DEAR MISS MANNERS: While touring real estate open houses, a number of the dining rooms are set as if awaiting guests. Now I have a number of friends who have started this practice as decor.

Although they are not having dinner guests (and seldom use their dining room), there are placemats or table settings left out at all times. They sometimes continue this look into the kitchen dinette or snack bar.

Is it proper to leave out your linens and dishes out as decor? It does add color to the table, but I feel that you also are collecting dust on items that might be used for dinner service at a later date.

GENTLE READER: Not only that, but it hurries any polite visitors out, on the assumption that you are getting ready for dinner, probably on behalf of more favored guests than themselves. Maybe that's the idea.

What it says to the family is even worse: We don't have time to sit down with you, and we certainly wouldn't use the good things. But here's what it would look like if we did.

So Miss Manners' ruling is: No, a phantom table setting in a lived-in house is not polite to those not invited to eat. Besides, it is ludicrous.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: When I'm out to dinner with a friend and her husband (I am single), and he pulls out her chair, who pulls out mine? When, in the middle of a conversation, he gazes longingly into her eyes and tells her, "I love you," just where am I supposed to be looking?

As I'm sitting directly across the table and there's no one for me to converse with in the meantime, what is appropriate for me? She will usually respond to his declaration with a "Thank you."

The whole exchange seems very bizarre to me, as well as making me feel like I'm eavesdropping on a private conversation. Wouldn't it be more appropriate for them to do this exchange when they're alone, rather than put on a show for me?

Am I supposed to applaud? Or comment? Or nod approvingly? As he continues to put on airs to show me how sophisticated he is, I can only think of how uncomfortable they're making me. What's up with this?

GENTLE READER: Their marriage is on the rocks, is Miss Manners' guess. Since they could have cooed to their hearts' content simply by staying home, they were obviously in need of an audience. Or, more specifically, a rumor-squelcher.

In any case, these are not people with whom you should be dining. Funny how a small thing like helping his wife, but not you, with the chair is a harbinger of what is to follow.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: What is the proper way to thank someone for the gift of a box of stationery? Does one write a note on the stationery received as a gift? Or does one write on other, perhaps less precious, paper? If the gift is a small box of note cards, for instance, art reproductions with eight cards in the box, is it reasonable to use one of them to reply to the giver? Or do you save them for other notes?

GENTLE READER: You use the first to thank the giver. Otherwise, Miss Manners fears, the praise you give the cards will backfire by suggesting that you are going to save them for more important correspondence.

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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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