DEAR MISS MANNERS: What should one do when people meet-and-greet at the buffet table, becoming absorbed in conversation with each other and standing there, keeping others from getting at the food? I’ve even seen them stand around and graze off the buffet while they gab, oblivious to the starving multitudes who can’t get past them.

Short of carrying a sandwich in my pocket, how is this impasse to be handled? It’s usually obvious that the host intended that people would fill plates and take them to another room to eat, but a lot of people don’t seem to get that.

GENTLE READER: In the days before e-commerce, electronic supermarket checkout and online vehicle registration, standing in line was a daily activity. While this was not an enjoyable reality, it did mean that people maintained a sense of proportion about what constituted a national crisis rather than merely an inconvenience. The behavior you describe is inconsiderate. But it can be addressed with two words: “Excuse me.” Miss Manners is confident that will be sufficient to avoid mass extinction due to starvation.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: Is it a breach of politeness to write “handwritten” cards on my phone?

There’s this mobile app that allows me to use my finger or a stylus to write a personal note, attach some photos, and then the card is printed out and sent from some printing shop. No one who’s received them has complained, and I’m saved the trouble of buying cards and a trip to the post office, but I’m wondering if there’s something I’m missing out on.

GENTLE READER: No doubt some entrepreneur somewhere is working on a site that will allow you to “pen” love letters without the trouble of knowing anything about the object of your affections, after which they will be printed on heavy stock at a remote location, dipped in a user-selected perfume, and airlifted to the recipient’s front door. Unless you are adept at calligraphy, what makes a handwritten note special is not the penmanship, but the appearance of effort. If your app can simulate that convincingly, Miss Manners makes no objection, although what you describe sounds more like the preprinted cards one finds in the pharmacy next to the balloons.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I asked my girlfriend to marry me. She accepted. After a year and a half, she called it quits. She gave the ring back.

Would it be proper to give this same ring to someone else when the time comes, and do I tell that someone about this?

GENTLE READER: Unless you can truthfully claim that the ring is a family heirloom, there is no good way to explain what you intend to the new love of your life. And Miss Manners cautions you that not explaining it may prove embarrassing if someone who has seen the ring before recognizes it.

If you are intent on keeping the ring, the best you can hope for is that your wife has a sense of humor, and likes the ring enough to accept it as something other than a token of engagement.

(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, Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.)

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I have two relatives, a sister and an aunt, who are constantly asking for my things -- clothes, jewelry, household items, etc. It’s almost every time I see them. They don’t want to borrow; they want me to give it to them.

I bought a dress at an estate sale and my aunt immediately said she wanted it, even though it wasn’t her size. I had bought her a vintage jacket, but she wanted my dress, too. My sister does the same thing. She’ll visit my home and admire something I have, and continue to say things like, “I really wish I had that” until I just give it to her. It’s gotten to the point that I avoid being around them and I’m angry when I do see them. Neither of them seem to really care about the items after they get them.

So what can I say to break the cycle? I have said no, but they start again the next time I see them. I don’t want to be rude or say something mean to them, but it is grating on me.

GENTLE READER: It seems that you have been running a free shop. Almost as bizarre as your relatives’ grabbiness is your compliance. Have you not noticed that occasionally giving in by giving up your property is not an effective way to discourage them?

Miss Manners gathers that these are not subtle people on whom delicate hints would have any effect. She suggests a cheerful “No, sorry, its mine!” to be repeated whenever necessary.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I was wondering how to properly eat a hot roll. I looked it up: Pull the roll apart gently and butter each side. But if the roll is very hot, fingers get burned.

I tend to make a cut on the top with a small knife and pull it apart to butter it, then eat each half. My husband sticks his fork in halfway down the side of the roll, opening it like a biscuit; he then pushes the top down on the bottom so it looks like a biscuit. (But then, he eats soup with a fork after breaking off bread into it, and refuses to use soup or cereal spoons or a bread and butter plate.)

Luckily, at my daughter’s wedding last year, the rolls weren’t hot, so there was no issue.

GENTLE READER: Perhaps a lesson in elementary physics, rather than in etiquette, would solve your problem. At least your hot roll problem, although not your more serious marital problem.

If you wait just a moment, burning-hot rolls will cool enough for you to touch them. How long you will have to wait before your husband understands that it is not worth it for him to annoy you at every meal, Miss Manners cannot say.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: Please settle a minor disagreement. When making a bed that has two pillows, should the pillows be placed with the pillowcase openings facing toward the middle of the bed or toward the sides?

GENTLE READER: Toward the sides.

Miss Manners made that one up, and no doubt someone will give her an argument about it.

(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, Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.)

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I have several friends, and even complete strangers, who always want to show me pictures of their children and grandchildren on their smartphones. We are not talking about one picture, but 20 or more.

I do not know these children and, frankly, it is boring. I have vision problems and the small screen gives me a headache.

I have tried looking at a couple of pictures and trying to change the topic. They put the phone away and soon it comes out again. I even had a complete stranger show me pictures of his six children and their associated children in the ophthalmologist’s office while my eyes were dilating.

I am sick of it, and my comments are getting more and more rude. Could you please suggest a phrase I might use to stop the cellphone attack?

GENTLE READER: Putting cameras into telephones was a step backward for civilization, Miss Manners believes. Suddenly people were waving selfie sticks around, posting unflattering pictures of others, broadcasting their bragging, and, as you experienced, spreading colossal amounts of boredom. Really, the only use that ought to be permitted is gathering evidence of crime.

There can hardly be a better excuse than dilated eyes to avoid these shows, but apparently even that didn’t work. Even if it had, Miss Manners supposes that you can’t always hang around the ophthalmologist’s office. She recommends complimenting the children for two pictures, and then handing back the telephone saying, “You’d better take this -- I don’t trust myself not to drop it.” That the danger would be your dropping it in a soporific state of boredom, rather than clumsiness, need not be specified.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I swear too much and act like a jerk online.

GENTLE READER: Then please cut it out.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I attended a luncheon at the home of a friend who had invited people she knew from several different places (church, neighborhood, work), so we did not all already know each other. I sat down next to a man and introduced myself with, “Hi, I’m (blank).”

He laughed and said, “Oh, I can never remember names.”

I was taken aback and thought this was very rude. I might not have remembered his name either, but I would not have told him I was going to make no effort to remember it. How would Miss Manners have handled this -- bearing in mind that I did not want the hostess to regret having invited me?

GENTLE READER: As you recognize, this is not the charming and apologetic admission of a common human failing that the speaker may think it is. That would be “I’m so sorry, but I have trouble remembering names. Please tell me yours again.”

What the preemptive declaration conveys is “I’m sure I’ll have no reason to want to know you better.”

In that case, Miss Manners would nod in acknowledgment, probably saying something as restrained as “I won’t trouble you,” before turning her attention to a more receptive guest.

(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, Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.)