DEAR MISS MANNERS: Is it rude for a hostess to serve dessert to everyone and have none herself?

Maybe I'm oversensitive because I'm watching my calories, but this has happened to me twice recently. Both women are thin and have no dietary issues. One claimed that she didn't care for the dessert, and the other had another glass of wine instead!

GENTLE READER: If the hostess doesn't care for the dessert, why is she feeding it to her guests? Doesn't she care for them, either?

The general rule is that one is not supposed to notice what goes in or does not go in to other people's mouths. But that is directed at hosts; guests have to watch the hostess to know when to dig in.

Miss Manners, who does not travel with an official taster, would confess to being nervous about digging into a dish that is not touched by her hostess.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I am at a loss with what seem to be mismatched cues when I am visiting someone's home and it is time to leave.

The situation: I am over for lunch or dinner, we have had a nice chat, and it is clearly time for me to head out. I start making going-away noises -- "It's time to be going, its been lovely" and so forth -- and, after a moment or two, stand up.

The hosts continue sitting. I continue to talk to them, they continue to talk to me without rising, and after a couple of minutes more, it is very much time for me to be gone, but there I am still.

What seems to be happening is conflicting sets of cues for behavior. They are waiting for me to be gone, but I am subconsciously waiting for what my mind tells me is the appropriate trigger to actually start walking away, which is one of the hosts standing up with me.

It's almost Pavlovian. In my subconscious, their standing signals that it is appropriate to walk to the door, and their continuing to sit that they are asking me to stay and keep talking.

Yesterday, this went on for more than five minutes until it became apparent that my hosts, who are close friends but whom I usually see at my place, were dying for me to head out so they could prepare for a child's party later that day. So I let myself out the front door while they stayed on their couches in the living room.

Did I somehow internalize an idiosyncratic norm that the hosts always stand up and see the guests out? What is the more standard range of norms? Is there a well-established formula for what to do when the norm is not followed?

GENTLE READER: So what did they use in the way of a signal to let you know that they were dying to have you leave? Miss Manners shudders to think.

Wouldn't you think it would be easier to learn a few common social signals than to put up with a house full of unhappy squatters?

Yes, hosts are supposed to rise when their guests get up to leave, and to see them to the door. Exasperated and desperate hosts have occasionally been known to rise before their guests in the hope of prompting them.

Your only hope of release, as you have discovered, is to say, "Oh, don't bother getting up -- I'll show myself out."

(Please send your questions to Miss Manners at her website, www.missmanners.com; to her email, dearmissmanners@gmail.com; or through postal mail to Miss Manners, Universal Uclick, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.)

DEAR MISS MANNERS: For years I have had my teeth cleaned by the same dental technician, who chats on and on, asking me questions periodically, which of course means that either I mumble a response, because her hand is in my mouth, or I have to sit up, empty my mouth and respond. Some of these questions are directed to me in my professional capacity as a psychologist.

With the advent of the iPod and books on tape, I have begun listening to books while having my teeth cleaned. I hope I am not being rude by not participating in a one-sided conversation.

GENTLE READER: No, although it would be nice of you to tell the technician beforehand that you have some reading to catch up on, or that you have found that it takes your mind off your teeth.

Miss Manners is only surprised that you had not previously discovered the advantage of responding "Mmmmph." Whether this would be of use in your professional life, she cannot say, but it is of inestimable use at the dentist's.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I was recently introduced to a guy by a friend. I have invited him to escort me to a black-tie event coming up soon. Who should pay for the tickets? I'm not sure, because we just met. A relationship has not been established.

GENTLE READER: Begging to differ with you, Miss Manners notes that a relationship has indeed been established. It is that of host and guest. As hosts do the inviting, they pay the expenses.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: My friend is getting married (her third, his first). Her parents are both deceased. She thinks her husband-to-be should not be cheated out of a shower. The problem is, she wants her close friends (five of us) to pay for it! The guest list is about 50.

What do you think? Should we pay or should they? We don't mind helping, but! Would love your professional opinion.

GENTLE READER: In that case, Miss Manners will withhold her personal opinion of a bridegroom who would feel cheated if not given a shower. Her professional opinion is that showers are given voluntarily by those who should then pay for them. In this case, the volunteer is the bride.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: My husband, who was raised in one of the "Our Crowd" families in New York, tells me that it was common practice to set the formal lunch or dinner table for four people when there were only three actual diners.

Can you explain why this was the case? The only two theories anyone has come up with are: to achieve symmetry, or to indicate there was an abundance of food and wine for unexpected guests.

GENTLE READER: As Miss Manners understands it, the idea was not to seem to disturb the servants for fewer people. The servants were not fooled one bit, and now that most people are their own servants, they don't see the point, either.

(Please send your questions to Miss Manners at her website, www.missmanners.com; to her email, dearmissmanners@gmail.com; or through postal mail to Miss Manners, Universal Uclick, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.)

DEAR MISS MANNERS: In the last few years, I have become aware of a new custom in bridal showers that seems troubling: The bride lives across the country, and is coming to town for a bridal shower (or baby shower) hosted by a good friend of her mother's.

So far, so good, right?

After all the lovely gifts are opened, she announces that she will of course be returning each and every one of them, so she doesn't have to cart them home with her, which would be impossible. She intends to repurchase them when she returns home. There are, of course, some gifts that will have to be kept, but by and large, they all go back.

Somehow, this seems very offensive, and I'm not sure why. She sends a note and is grateful, but it all seems like such a farce.

Does Miss Manners have a solution? I admit I'm not sure how to solve this one, and I'm not even sure who is incorrect, the guest for feeling like her gift was returned, or the bride for creating the pretext of accepting the gift in the first place.

GENTLE READER: It may be a fraud as well as a farce. Salespeople in stores with bridal registries -- which by now must be every commercial enterprise with the possible exception of funerary monuments -- have told Miss Manners how it works.

The couple registers for all sorts of items, usually expensive ones, and returns everything for refunds. Apparently they believe that this launders their money-grab.

But even if you believe that the bride will purchase just those items she was given, it is still insulting to have sent her guests out buying. Miss Manners' solution would be to take back the rejected item and say, "Oh, dear, no, let me save you the trouble of returning it." You need not trouble her again.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: Is it rude to ask someone how they know another person? I have a good friend who continually asks me how I know a given person, as if surprised that my path would have crossed with this person's.

We live in the same town, thus having similar experiences, and I don't understand why she is so interested in knowing my connection to everyone mentioned.

For instance, if I am at the same party she is, she will ask me how I know the host. Her inflection implies that she simply doesn't understand why I would have been invited.

It wouldn't be a big deal except that I am starting to feel that she is becoming competitive, and I don't understand why. It has become very annoying. Do you have a good answer to this question that would be respectfully appropriate? I truly like her and don't want to compete.

GENTLE READER: Then don't. This is only a common conversational ploy, much used by those who have heard that asking people what they "do" (or, in the case of people they know, what they have been doing lately), is considered offensive because it is used to determine whether they are important enough to talk to.

Miss Manners asks you to assume that your friends, and even the strangers whom you meet through friends, do not intend to insult you unless they can come up with something more blatant.

(Please send your questions to Miss Manners at her website, www.missmanners.com; to her email, dearmissmanners@gmail.com; or through postal mail to Miss Manners, Universal Uclick, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.)