I know that it is a very busy day for everyone. I'll be serving XYZ."

Inevitably, as everyone seems to "host" potlucks, a few people still bring food. Usually, it is food that needs to be prepared or cooked, as these same people have been very busy with other parties, etc., and dropped by the store on their way over, apparently.

It is difficult for me to stop serving and entertaining my other guests in order to prepare and present the food these guests have so graciously brought. In addition, the kitchen is full of guests and few pots, plates, etc., are available.

Is there any polite way for me to ask them to prepare and present the food themselves? Or do I just thank them and leave their offering on the counter? Or do I need to keep smiling and presenting their food as I have done in the past?

GENTLE READER: One day when Miss Manners was napping, the Etiquette Imposters declared that dinner guests were obliged to arrive with food or wine.

Why?

Are they afraid there won't be enough to eat or drink? Or have they been intimidated by the kind of people who pretend to be hosts but assign the attendees to do the catering?

"It saves work," they claim.

No. Not if people take fair turns giving parties. Then they have only one day of work for several evenings when they don't have to go out balancing pots in the car or rushing to the store.

Ah, well.

You must do better at heading them off: "You're very kind, but I have everything, and I'm not going to have room to let anyone in the kitchen."

If this doesn't work, you should still defend your kitchen: "Thank you, let me take that," you should say at the kitchen entrance. "When I've cleared everything out here, I'll let you know."

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DEAR MISS MANNERS: When I eat steak, I like to cut my steak into smaller pieces. Then, after doing so, I stab the cut portion of steak with my knife and place it in my mouth. I was recently chastised by my new girlfriend for doing so.

I have eaten my steak like this since I was a young boy. I felt my girlfriend was wrong, since I've never been corrected for eating my steak this way.

Will you please help me explain to my girlfriend that there is no wrong way to eat a Texas steak?

GENTLE READER: Sure there is. Chomping off the cow, for example.

Are you, perchance, under the delusion that manners are only for use on formal occasions, by the sissies who go to such things, and that it is manly to be slipshod?

(And yes, Miss Manners threw in the "perchance" to goad you, just as you are persisting in your eating habit to goad your girlfriend.)

Or perhaps you are just extremely old-fashioned. Eating from the point of a knife was commonplace until it was roundly condemned about 200 years ago, when the fork came into widespread use. And cutting up all the meat before it is eaten is done only for small children not yet trusted to wield knives.

That you were not told this before is a shame. But now you know.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I recently asked a first date with a lady who had hinted to me that she would welcome a more-than-casual relationship between us. I took her to a pleasant and quiet restaurant, hoping that we could get to know each other better.

Her cell phone rang 10 minutes after our arrival at the restaurant, and she proceeded to have a lengthy conversation with the caller. A few minutes later, this was repeated with another caller and then, just after we finished our main course and were awaiting dessert, it happened again with a third caller.

From what I could hear of the conversations, none were of an urgent nature.

During the third call and subsequent conversation, I took sufficient cash to pay for our meals (plus a generous tip), placed it on the table and interrupted her long enough to say that perhaps we could do this again when she wasn't so busy and left her sitting there, cell phone in hand.

We had taken a cab to the restaurant so I'm afraid she would have incurred the expense of a cab to get herself home.

Was I wrong to expect her to turn her phone off or at least inform her callers she was busy and promise to call back later? She has let all our mutual friends know how terribly rude I was to her.

GENTLE READER: That makes five instances of repeated rudeness on her side and none on yours, presuming that you handled the matter as civilly as you indicate. Miss Manners would say that you did the lady a favor by giving her the privacy to enjoy the relationships she already has.

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