Individuals soliciting charity for themselves are everywhere. The requests range from the heart-rending (people who cannot afford basic necessities such as food or medical care) to the grabby (the well-heeled newlyweds who don’t want to pay for that expensive honeymoon).

What is new is these individuals’ claims to be doing the good works associated with a charitable organization, a claim that is independent of financial condition.

Even the person who used to ask, “Brother, can you spare a dime?” now appeals to you to “Help the homeless” -- implying that anything you give will benefit more than the person making the request. In many ways, it is the natural progression of the panhandler who appeared not far from the White House some years ago with a sandwich-board sign that fancifully claimed status as a 501(c)(3) (a charitable organization recognized by the Internal Revenue Service).

The newlyweds, by contrast, provide the tools that charities introduced to make giving more convenient: one-click shopping from their registry or direct deposit to their bank account.

Miss Manners recognizes, with sadness and sympathy, that, unlike those newlyweds, many of our citizens are in genuine need. Charity is a touchy subject because one is forced both to confront real suffering, and to parse the genuine from the not.

But the Selfie Charity -- the pretense of being a corporation, not the act of asking for help -- is a cheat.

The motivation behind such actions is easy to understand. “Professionalizing the ask” converts even a solvent beggar into a doer of good works. It excuses any lingering embarrassment, allowing ever-greater fundraising goals. And it reduces the act to a commercial transaction, incidentally excusing the person who does not want to write thank-you notes or feel gratitude.

Not only is this disingenuous, not only can it be used to justify greed and ingratitude, but it demeans -- and misunderstands -- the work done by actual charities.

Charities selflessly work on behalf of others. This is not a virtue to which an individual recipient can lay claim. The requests of an individual can only be justified by great need. Not only is this uncomfortable, it is the reason that so many feel the call to do good works for others.

It is also ridiculous to think that professional charities do not express gratitude to their donors. Among the successful ones, saying “thank you” is one of their major activities. If your relatives are willing to pay the down payment on your new house, you have to thank them and be grateful. If you must have a reason to do so, let’s agree that it’s good for business.

And unlike a charity, individuals are barred from too overtly tailoring the level of their gratitude to the amount of the donation. Gifts to individuals are properly valued by the effort, thought and sacrifice of the giver, not the retail value of the gift. Whether or not the gift is as generous as was hoped, you still have to write a letter of thanks.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: Is it appropriate for the father of the bride to walk her down the aisle when it is a second marriage?

GENTLE READER: As this is an archaic ritual anyway --neither father nor bride being under the illusion that she is his to give away -- why not?

But Miss Manners cautions that it is not acceptable for others to wish him better luck this time.

(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 had some serious injuries to my hands pulling a refrigerator off of a neighbor, who attempted to unload it off a truck by himself for some reason. i just happened by in time to save him -- really just dumb luck on my part. I grabbed it not realizing there were sharp parts underneath it and pulled it off of him. i knew I was being cut, but I could not drop it back on him. The doctors said my hands will heal up just fine in time, but i did lose my right pinkie.

As i understand it, etiquette calls for my pinkie to be raised when eating or drinking sometimes. But I have no pinkie and i am right-handed. Do I instead raise my ring finger? Or, well, what do i do?

It’s hard for me to type right now and i want to do this myself so please pardon my spelling, lack of capital letters and poor punctuation.

GENTLE READER: Despite the tee-hee factor in juxtaposing a matter of life and death with what seems to be a jibe at the supposed triviality of etiquette, Miss Manners will do you the courtesy of taking your letter at face value. In that case, you are in luck -- that is, if luck can be associated with someone whose good deed was rewarded with disaster.

Your good fortune is that etiquette now condemns, rather than requires, lifting the pinkie finger when drinking. (It is fine when playing the oboe.) Doing so had been necessary in the 17th century, when tea was drunk from handle-less cups from China and the idea was to scorch as few fingers as possible. So you see, that was also a matter of avoiding injury, although not as drastic a possibility as you describe.

But extending the pinkie then became considered pretentious and the butt of feeble jokes -- perhaps including your own.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: When visiting doctors, I understand there are times when things may occur that delay the appointment. But I prefer that the staff tell me when I check in that there has been a delay, rather than keep me waiting for long periods of time. Their time is no more valuable than mine.

I feel like if I knew when I checked in that there was a delay, I could have then made an informed decision to wait it out if I had no pressing appointments afterward, or I could choose to reschedule the appointment for some other time.

How do I successfully tell the doctor and his/her staff that this is a requirement for me, since I am charged for missed appointments?

GENTLE READER: That doctors sometimes run unavoidably late to give proper attention to each patient, Miss Manners is sympathetically aware. She is also aware that many of them routinely abuse this presumption.

There is no need to contest whose time is more important. You should be in the habit of calling the doctor’s office before you set out and inquiring whether or not appointments are running behind -- and, if the new appointment is inconvenient, rescheduling.

(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: My husband and I live in a studio flat, so, as you can imagine, our bed is out in the open. It’s next to the kitchen and at a good angle for people to watch TV. We also have enough chairs for people to sit on and a very comfortable couch, all of these at good angles for people to make conversation and watch TV.

My parents always taught me to never enter someone’s bedroom without permission and never to sit/lie on someone else’s bed, especially couple’s beds (though it was normal for me sit on my friends’ beds during my childhood/teenage years, and the other way around).

But now that I am a married woman, for me, our bed is almost a sacred place. And just because it is in the same room as everything else, that doesn’t justify people using it when there are other comfortable places to sit down.

Is it just me? And how can I address this with my husband’s and my own friends?

GENTLE READER: Without making a laughingstock out of yourselves?

You can’t.

Your marriage is sacred, your privacy is sacred, but your bed is a piece of furniture right there in the room in which you also entertain guests.

Miss Manners supposes you can park serving trays on the bed, if using it as a table doesn’t violate its sacredness. Or you can keep saying, “I think you’ll be more comfortable over there.” But she begs you not to address your friends with your reasoning. You will never hear the end of it.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: Is it impolite to leave one of anything, such as one Oreo, or should you just finish the package and throw away?

GENTLE READER: Have you never heard the expression that was once routinely taught to children to discourage them from taking the last of anything?

It was “Leave something for Miss Manners.”

But never mind. Miss Manners is trying to stay away from cookies and does not begrudge your having that last one.

Unless, of course, you are sneaking into someone else’s cupboard. Because if it is your own cupboard, you can do what you like, and if you are being offered cookies elsewhere, they should be on a plate, not in the package.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: Is there protocol around whether someone should wait to announce their wedding date (when newly engaged) if a friend had announced their engagement six months before, but has not yet announced their wedding date?

GENTLE READER: Is this a competition?

That unpleasant suspicion arises because Miss Manners has received letters in which weddings are presumed to be staged in even fairly remote proximity in order to detract from other weddings.

She would prefer to believe that you are asking about a situation in which the bridal couples, being friends, are hoping to schedule things so that they can attend one another’s weddings. In that case, and if the timing is somewhat flexible, it would only be necessary to talk over the respective dates under consideration.

(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.)