DEAR MISS MANNERS: The invitations for the wedding of a pair of friends included a list of local charities to which invitees could send contributions. I don't recall the exact wording, but they were clear that such contributions are mere suggestions, a productive way to redirect any blender-buying compulsions.

I took them up on it and made a contribution. Now I'm wondering about the follow-through.

Sending the happy couple a letter saying, "Hey guys, I didn't have to, but I chose to give money to your favorite charity. Aren't I a nice guy?" seems the pinnacle of tacky. The fact that this gift was so clearly optional, and in the form of a specific dollar amount (of which I should inform them?) makes such a notice feel more about me than about a couple starting a new life.

Some have suggested that it is the responsibility of the charity to notify the couple, but I flubbed this by not providing their address; anyway, I gather that although the charity's tiny staff does good work in the community, paperwork is not really their forte. What is the protocol for such gifts?

GENTLE READER-- What gifts?

Your friends made a solicitation to you on behalf of their favorite charities, and you gave a donation. Well and good. But Miss Manners fails to see what this has to do with their getting married and your giving them a wedding present.

Yes, yes, she is aware that a vast number of people presume that their weddings (and graduations and birthdays and holidays) are license to order what they want from their relatives and friends. She also acknowledges that those who direct others to charitable donations instead are not exhibiting personal greed.

Yet even by making it "optional" (all such giving is optional, as there is no way to force collection), they are still presuming others' resources are theirs to direct. Miss Manners is weary of trying to make people understand that this is not a thoughtful or noble approach to take.

So instead, she will just tell you how to make the point about being a "nice guy." Write a warm note, throwing in thanks for having called the charity to your attention, and mentioning that you were glad to support it. Stating the sum is not only crass but pointless, as it is the charity, not they, who owe you gratitude.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: Is it impolite to greet someone pleasantly when I run into him around town, but then ignore his phone calls, e-mails, and all other attempts to get in touch? The person in question happens to be my ex-boyfriend.

GENTLE READER: Oddly enough, there is a big difference. Snubbing someone to his face is a major insult, justifiable only to someone who has behaved abominably. A mere romantic attachment of whom one is tired deserves a pleasant -- if fleeting -- greeting.

However, this one is continuing to be tiresome but refusing to accept the break-up, Miss Manners gathers. Becoming too busy to be available for pleadings or recriminations, or a lachrymose combination, is therefore permissible.

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DEAR MISS MANNERS: Several years ago, I was fortunate to be able to purchase a vacation home on the beach. I enjoy inviting my friends to visit.

However, over time, many of them have begun to be quite presumptuous, to the point where I'm beginning to feel used. One friend left her bathing suits in my guest bedroom for the next time she comes to visit; one wrote his name on a bottle of bourbon and left it behind my bar; one invited a friend that I did not know to stay with her; one even asked me for his own key so he could stay there when I wasn't home!

How can I convey to these people that, while I enjoy having them as my guests, this is, in fact, my home and not a time-share?

GENTLE READER: Drink the bourbon, mail back the bathing suits, and keep a tight grip on your invitations and your keys. Should any explanation seem necessary, it should be 1) "Thank you"; 2) "I can't store things here"; 3) "I'm sorry, but I can't accommodate your friend"; and 4) "I don't know you well enough to exchange keys with you, and I doubt that I would have occasion to occupy your house."

Oh, and Miss Manners doesn't want you using the gracious expression "My house is your house" until you have a better class of friends.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: What is the best way of shutting up a friend who has the cringe-making, crass habit of trying to pull rank, sometimes in casual conversation with complete strangers, by declaring: "I'm a doctor's daughter"? I really wish this pomposity had been beaten out of her in the school playground and I don't understand why it wasn't, but as we're not in the school playground anymore, what can I do?

She uses this line to justify, and indeed advise, such activities as eating moldy food, driving after a couple of glasses of wine and walking across tick-infested countryside with bare legs: "Lyme disease isn't a problem for anyone with a healthy immune system. I'm a doctor's daughter."

It's bloody annoying, but what, if any, is her offence against etiquette? Even if she hasn't committed one, how do I make her shut up?

Her father the doctor is dead so it's impossible to know what he actually said. Should I try "I think you must have forgotten"? Even if she isn't talking rubbish, which she usually is, and even if she isn't talking to me, that phrase "I'm a doctor's daughter" makes my skin crawl with embarrassment. "My father was a research chemist." Could that help?

GENTLE READER: Help with what? Memorizing the table of the elements? Explaining the properties of the contents of the medicine cabinet?

Wait, you have the doctor's daughter to do that.

It is hard to say exactly what her etiquette violation is -- some combination of brag-and-bore -- but easy to see that it is annoying. Miss Manners would respond to the reference to the lady's father by saying nicely, "He probably had a license to practice medicine."

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DEAR MISS MANNERS: We have two small sets of silver, one containing about six place settings, and the other four. Since we are young and do not have complete sets of all the nice things, we do not host formal meals.

Is it all right if we use both sets of silver at the same meal for an informal dinner with more than six people attending? Would the same apply to mismatching dinnerware or glassware?

Everything we have is a happy potluck of whatever was lovingly passed down to us on the occasion of our wedding, matching or not. We are proud of it, but the impression we receive from etiquette literature is that there is something inappropriate about a non-matching table.

GENTLE READER: "Etiquette literature"? Miss Manners assures you that the only legitimate requirements of etiquette in regard to table setting are that you provide whatever equipment is needed to eat the food being served, and that you attempt to make the setting aesthetically pleasing.

What is aesthetically pleasing is another matter. Some believe that can only mean matching sets. Others find it more interesting and creative to mix patterns.

But wait. There is also a subtext, which allows you to pick your snobbery. One kind holds that matching sets indicate that you can afford to buy what you use. The other holds that unmatched items indicate that you are not, as the British disdainfully say, "the sort of people who buy their silver," but whose who inherit it.

Naturally, Miss Manners abhors all forms of snobbery. But you need not be intimidated by the former kind, since it is trumped by the latter.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I'm very young, in college, have a major that I really enjoy, and like filling my schedule up with hobbies and activities that make me happy. For some reason, though, people have taken a huge interest in my (lack of) love life.

One person keeps asking me if I am "happy" even though I am single. I enjoy life and love learning about my classes and quite frankly do not want to date because it would take time away from my studies.

What is a polite way to tell people to mind their own business and just because I chose to be single does not, in any way, make me less happy than them?

Eleanor Roosevelt once said that, "No one can make you feel inferior without your consent." I feel like I am letting people talk down to me, but then again feel like I am overreacting. I'm just looking for one of your quick quips to get people to stop bothering me.

GENTLE READER: "You're so kind to worry about my private life. But I assure you that your worry is misplaced."

It's not a quip, Miss Manners admits, but then, people do not find it funny to be told to mind their own business. This makes the point about your life being private and, for good measure, leaves them with thwarted curiosity about whether your life is happy because you are mated or because you are not.

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