DEAR MISS MANNERS: A manager in my organization has invited me to join her as a "friend" on a social networking site, and someone with whom I've exchanged one or two work-related e-mails has invited me to a business networking site.

I do not wish to have an account on any social or business networking sites. While I have cordial business relationships with many people, the kind of work I do does not involve sales or competing for clients. Also, I prefer not to publicly list my job title, employer, hometown, college degrees, birthday, hobbies, favorite music and movies, recently read books, and names of my family, friends, business contacts and pets.

Was I correct in simply ignoring these invitations, or should I have written back via e-mail to say something like "I don't have an account there, but thank you for the invitation"? Or should I join these sites to be a good team player?

GENTLE READER: The vocabulary is a problem here. "I don't want to be your friend" is something only a petulant toddler would say. And yet, as you point out, the situation is hardly that personal.

Miss Manners is not one to suggest ignoring invitations, but this is more of a commercial solicitation. Even messages like that from people you know socially are so widely distributed as to resemble the sort of open invitations that teenagers post on trees when their parents are out of town.

In any case, you are by no means obliged to participate. The novelty of being able to register oneself with the entire world and to keep an open diary and share every passing thought has seduced many people who have then found to their regret that unselective exposure does not equal popularity.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: May I give myself a surprise birthday party? My plan is to invite friends to what will seem to be an ordinary dinner party, and then, for desert, to bring out a candle-studded cake, and announce my birthday.

I expect that someone will then start a chorus of "Happy Birthday," and that as we all have coffee and cake, I can be the "Birthday Girl" and everyone can protest that they would have brought a gift or card if they had known. To which I will reply that I have what I wanted for my birthday: They came to my party. Practically, this is a way to truly enforce the "no gifts" that no one quite knows how to interpret, although I suppose that I might get belated birthday cards as thank you notes.

Can I play the same trick in succeeding years, hoping that those who recognize the date will just play along with me and let the surprise be on whoever happens to be new or to have forgotten?

GENTLE READER: That is exactly the trick that Miss Manners proposes in place of the awkwardness of instructing guests not to give presents, which presupposes that they were otherwise expected to do so. Not a nice assumption on the part of a host. And besides, they do anyway.

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DEAR MISS MANNERS: I'm a 34-year-old male married graduate student in biology, working in an academic lab. My labmates consist of six single females, undergraduate and graduate students, between 21 and 25 years old.

As you can imagine, the conversation can become quite energetic, as such topics as boyfriends, cute guys and analyses of what one should wear perfume the air. I politely tolerate the mindless chatter even when it becomes inappropriate, which if it were spoken by males in the presence of females, would border on harassment.

My main problem is that they continually invite me to social events that I believe a married man shouldn't participate in, and my polite declines are countered with negativity. I am continually invited to go to dance clubs and bars on nights and weekends to celebrate everything and anything that happens in their lives.

I am an older student who spent some time in the workplace before starting college, and, as such, I see my lab as my workplace. Most of my labmates have never worked a job between high school and college and make no distinction between work time and play time.

I typically have lunch with them and interact freely to show that I'm not an isolationist, but I shouldn't be expected to party the night away, should I?

My calm and accommodating explanations are only met with demands to bring my wife along, but they don't understand that my wife and I don't typically engage in those activities.

I am often told that I look a lot younger than I am, which I am grateful for, but I really am older than my labmates in many ways. I think that I have demonstrated exceptional composure when facing these clamoring post-teens, but my patience is wearing thin.

So, what do I do when my polite rejections precipitate responses like, "Fine, I'm never asking you again"?

GENTLE READER: Well, that would solve the problem, if only they made good on the threat.

But Miss Manners suspects that they are having too much fun teasing you about not knowing how to have fun, which is defined solely as clubs and bars (and teasing you). Maturity might suggest your being amused at this, perhaps overplaying the age factor with humor.

If you are not up to that, she suggests that you offer a counter-invitation, in the form of a low-key supper party at home with you and your wife. They may still giggle at the quietness of your life, but are bound to notice, all the same, that domestic life can offer even deeper pleasures.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: My roommate is in the midst of planning a wedding. He has several family members whom he has either not kept in contact with or for whom traveling for the ceremony won't be feasible. You recommend inviting these types of guests so as not to hurt their feelings; however, I've always thought that doing so gave the appearance of begging for gifts. I wonder, would it be an appropriate compromise to send invitations to them without including information regarding the registry?

GENTLE READER: Oh, so you think it is all right to beg for gifts from people who are likely to attend?

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DEAR MISS MANNERS: What, precisely, is a "letter of introduction"?

Characters in novels from the 19th and early 20th centuries use them whenever they come to a town unfamiliar to them, but I have never heard of one used in the 21st Century. Were they ever anything more than a novelistic conceit? Or were they used in the Old World but not the New? Or are they still used and I am just very ignorant?

GENTLE READER: Letters of introduction did, and still do, exist. Sort of. But considering that we live in a world of computer arranged assignations and virtual friendships, perhaps Miss Manners should explain what an introduction is.

People used to meet through other people whom they already knew. Without what was known as "a proper introduction," they were not supposed to form new social bonds.

Now this may sound very snobbish and pokey to you, but it did have its advantages. For example, the person who introduced you to that charming gentleman knows whether he is married. Or if he is unattached, whether parts of his first wife were found buried in the garden.

Ordinarily, an introduction was performed with all parties present and, in the case of a lady, with her permission beforehand to introduce her to a gentleman. However, at a social gathering where the host presumably knew everybody even if he was busy making sure they all had drinks, all those attending could consider themselves introduced to one another. "The roof is an introduction" was the statement that covered that.

Letters were written when the object was to acquaint a friend who was moving or traveling with another friend at that place. That was what you encountered in novels: "This is to introduce my dear friend who will be in Paris for the fall, and would be a delightful addition to your circle..." The letter would be left unsealed on the assumption that the person being introduced, to whom it was entrusted for personal delivery, was too honorable to read it. Miss Manners will let you make of that what you may.

Presumably, people are still saying, "Oh, you must look up my friend" and, if they happen to remember, firing off e-mail messages to warn the out-of-towners.

However, there is also a more formal letter of introduction still being written on paper -- the letter to introduce, or more accurately recommend, a newcomer to an organization, such as a private club. "This is to introduce Mr. William Wombat, who will be in your city for two weeks, and to request that he be given visitor privileges in your distinguished club..." It is implied, and therefore not necessary to state, that the writer promises that the gentleman can be trusted not to steal the forks.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: How can I best explain the proper etiquette for those times my mid-teen is invited out for dinner by his friend's family? I understand that he has ordered more expensive meals than those of others at the table. Unless he's paying, there must be a rule of thumb for a guest to follow.

GENTLE READER: There is, and it was told to ladies who didn't want to look piggy: "Order from the middle of the menu." Miss Manners considers that it applies equally to gentlemen who have the good fortune to be taken out for dinner and do not want to discourage their hosts from inviting them ever again.

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