DEAR MISS MANNERS: My boyfriend’s friend and I have been social media friends for years. He has recently become engaged, so I wanted to message him about getting together with him and his new fiancee.

However, I discovered he has deleted me as a friend. I’m ordinarily not affected by such things. In this case, however, I am quite hurt. I really liked my boyfriend’s friend, and I am not sure what happened. Should I leave things as they are or have my boyfriend ask?

GENTLE READER: The etiquette around “unfriending” is still evolving, a process impeded both by the nomenclature and the indirectness of the interaction.

It can mean anything from a deliberate slap across the face to an inattentive address book edit. On some platforms, it may not even be a deliberate act, but one initiated by a computer doing its own spring cleaning.

In cases where intent is unclear, etiquette, as a rule, adopts the least insulting interpretation possible -- a reasonable, if un-modern, approach. Miss Manners therefore sees nothing wrong with expressing your good wishes and invitation through other means, be it a handwritten note or a willing boyfriend.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I am the office manager at a small company, and usually when an employee has a close loved one pass away, my boss tells me to order flowers and send them to the funeral home.

However, in the past year, my grandma and my mother-in-law both passed away and my boss told me, both times, to order flowers and send them to the funeral home.

Is that appropriate? I didn’t do it either time (he didn’t notice) because I feel like it would be sending condolences to myself and because he should have sent the flowers himself. Hopefully you can clarify what the appropriate action would be for me and for my boss in case it happens again.

GENTLE READER: Prior to the deaths in your own family, Miss Manners finds nothing wrong with your boss staffing out the flower assignments. His condolences were being sent on behalf of the company, rather than in a personal capacity, and are therefore a legitimate staff activity.

She agrees, however, that this does not extend as far as asking you to, as you say, buy flowers for yourself. He could have approached a different staff member with the task, but the gracious thing would have been to do it himself. As he had already failed in his presumed intention of making you feel that the company was interested in your well-being, you can be excused for ignoring this particular order.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: If invited to a potluck function and asked to bring a dish, do I still bring a dish although I replied yes, but have since changed my mind about going?

GENTLE READER: It is rude to withdraw an acceptance to be a dinner guest, and also one to help cater the meal. So if you don’t attend but still send the dish, Miss Manners will count only one rudeness against you.

(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: There is a strange phenomenon that occurs with my wife, mother-in-law and sister-in-law: When we go out for meals together, my father-in-law, brother-in-law or I will hold the door of the restaurant open to allow the ladies to enter the building ahead of us. Inevitably --and it happens no matter the combination of couples -- the ladies will come to a complete stop immediately upon crossing the threshold, rather than moving to either side.

This prevents us from moving around them in order to get in front of them. I am assuming they stop because they want us to lead them. In reality, this makes us try to squeeze around them somehow. Quite often it creates a backup of other patrons, who are also trying to enter the building.

These scenes can sometimes be frustrating and embarrassing, as if this is our first time out in public. How can I address this with the most important women in my life without being insulting?

GENTLE READER: Ah, yes, Miss Manners has met these ladies. They are the ones who stand at the top or bottom of the escalator after they get off. They don’t realize what they are doing until the bodies pile up behind them.

But they are your relatives, and should not take it amiss if you gently take their elbows and steer them clear.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: Perhaps you could outline the proper procedures and reasons for a “Prom Champagne Party.”

I agreed to help a friend, who is planning this event for her 17-year-old daughter and her daughter’s boyfriend. It seems to me something of a coming-out party for the girl, who didn’t participate in a debutante ball.

I can tell that my friend has definite ideas about what she wants, and it seems now that the boy’s parents (a single mother, and a re-married father) are retreating quickly. Where they once were agreeable to splitting costs of food, rentals and limos, they now seem more interested in cutting costs and doing everything on the cheap, or so my friend says.

She doesn’t have much experience doing this sort of thing. My issue is that I don’t want to have to listen to her complain about how cheap the boy’s parents are and how the stepmother is probably influencing how much the father will pay.

I thought the rules were like a wedding: The girl’s family gets to absorb the costs. I don’t want this to end in sour grapes.

GENTLE READER: Grapes should not be involved. A champagne party for a 17-year-old girl is dangerous, if not also illegal.

There are no rules about splitting the cost of a lavish party for a couple who are merely prom dates, because the whole idea is outlandish. But if people agree to entertain together, then both must approve the plans and the expenses.

You have already seen how distasteful it is of your friend to dictate the arrangements and squeeze the other couple to pay. If Miss Manners were you, she would be looking for a way to back out of this unfortunate situation.

(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: If I, as a female, walk out the door first, am I supposed to hold it for the male following me?

GENTLE READER: Yes. We have revoked the custom by which a lady could let it slam in a gentleman’s face.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: My late mother rescued a lot of family things as elderly relatives died off. I have inherited her hodgepodge collection of family silver, stretching from the mid-1800s to the 1940s.

There’s quite a bit -- mostly sterling -- but to make complete place settings, I have to pull from the sets of different (but related) households, each of which had its own pattern. Most of it is monogrammed, so I’m able to tell that the dinner forks came from my great-great-grandparents, while the spoons came from a great-aunt.

Luckily, some of the younger generation would like to have it, and actually prefer a mixture of patterns. As I sort through it all, it makes me wonder what the thought process was: What was supposed to happen to the previous generation’s silver and china, especially if it’s monogrammed, if each child acquired their own sets and patterns when their household was established?

For instance, I have pieces from my great-great-grandparents and three of their six children -- all different. Planned obsolescence doesn’t seem right, considering how much it cost. Truly, if I had inherited the complete silver service for each household, I’m pretty sure I could host a state dinner and still have forks left over to replace the ones that dropped on the floor.

When this tradition began, did they not foresee a tsunami of silver a few generations down the road, or was it planned to be sold when the original owners died? And who would buy it, if it’s not their initials? If my small-town, modestly wealthy family had this much silver, I can only imagine how much must be sloshing around the attics of the really well-to-do.

GENTLE READER: You are fortunate to have not only ancestors, but also descendants who appreciate table silver. The latter are especially rare these days.

As British snobs would say, “You are not the sort of people who (sneer) buy their silver.” Mixed monograms were valued as evidence of that.

Some in the family obviously did buy, because one set of parents could produce more than one child, and every household needs to eat. The problem then would not have been a surplus, but supplying the new couples: If three of your great-great-grandparents’ children inherited silver (and grandchildren were more likely to inherit than children, whose parents might still be using theirs), new sets were needed for the other three.

Miss Manners suspects that your accumulation of orphaned silver may have less to do with a shortage of heirs than with a shortage of people to polish silver. It is probably not a coincidence that your silver was not increased after 1940, under wartime austerity and subsequent informality.

In any case, she is delighted to hear that you and your younger relatives appreciate the charm of that hodgepodge.

(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.)