DEAR MISS MANNERS: I am very pleased to see that the bouquet toss is omitted at many weddings these days. Although movies and TV shows depict eager young women joyously jostling to catch the bouquet, I've seldom seen that in real life. In fact, unmarried women often must be coaxed to sheepishly participate in the ritual.

I'm a 57-year-old widow of two years. At one wedding, a bridesmaid had the effrontery to try to recruit me to join the bouquet-catching crowd. I said "no" and she said they really needed more people and called another bridesmaid to help physically pull me onto the dance floor.

I told her that she was being very disrespectful and that no one had better grab me, as I was wearing shoes that might be very painful if I should accidentally kick someone while defending myself. She was stunned. The story passed around the wedding reception, with several people saying I was being a bad sport and others saying that trying to push a widow into the activity was in poor taste.

The bride, my lovely and loyal niece, told everyone that both she and I were sad that my late husband wasn't there and that reminding me through highlighting my single state was unkind.

GENTLE READER: Dragging anyone -- widow or not -- into participating in a party activity is an assault on dignity and good manners, and, from your description, a literal one on your person as well. Miss Manners congratulates your niece on finding a diplomatic way to bring the situation under control without publicly taking sides. If necessary, the bridesmaid could have been moved to a private corner where she could be told to cease and desist.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: My husband combines food on his fork and then rubs it around in a circular motion on his dish. His dinner dish is also very messy. Is it OK to combine food on a fork, i.e. meat and potatoes? How can I express to him that rubbing the food around in whatever sauce is on the plate is not acceptable?

GENTLE READER: As with much of etiquette, the extent of the infraction depends not merely on the activity but on its intensity. Dipping a piece of meat into the sauce is not impolite; grinding it in until one can hear the tongs scraping against the china, is. Spearing a stray pea along with the carrots is not impolite; using your fingers to press the entire meal onto the tongs at once, is.

You might suggest to your husband that his activities are garnering unflattering attention and you would appreciate it if he took a more subtle approach. Wait until you next entertain so that you can do this after the guests go home. You can then leave to his imagination just who it is who is considering applying a fork to his person if he does not modify his eating habits.

(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: Who should receive a thank-you note for having attended a wake and/or a funeral?

GENTLE READER: As the person to whom respects are being paid is not in a position to write, no such letter is necessary. Miss Manners notes that the bereaved have quite enough to do in thanking those who have been kind to them by writing letters, bringing meals or otherwise being useful.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I invited a friend and her husband to dinner after my husband and I had been to a lovely dinner at their home. My note said how much we'd love to have them join us and, being aware that she is always exceptionally busy, I asked her to let us know what their availability was in the next couple of weeks so we would be able to find an agreeable date for the event.

I had expected a response something like "next week is filled, but we are free Wednesday and Friday the next." Several weeks went by and I received no response at all to this inquiry, and was a little perplexed because I heard from her on other matters via text, phone and email.

I then invited her to join me for lunch and she did respond, so we had a nice lunch at a restaurant. During the meal, I asked her if she'd gotten our invitation to dinner. She responded that she had received it but had not replied because my inquiry said, "let us know your availability in the next couple of weeks." She did not say it exactly, but the implication was that this was not a real invitation and so she chose not to respond.

Was I in error in my invitation? Should I have picked an exact date only to have her respond, as I know she would have, "Oh dear, we are busy on that date"? I was just trying to be considerate of their schedules and had hoped to avoid the endless back-and-forth of choosing dates that didn't work for her.

Shouldn't she at least have responded? I felt hurt that my invitation to come to dinner at my home didn't deserve even a simple phone call or email to say, "We'd love to come but would prefer that you pick the date." Now I don't really feel like inviting them at all. Your thoughts?

GENTLE READER: That your friend interpreted your invitation as the often used, "We must get together sometime," which is generally understood to mean "or maybe never." And that she did not feel obliged to hand over her entire date book.

Miss Manners realizes that you meant only to defer to your friend's schedule, but neither does she feel that the lack of response was intended as a snub. Please try again, volunteering your availability ("We would be delighted if you could come to us -- is the 18th or the 24th possible?") instead of asking for theirs.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: My 25-year-old daughter seems to think that since this isn't her home, she shouldn't have to clean the house. Any part of it.

GENTLE READER: Ask her, then, where exactly her home is. And whether she would kindly let you stay there.

(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 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.)