DEAR MISS MANNERS: An annoyance that I have run into consistently since I was in high school is how to respond to comments made about my body and face. (I am fluent in sarcasm, but attempt to keep those comments to myself.)

These comments are insufferable. “Skinny-shaming” is just as prevalent as fat-shaming, and while I lead a healthy lifestyle and have no body image issues whatsoever, I am tired of hearing that I am the “skinny one” or that I need to “eat a cheeseburger.”

I eat many cheeseburgers, thank you very much, and to have the hard work I put in to keep myself fit denigrated is extremely annoying. My body mass is nobody’s business but my own, but I am constantly subjected to other opinions anyway.

GENTLE READER: Youth and slimness are unduly valued in Western society, and annoying as they may be, comments to that effect are meant as high praise.

Take them for how they are kindly, if awkwardly, intended. A curt, weak, tight-lipped smile is all that is needed in response.

Miss Manners has decreed over and over again that one must refrain from commenting on others’ personal appearance, especially the relative size of the human form, but to little avail. She will continue the fight, if you will promise not to fuel the battle.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I am the only person in my family to move out of state, having moved across the country to find work. Everyone in my family feels that it is my obligation to make a yearly trip home to visit.

These trips are financially taxing, but I have made them regardless. The last visit, most of my family did not take time off of their work or extra-curricula to spend time with me. In fact, not a single member of my family went out of their way to spend time with me.

The last day of my visit, no one was available, so I decided to leave a day early. This caused an uproar with my family, who felt I was being selfish and immature.

I had several cousins message me with woeful, “Why didn’t you come see me while you were here?” messages. Miss Manners, I drove 1,500 miles. I feel that they could have managed 15!

I am fed up with their feeling entitled to my presence and treating my moving away as some horrible crime against the family that I must rectify with yearly trips. I told my family that I would host anyone who wished to see me in my home state, but I will not be traveling home next year. They think I’m being unfair.

GENTLE READER: Is it possible that while your family may well want to see you, it just might be difficult for them -- as it would be for you -- to drop everything when you are there? Miss Manners fears that your anger and perception of their resentment is coloring your more reasonable judgment here. Before your next trip, try to make concrete plans with any interested members -- and do your best to rid yourself of the angry subtext that is making it more strained for all.

(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 am 30 years old and married. Occasionally I encounter someone I haven’t seen or heard from in a long time -- since before I was engaged. A co-worker from a past job, a former high school or college classmate, an ex-girlfriend of my brother. These people have asked me why I did not invite them to my wedding.

I am puzzled, because they never responded to any of my previous attempts to stay in contact: holiday cards that I sent to their families, lunch or party invitations that I extended through mutual friends, phone calls and social media messages that they never returned.

I assumed that we had simply parted ways in life, and moved on. They apparently expected me to send a wedding invitation, yet they showed no interest in continuing our friendship. Why do they feel it was appropriate for them to be at the wedding?

GENTLE READER: Are you asking Miss Manners why people like to feel included? Even when they rarely make a social effort themselves? Human nature is a contradictory, if predictable, condition.

However, upon further scrutiny of your complaint, Miss Manners notices that only one of your methods of communication to your former friends was an actual invitation: Holiday cards do not require a reply; invitations through mutual friends are vague at best; and social media messages -- well, surely you are familiar with how those generally go.

Perhaps your friends thought that a formal answer to these casual invitations was not necessary. And had they actually received a written invitation, they might have risen to the occasion.

Probably not. But weddings seem to be one of the few social events that are taken at least mildly seriously -- and past relationships, no matter how distant they may currently be, expect to be acknowledged.

To be clear, Miss Manners does not condone your friends for chastising you. Rather, she bemoans the casual way invitations are treated in general -- and how much they have fallen victim to people’s natural affinity for laziness.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: My husband says that any thank-you note is fine. I think that a thank-you note should specifically detail the gift given. When I was a kid, my mom made me tell the person “thank you” for what they had sent, not just a “generic” thank-you.

Please help me prove my husband wrong.

GENTLE READER: Always a pleasure.

If all that it took was a generic thank-you note, then you would merely have to sign your name on the inside of those horrid pre-printed ones. Which is exactly why Miss Manners disapproves of them: too much of a temptation to do exactly that and be done with it.

If recipients of presents cannot be bothered to write out the words “thank you” by hand, let alone specify for what they are thankful, they are hardly worthy of the effort that it took to procure the present in the first place. A likely consequence if the practice continues.

(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 son borrows my car, and when I get into it afterwards, I can’t find my sunglasses, which I leave on the dashboard. I lost two pair in the same week.

He says it is my fault because I leave them on the dash and it gets on his nerves, so he doesn’t care where he puts them. I found one pair under the passenger-side front seat.

My husband sides with my son when I get on him. It’s my fault, they say, because I don’t put them where they belong when I get out of my car. HELP!!!!

GENTLE READER: As the recipient of a favor (the loan of your car), your son should expect to make reasonable accommodation to your preferences, returning it in the condition in which he received it. That includes restoring the seat position, occasionally refilling the gas -- and putting your sunglasses back where he found them. Miss Manners would have thought that the consequences of annoying his mother would be both self-evident and worth some minor irritation.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I have a new friend, though we are not close. Her mother’s house burned down, and the friend has decided to throw a party, asking for donations from friends and acquaintances to attend, and to donate items to be auctioned.

She is a stay-at-home mom, and has recently talked of going back to work to help with expenses, but has not done so. Her kids are older; she could do it. She has not taken her mother into their home to live. She and her husband still have their membership at the country club, where the auction will be held.

I freely give what I can to a few charities each year, but I am having a really hard time with this. I feel it is inappropriate to ask friends and acquaintances to support a family member that you have not done everything possible to help yourself first. She even sent invites to my friends that are not her friends.

My husband and I have a few family members who could use help right now. And years ago, my aunt’s house burned down, and she never asked anyone for anything.

Am I crazy? I could never imagine doing what she and her husband are doing. I’d have my mom sleeping on the floor in my house if there was little room, and I’d help her as much as possible before I would ask friends and acquaintances to give money and donate items.

GENTLE READER: Indeed, self-fundraising, or what we used to call begging, has become widespread. Of course you should not be shamed into complying when you believe that your charity can be better directed.

But you raise an issue that Miss Manners believes should discourage people who do this. Ordinarily it would be none of your business how your friend lives her life -- whether she works, retains her country club membership or takes in her mother. But she has made it your business. And when donating to a cause, you are only being responsible by looking into how the charity is managed.

However, while we are being nosy, allow Miss Manners to suggest that you meant that YOU would sleep on the floor while giving your mother your bed.

(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.)