You Clearly Did The Right Thing

Dear Miss Manners: My sister’s husband’s brother told me that I was invited to join a group of middle-aged businessmen for some drinks in a local bar. (I am a 25-year-old single woman.) I had met them once before through him, but on this particular evening he could not join us. The businessmen had enjoyed my company and wanted me to attend anyway.

I reluctantly agreed, but only after asking my sister and her husband to join me, so as not to walk into a group of men alone. After about an hour or two, I was comfortable with the situation and they left, while I stayed a while longer.

These men insisted on picking up the check, even though we said we would pay for our own. The evening went very well, but the next day my sister’s husband’s brother called to say that to invite my sister and his brother was rude and distasteful, because the men had not invited them.

He wasn’t even there, and I completely disagree with him.

Gentle Reader: Miss Manners wasn’t there, either, but she is even more indignant with him than you are.

Does he really think it more proper for a young lady to go alone to join a group of gentlemen she hardly knows in a public bar than to appear under the chaperonage of her relatives?

Goodness gracious. Please tell him that Miss Manners is inviting him out of the etiquette business. She finds that you handled the situation with grace, tact and, above all, propriety.

Dear Miss Manners: When I am walking down the long corridor at my office, I don’t know the polite thing to do when I see people working at their desks in the individual offices on both sides.

Should I keep my eyes forward? If I do look at them and they look up at me, is a greeting required?

When I am the one in my office and someone passes in the hall, six feet or so away, am I required to look up and return a greeting?

My inclination is not to look in without an invitation, and I would rather not have to look up and wave and smile at someone when I need to be working.

Gentle Reader: Why it is that people always know when someone is looking at them, Miss Manners has never known. For safety reasons, she refrains from doing the classic experiment, which is to stare from cars at drivers, who will immediately snap around and look back.

But they do, and, as you say, these people are trying to work. It is therefore not a good idea to make a royal progress down that corridor, arresting people’s attention and then waving at them. However, should you accidentally catch someone’s eye, a half-smile and a nod acknowledges their existence with minimal disturbance.

Dear Miss Manners: Our seven children gave us a beautiful catered 40th anniversary party, and all our relatives - my husband has three brothers and I have five sisters and one brother - came. Now they want to give us a 50th party.

I say it is in bad taste to have two such parties and have all the same people show up. Not one of our nieces or nephews have given anyone else a party, although they are grown and have the money.

Gentle Reader: Have the party. Miss Manners’ rule is that adults get three all-out parties per half-century - say the 60th and 75th birthdays, or the 50th and 60th anniversaries - and as many smaller gatherings for which their intimates have the enthusiasm.

She’s going to count your 40th and 50th anniversaries for your first half-century, so you can have a 60th and a 75th as well.

Whether this seems to show up your siblings’ children is not for you to ponder. Miss Manners prefers to believe that they enjoy these family gatherings all the more because they are the only ones.

The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Judith Martin United Features Syndicate