Miss Manners^®

DEAR MISS MANNERS: Is it poor etiquette to send family members college graduation announcements for your daughter, when they have sent their children’s graduation announcements and you did not send a gift (for lack of money)?

I am sending them out because we are proud of her, not for her to receive a gift.

GENTLE READER: Did you congratulate those graduates, or did you ignore their announcements? When someone announces a happy occasion, you are supposed to offer them your good wishes.

Announcements are not invoices, as Miss Manners keeps trying to make people understand. There is no need to send presents unless you particularly want to. And you should not presume that your relatives had any different motives than the ones you claim for yourself.

But if you make no response at all, as is sadly often the case nowadays -- thinking that if you needn’t send a present, you have no other obligations -- then you have bought into the idea that announcements are made only for material gain. In that case, it would be disingenuous for you to send them.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I am lucky enough to be one of a group of women who get together monthly to share conversation and a meal.

When we meet at my house, I enjoy setting a nice table, and I use cloth napkins: some new, and some inherited from my mother, grandmother and even great-grandmother. More than once, however, I have had a guest say, “Oh, we need napkins,” and rush off to the kitchen. When they can’t find paper ones, they tear off a number of paper towels to bring to the table.

This is more than a little aggravating. While I don’t want to correct a guest, I have found myself saying, “Look, napkins, right by your plates.” At which point they tell me they don’t want to get those nice napkins dirty.

Occasionally, I have countered that the napkins have been around for several generations, so there’s probably not a stain they haven’t survived quite nicely. I’ve also pointed out how ecologically sound cloth napkins are. However, after dinner is over, I collect a lot of wadded-up, rather nasty paper towels, and an unused set of napkins.

Is there a way, short of hiding the paper towels, to make guests use my napkins, which exist solely to become dirty? Or should I resign myself to the seemingly inevitable and set a paper towel roll on the table?

GENTLE READER: The galling part is that they think they are doing you a favor by sabotaging your arrangements. And that even by defying your expressly stated wishes, they are being both modest and considerate.

“Oh, don’t make yourself into a drudge by trying to impress us,” they are, in effect, saying. And incidentally, they are defending themselves against presumed charges of running less fastidious households.

As these ladies come often, Miss Manners authorizes you to be more explicit. “I’m sorry if you don’t approve of the way I do things,” you could say. “It gives me pleasure to use my nice things, and I hope you will indulge me. It doesn’t mean that I can’t appreciate other ways of doing things.”

(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 a 38-year-old woman, never married. Since my mother’s passing a few years ago, my perspective has changed. Specifically, I prefer to focus more on my relationships and less on my career. I would like, more than anything, to have a family of my own.

I have been dating a younger man (seven years younger) for a year. Luke and his family are native to our city, while I am not. He eats dinner with his parents -- at their invitation and expense -- most Fridays and every Sunday. Except for a handful of occasions such as my boyfriend’s birthday and New Year’s Day, I am not invited.

Because my time in this town has been largely as a nontraditional law student and then as a woman with limited means seeking gainful employment, I haven’t made many friends. As a result of this, and my boyfriend’s dinners with his parents, I often spend both Friday and Sunday nights alone, which makes me incredibly sad.

I have mentioned this to my boyfriend, and his response is that “there is sort of an open invitation,” but when the end of the week rolls around, he never offers a dinner with his parents as an option. We have had several arguments about this.

Although I was employed at the same law office as his father for a year and we (in theory) have shared interests, his parents have never reached out to me personally to extend an invite. This Christmas, my younger brother drove up from another state to spend Christmas with me. We spent Christmas Eve and Christmas Day alone while Luke celebrated with his parents, at their home, on both days ... and they live just 10 minutes away. I thought this was particularly cruel.

I have struggled with feelings of being “orphaned,” because without my mother, I feel essentially alone (my father is destructive and not really in the picture). I had been so optimistic upon beginning my relationship with Luke that I would be warmly received by his family, but it has been quite the opposite. I am a good person, and I can’t understand this.

Which party, if any, is at fault here? Is there anything I can do to be included in these weekly outings? I have developed serious resentment towards both Luke and his parents.

GENTLE READER: It seems to Miss Manners that your wish to start a family is not aligned with your gentleman friend’s desire to make you part of his. Sadly, this does not bode well for the longevity of the relationship.

From a manners perspective, an open invitation is a tricky concept. But if you would like to challenge it, you could ask directly about a specific night. You could also invite the family to your house for a meal. Unfortunately, however, if the answer to either of these options is anything less than a firm plan, it might be time to move on -- and make new friends in this city.

(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 a 13-year-old boy, and I’m bisexual. I don’t know how to tell my parents, although I think they might think that I’m gay (because of how I act and my obsession with nail polish). But I’m still very nervous to tell them.

I feel like if I do come out, they would accept it, but the topic is very awkward when I’m talking about it with my siblings. I already told my friends, but how should I tell my parents, family members and my parents’ friends?

GENTLE READER: Many a child has learned the effectiveness of scaring parents into thinking their impending news is going to be much more drastic than it is: “I’m pregnant! Just kidding, I failed biology.”

While there might be a temptation to oversell in the name of lessening the impact, Miss Manners cautions you against such theatrics. Tell your family members privately and simply, without apology or forecasting a negative response. Politely and patiently answer their questions and correct misconceptions, doing your best not to betray any annoyance.

And if all else fails? Skywriting.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I work as a property manager and I speak on the phone with dozens of people every day: tenants, prospective tenants, vendors and other employees of the company I work for.

It has been bothering me lately when people I am on the phone with will not hang up without a proper valediction. Before hanging up, some will just say “OK” or “thanks.”

Our regional accountant does that to me, and I feel it is rude. Sometimes prospects who called to ask questions about the property will just hang up when I am in the middle of talking.

The last time this happened, someone asked me how much the apartment rates were. I assume they hung up because the rates was too pricey for them, but I would have thought the polite way to respond would have been “Oh, that’s over my budget, but thank you for the information” followed by a “goodbye.”

I’ve been getting so fed up with this behavior from multiple people lately that I’ve considered calling back the people who hang up on me to say something along the lines of, “I’m so sorry, I think something happened to the phones, as I was talking and suddenly the phone line cut off.”

Is this just the new norm to end phone conversations, and I’m just being petty? Or do I have a real reason to be miffed?

GENTLE READER: You are justified in your miff-dom, and Miss Manners finds your proposed solution to be a polite and likely effective one. But it is also within the parameters of your job to talk to co-workers directly about their rudeness, particularly if they represent the company. “Isn’t it awful how customers just abruptly hang up on us? We should lead by example on this, and not do the same” would give them the benefit of the doubt, without placing any direct blame.

(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.)