DEAR MISS MANNERS: Who is the boss of the airplane window?

I happen to enjoy sitting next to the window so I can look out at the scenery below and because looking out helps me feel less claustrophobic. However, many people prefer the cabin nice and dark so they can look at their various devices.

At 8 a.m. on a long flight, a woman asked me to shut my window. I explained that I liked it at least halfway up as it helped me feel less claustrophobic. She summoned the flight attendant and got that woman to insist that I shut my window completely. Not wishing to cause trouble at 10,000 feet, I complied, becoming bored and anxious.

Conversely, when I am in an aisle seat, is it rude to ask the stranger next to me to raise the shade, especially when landing?

So who is in charge? The person sitting right by the window, or everyone else on a plane?

GENTLE READER: The person seated by the window -- with limitations, of course. After all, the person on the aisle is in charge of access to the bathroom, but would be wrong to deny you yours. Compromises must be made.

In order to fend off future scuffles, Miss Manners suggests that you politely inform your travel companions of your window preferences as soon as you are seated. But if their preferences are more pressing than yours, then you should oblige.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I have lived in my neighborhood for 26 years. One of my neighbors, who has also lived here for 26 years, built a new home four miles away. It has been five months since the move, and no one has been invited over to see her new home.

I thought that she would be having a housewarming party at some point in time, but I did send a new-home card with a gift card to a local nursery right after the move.

Another neighbor saw her and asked when she could come to see her new house. The reply was, "When I have my going-away party."

We do not know how to fix this. We have always had going-away parties for people moving out of state for their jobs, but never just to move to a new home nearby. This neighbor did have a party for a couple next door to her who were moving because they were getting divorced.

Should we have given her a going-away party for moving four miles away? We have still gone to lunch with her, gone to dinner with them, had the couple over for bonfires and included her in showers.

GENTLE READER: Watch out for people who demand that parties be given for them.

But "whoops!" you are one of them. Your now-somewhat-more-distant neighbor is sulking because she was not given a farewell party. And you are complaining that she isn't giving a housewarming party.

Miss Manners would call that a draw. As the neighbors continue to include the former neighbor socially, the test will be whether she reciprocates that sort of hospitality, not whether either of you is owed a party from the past.

(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: When I attended a fundraising event, I purchased the type of raffle tickets that are dropped into the baskets of prizes one hopes to win. Due to my inattention, I dropped a ticket into a basket I was not interested in. Rather than try to retrieve my ticket, I left it.

As luck would have it, I won the prize, tickets to an event that I was not particularly eager to attend. I might have attended, but my mother became ill and I left town suddenly, during the time of the event.

A casual friend who had helped organize the raffle noticed I did not use the tickets. I explained about my mother's illness and subsequent death. My friend chastised me for not trying to find someone to use the tickets in my absence. She claims that the donor will be reluctant to make future donations since the prize went unclaimed.

I was dumbstruck. I numbly mumbled a response and walked away. What is the appropriate response in a situation such as this?

GENTLE READER: Which situation? Your inability to use an unwanted raffle prize? Or your friend who chastised you for not putting a fundraiser before your mother?

Even had your excuse for not using the tickets had been less compelling, Miss Manners does not equate raffle prizes with personal invitations: You are obliged to pay for the raffle ticket; you are not obliged to make the trip to Tahiti.

Your friend's lack of compassion toward you is matched by an equal lack of understanding of the donor's priorities. Instead of being discouraged, that person may be delighted to realize that he can donate without having to make good on his promise.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: How does one thank someone, a close family member, who seems to take joy in giving someone totally inappropriate gifts? Such as a huge box of candy to an obese mother who is desperately trying to lose weight for her health, or a bottle of scotch to an AA member?

I have asked them please not to gift me with foods -- yet just yesterday I got a huge and very expensive basket of junk food, most of which, for various reasons, I cannot eat. I can't be enthusiastic, and my instinct is to ask if they are trying to kill me.

GENTLE READER: As you have discovered, it is possible to follow polite forms and yet be rude. And as you have also learned, it is difficult to respond to those who follow the letter of the law while violating its spirit.

The solution is to answer in kind. Mean-spirited gifts should receive correct, but tight-lipped, thanks. They can be given slight attention and put aside quickly. Miss Manners assures you that such a response will be far more frustrating to the giver than melodramatic accusations.

(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: Why is it OK for parents and relatives to give birthday parties, retirement parties, engagement parties and receptions for family members and loved ones, but -- time and time again -- you have said it is never OK for a mother to give a daughter a bridal or baby shower?

What is the difference? I am struggling with this.

GENTLE READER: You have an excellent point. Indeed, the family-generated (or often self-generated) entitlement party, complete with a list of expected tributes, and sometimes even an entrance fee, now dominates what passes for social life.

The conventional ways of marking life's milestones were not always so crude.

For one thing, such celebrations occurred within the context of robust society, at all economic levels. From the simple sharing of supper to the grandest occasions, people exchanged hospitality for no more compelling reason than that they enjoyed one another's company.

Guests did not even have to hand over a bottle of wine at the door as the price of admission. Except for explicitly defined cooperative events, they never brought food. Instead, the expected contribution was to give reciprocal parties. The idea was just getting together to enjoy themselves -- not to celebrate themselves.

This easy, pleasant sociability waned as work routines increasingly encroached on people's time and resources. A pseudo-social life, rationalized as promoting workplace morale and efficiency through forging colleagues into "teams," sprang up. Rather than seeing old friends through their ups and downs, or foraging for new ones, it was just easier to accept as "friends" those who were at hand because the employer had chosen them.

And so the shower and the birthday party became a routine of office life. These were not generated voluntarily by friends out of spontaneous affection, but by co-workers checking off an obligation. In bad economic times, employers stopped sponsoring retirement parties.

No longer able to count on others to make a fuss over their milestones, people resumed throwing their own parties. But now those whom they wanted to honor were not their friends, but themselves or their families.

The patterns most used come from two, hitherto minor, rituals: the children's birthday party, and the wedding or baby shower. Miss Manners doubts that it is a coincidence that both have the giving and opening of presents as a central part of the ritual.

For that reason, birthday parties were limited to children and the occasional major years for adults -- the latter organized by non-relatives, or, if given by the celebrant or that person's family, they were just supposed to treat the guests, not expect the guests to treat them. (The graceful way to avoid the expectation of presents is to refrain from naming the occasion on the invitation, but to save it for a party announcement, so guests can complain that they would have brought something if they had only known.)

As for showers, there was simply that ban you mention against their being given by relatives, let alone requested by the guest of honor, as is sometimes now horrifyingly the case. It was not necessary to have such a ban on weddings, when the presents were sent separately from the event, nor for engagement parties, which were not associated with presents at all, as the announcement of the engagement was supposed to be a surprise.

Miss Manners is not retreating from her condemnation of self-generated showers. Rather, she extends the ban to all pre-announced celebrations to honor oneself.

(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.)