DEAR MISS MANNERS: I’m 62 and have been divorced for 26 years. I’ve been dating the love of my life for 15 years -- obviously not in a hurry to tie the knot, though I gave her a beautiful engagement ring over the summer.

A couple of times in conversations with other people while my fiancee is present, I have told an amusing story (different each time) that involved my ex-wife or a past girlfriend. My fiancee later tells me that that was rude and it offended her.

I have since been quite careful never to go there. Until yesterday.

While we were eating at the bar of a casual restaurant, I struck up a conversation with the couple next to me. The gentleman stated he was from a neighborhood I was familiar with. I then proceeded to tell him that 22 years ago, I played a humorous prank on my child on the way over to my then-girlfriend’s house in that same neighborhood (it involved the geography of that neighborhood). I’m a social drinker and was having fun making the couple laugh.

Needless to say, I caught heck on the drive home for mentioning an ex-girlfriend. I told her she was being childish and that it’s history -- adding, however, that because it offends her, it’ll never happen again. In my head, I’ll just have to think really hard and use generic terms like “friend.” I’ve just never had to analyze anything before I say it. I’m not purposely being rude.

Is she oversensitive? I told her even if, in your opinion, she’s wrong, I will still never go there.

GENTLE READER: The only relevant rule here is: Don’t annoy your fiancee. Not that Miss Manners fails to understand what a pleasure it would be to tell the lady that she is wrong, but that you are humoring her anyway.

Can you imagine how complicated it would be to have a rule about whom one can and cannot mention from one’s past? (Still, and between us, Miss Manners does think it odd for people in midlife to pretend they had no pasts, even benign ones.)

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I was enjoying a bowl of soup at home recently, and I remembered what I believe to be your advice about using the side of the spoon. However, this particular soup contained rice and small meatballs. In delivering the meatball to my mouth using the side of the spoon, I slurped the liquid.

As my primary goals were to deliver the soup without spilling or slurping, I delivered the next meatball by itself with no liquid using the tip of my oval spoon. Is this the correct method when a soup contains morsels of solid food?

GENTLE READER: Why does Miss Manners have the feeling that she is being blackmailed? That you are suggesting that if she doesn’t lift the rule, there will be soup all over the tablecloth?

Neatness first, if she must choose. But you really ought to ask the cook to make smaller meatballs.

(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: 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.)