DEAR MISS MANNERS: We moved to a new neighborhood in 2006. The neighbors have had neighborhood parties since we have moved here. Unfortunately, each time they have invited us, we have had other plans and have had to decline.

Last night, there was a neighborhood party given by our neighbors next door. I was hurt that they had not invited us. We were available last night. We would like to be included in these parties and would enjoy the fellowship with our neighbors.

Should I talk to my neighbors about this? What would be the proper next step?

GENTLE READER: Just a minute, please. You have been declining these people's invitations since 2006, and now you are sulking because they finally stopped issuing them? And you think it would help if you sat down with them, and explained all the more important things you've had to do for the last six years?

Miss Manners thinks not. You do not establish fellowship by asking others to entertain you; you do it by asking to entertain them. You should throw a party for all the neighbors, and chatter about how you wished you had done this years ago, but at least now have finally organized your lives.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I attended two family weddings recently wherein the bride, groom, their parents and each of their many attendants, in hostage-like fashion, "entertained" the guests, during the receptions, with hours of prepared speeches.

I am not talking short toasts here. I mean real speeches, read from reams of yellow legal paper, about how each had met the bride and groom, how the bride and groom had met, what the bride and groom meant to each speaker, what the speaker meant to the bride and groom, what everyone in the bridal party thought about everyone else in the bridal party, and on and on.

At several points I thought I was observing a therapy session. At one wedding, there was no easy means of temporary escape so my husband and I had to endure. At the other, temporary escape was easy and we embraced it, as did a number of other guests, mostly family members.

Please comment on what I hope is not a disturbing trend: seminars and/or therapy sessions posing as wedding receptions.

GENTLE READER: It is more than a trend, almost a universal standard now, for wedding festivities -- and even the ceremonies themselves -- to be treated as biographical extravaganzas. The It's About Who We Are theme has crowded out the civic and religious meaning of the occasion.

Yet for all the show business mentality that goes into the planning, there is a frequent failure to consider what any competent producer knows is the most important element: interesting the audience. (Wedding guests do not constitute an audience, but that is what their hosts keep calling them.)

Relatives and friends are presumed to be charmed to hear loving words about the bride and bridegroom. And up to a point, they usually are. Even purely professional associates and the casual dates of other guests may be able to enjoy a few minutes of emotional toasts.

Miss Manners is sorry to hear that people are going so much beyond that point. Parties are supposed to be what we now call interactive, allowing the guests to reunite with those they know, meet new people, converse and perhaps dance. The lengthy expressions of love that members of the family and attendants harbor, like that between the bride and bridegroom alone, should be enjoyed privately.

(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: After having lunch with a so-called friend, she proceeded to tell me how negative I was and how it drags her down. I think it was because she didn't like my opinion about the subjects we discussed.

If I am not free to express my opinion, I no longer feel comfortable with her. These were not personal opinions, but were about restaurants, cruises and our local hospital, which I was just in for four days.

Sorry, I can't be a Pollyanna and say everything is great when it is not.

Should I break ties with this person? Before she spoke, she said I would not like what she had to say, and mentioned that another so-called friend felt the same.

I want to retort, as I was totally dumbfounded and speechless. I agreed to being opinionated, but "negative" is her word.

GENTLE READER: Didn't she have anything positive to say about you? You might plead that it drags you down to hear such a negative opinion of yourself.

Miss Manners cannot promise that this will stop the lady short and make her blurt out, "I see what you mean" -- after which you can share a friendly laugh, and you can offer, "How about if I wait until you finish eating before I criticize the restaurant?"

It is unfortunately more likely to lead to more negativeness -- the charge that you cannot accept constructive criticism. But at least that will warn you that your so-called friend's rule is that it is fine to condemn your friends as long as you refrain from criticizing the hospital.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I'm caught in a pickle. About a week after I graduated high school, I received a graduation card and a little cash from some relatives my family and I see fairly often (my great-aunt and great-uncle). Unfortunately, I was slow in sending a thank-you card and wasn't able to mail it to them until weeks later.

A week ago, I received another graduation card from these same relatives, including more cash than in the previous card and a note saying, "Sorry we forgot to send you a card earlier."

I'm not sure how I should handle this situation. Should I send the card and money back, explaining that this was a mistake? This great-aunt and great-uncle are elderly, and while they are not struggling financially, they are very careful with their money.

GENTLE READER: Your pickle landed splat on the place where etiquette meets ethics.

An etiquette case could be made that it is kinder not to draw the attention of your relatives to their memory lapse. Not so incidentally, this would allow you to pocket this windfall.

However, Miss Manners is not going to make that case. Sorry, but collecting twice from these people, whether or not they can easily afford it, is just wrong.

But let us not abandon the etiquette aspect. You can soften the realization of their mistake by focusing on your own. The letter accompanying your return of the money (the new amount, not the original, smaller one) should begin, "I was so tardy in thanking you for your generous present that you tactfully assumed that I hadn't received it. But ..."

(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: How long after a tragedy, such as the shootings in Aurora, Colo., is it appropriate to begin a discussion on the root causes and preventive actions to be taken?

Just as happened in Tucson, time cools the passions until the public forgets about it. This is more important than holding your pinkie out when drinking tea.

GENTLE READER: It seems to Miss Manners that such discussions always begin immediately, often before it is known exactly what happened or who did it. Sense, as well as taste, would suggest that the reaction of shock and sympathy should not be augmented with analyses and cures until the basic facts are established.

But surely what concerns you is that after everyone has voiced already-fixed opinions about gun control and mental health, and agreed that the event is "a wake-up call," the public dozes off until the next alarm.

Not everybody has forgotten. Not the bereaved, no matter how often they are urged to "move beyond" it. And not those who are professionally or personally dedicated to studying human behavior in the hope of anticipating, if not restraining, its worst manifestations.

What you notice is that a particularly horrific tragedy becomes less the topic of general talk as smaller, yet fresher examples of problematic behavior appear. Then it is most often cited, as you did the Tucson shootings, to show that nothing has changed. The catastrophe to end all catastrophes turns out to have been no more that than was World War I, as had been predicted, "the war to end all wars."

Yet we keep hoping, and we keep studying behavior and trying to keep it within safe bounds.

Etiquette is a major force in this, you will be amazed to hear. An astonishing number of violent acts develop from transgressions of etiquette. Just the other day, Miss Manners read of a murder that was the eventual result after two strangers traded insults because one of them had broken into a line at the grocery store. Violence on the road not uncommonly follows one car cutting off another. And a typical explanation in gang warfare attempts to justify crime as a legitimate response to being "disrespected."

Even that perennially easy target, the pinkie in the air, has provocative implications having to do with international commerce and class strife.

The gesture dates from the 17th century, when tea began to be imported to England from China. It was so expensive that those who could afford it kept it locked up in so-called tea caddies. They drank it from Chinese teacups, which do not have handles but are held in the fingers. Because the thin cups transmitted heat from the tea, it was sensible to put as few fingers on them as necessary -- hence the escaping little finger, and sometimes the ring and middle fingers as well.

This habit became a symbol of wealth, when few people could afford tea, let alone imported cups. It quickly progressed, along a path you will recognize, to becoming a symbol of pretentiousness. At that point, the pinkie in the air -- no longer necessary because the West had developed teacups with handles -- became bad manners.

Miss Manners is amazed that it is still cited, now that tea is one of the cheapest possible drinks available. She would be surprised if you had ever actually seen this gesture in real life.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: How long should a grieving widow remain chaste?

GENTLE READER: That is not for Miss Manners to say. However, she does believe that a year is a proper time for a widow to be discreet.

(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.)