DEAR MISS MANNERS: I have been, in the past, a manager in retail stores and directly involved in the hiring process. When we did not hire an applicant, the decision was often left to me to send a letter or not.

I did not send letters every time, using the excuse of time as a constraint, and I now regret not taking the time to respond to everyone.

Now I'm on the other end, looking for work, and 90 percent of the time, I do not get any response from employers. That is very annoying; I don't even know if they got my application or if the position has been filled. Let me tell you, I have the utmost respect for the ones that do respond and will not hesitate to do business with them in the future.

The hiring manager's time is NOT more important than the applicant's time. People should respect that. Please, respond to every applicant.

GENTLE READER: And please learn the very most basic lesson of etiquette, one that might have saved you the regret that Miss Manners considers you to be quite properly feeling about your treatment of others.

It is that there are other people in the universe, and that their feelings must be taken into account.

We are each born with the idea that our feelings are the only ones that matter, and with any luck are indulged in this belief for -- oh, about six weeks, which is when our parents are dropping from exhaustion. Parents who attempt to sustain this are spelling their own doom and giving their children an enormous handicap in dealing with the rest of the world.

It is sad that you had to wait until you were unemployed to imagine how a job applicant must feel about being ignored.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: Is it really proper for guests at a wedding to applaud at the conclusion of the ceremony?

I attended such a wedding, and I have seen televised ceremonies, and without exception, there was enthusiastic clapping of hands at every one. It offends me. I believed that a wedding was a solemn promise between loving people, and not a theatrical performance. Am I simply outdated?

GENTLE READER: Well, this has been going on for some time now -- a minor manifestation of the idea that everything, even a serious ceremony, is offered as entertainment and requires audience validation.

It is not that Miss Manners fails to appreciate guests showing enthusiastic support for the couple. There is ample opportunity at the reception. But she agrees that treating the ceremony (often styled as a bio-epic) as a show collecting "likes" is jarring.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: A friend who received an invitation to my birthday party for him and his wife then wrote to my husband, asking if we would also invite his female friend. We literally do not know what to say. She is an acquaintance, but no more, to us.

GENTLE READER: Did Miss Manners pick up a whiff of a suggestion that you think she is more to that husband? She hopes not. In any case, what you say is, "Oh, I'm so sorry, that's not possible, but we hope to see her on another occasion."

(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: We are American expats residing in France. Our home is bilingual: Our children speak to us in French, and we speak to them in English. It's now so automatic we don't even think about it.

Our neighbor's cousin visited us from the U.S., along with her daughter, who is our daughter's age.

While my daughter and the American girl were playing at our house, my daughter turned to me to ask me something -- I don't even recall what -- and I replied, upon which our young guest turned to me and asked (referring to my daughter), "What did she say?!"

I was taken aback and truthfully annoyed, so I replied, "I was talking to (my daughter)" and went to another room. Should I have handled it otherwise?

GENTLE READER: While you may not like the manner in which she asked, this young girl was presumably in France hoping to learn French. Asking for a translation was not unreasonable.

If the conversation was private, you should have taken pains to make it so. Or in a rare exception to the rule against holding private conversations in front of other people, replied back to your daughter in French to encourage the girl to learn. Then you could have said, nicely and with a smile, and in English, "We're hoping to encourage you to learn French and join the conversation."

DEAR MISS MANNERS: My husband and I got married last month. As we were making our rounds to each table of guests, we noticed that one of our friends "no-call no-showed." While we were surprised, we assumed something came up and didn't give it much more thought.

Then, later, we got an email from this friend saying she was sorry she could not attend, but that we should not have expected her to come without her husband.

Miss Manners, we invited this friend and her husband to the wedding. When we didn't receive an RSVP by the deadline, we followed up to ask if they had received their invitation. Our friend told us that she would attend, but that her husband would be away for work and could not make it. So, we reserved a seat for her and gave her husband's seat to someone else.

Four days before the wedding, our friend had called and said that her husband's trip had been canceled, and she asked if he could still come to the wedding. We told her that we were sorry, but we had given his seat away and we had no extra room. She said she understood and that she would see us at the wedding.

Were we in the wrong here? We don't want to lose these friends, but we're not sure how to respond to this email.

GENTLE READER: "We're so sorry for the confusion, but we were under the impression from our last conversation that you would be attending. We would have so loved to see you and Horatio, but trust that we will get another chance soon."

(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 was sent a photo of a very pregnant niece who was due in two days. The photo was shot over her head. I asked her mother if her daughter was having twins.

My sister said I was rude. I thought I was asking an honest question. Who is right?

GENTLE READER: Questions about pregnancy -- both if and how much -- are never a good idea. The penalty and embarrassment for guessing wrong, Miss Manners finds, is just too great a risk. It was still impolite of your sister/niece's mother (?) to point it out, but if she saved you from saying it directly to your niece/sister's daughter (?), then she was not wrong about the sentiment.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I'm a student, and have been for an agonizingly long time. Most of my friends are better off than I am, but have nearly always generously insisted on paying for me when we go out, waving it off as being "no trouble." They rarely want to do the things I suggest that are free or inexpensive.

While I have made up my mind to no longer go out unless I can pay for myself, something has happened that both increased my resolve and caused me to wonder about my obligations.

A few months ago, a friend of mine asked me to watch her dog and residence for her while she went out of town for a week. I've done this before for her and others, and she did offer to pay. I begged off this time because I had just returned home from a month of doing just that for two other families, but also because the last two times I have been to her house, all the guest linens were in want of a wash and her housekeeping in general is lacking (although I kept that to myself).

I've come to find out that she is very upset with me, thinking that because of the many times she has paid for me in the past, I owe her this sort of thing, and that I should probably be offering to do it for free. Moreover, she feels that because I am so often strapped for cash, I should be grabbing every job I can.

I have always thanked my friends, in person and with notes, for their generosity. I budget each year for birthday and Christmas gifts for them, and try to squeeze in an extra gift when I can, even if only homemade ones.

When I can pay for myself, I do. I have occasionally been fortunate enough to treat them to a movie and did so happily. I order from the lower or lower-middle of the menu.

In short, I try to reciprocate. I don't believe that I am obligated to be her dog sitter whenever she needs one, but maybe I am wrong. Should I be doing more?

GENTLE READER: Exactly how agonizingly long have you been a student? Never mind.

Miss Manners agrees that your friends' generosity -- however frequent -- hardly counts if it comes with demands attached. And certainly does not constitute you being an on-call dog sitter, house watcher, future au pair or indentured servant. She commends you for ceasing to accept such questionable charity.

(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.)