Delicate Suggestion Good Idea

Dear Miss Manners: As my girlfriend and I visited the first bed and breakfast on our weekend search for a place to spend our summer vacation, I noticed a sharp pain in my stomach. At the second bed and breakfast, the concierge pointed me to the nearest public restroom, a unisex one-stall facility.

I must emphasize that I was in dire need of relief.

As there was inadequate ventilation, I became concerned about the next person waiting to use this facility. As it would happen, a lady walked toward it while I was closing the door to leave. I made a hasty comment that she may want to wait a moment before entering.

She ignored my gentle suggestion and opened the restroom door. Having experienced what I warned her about, she rushed out in obvious discomfort toward her friends.

When I reported my embarrassing experience to my girlfriend, she got angry at me for making such a comment to this lady. I felt I was being polite by suggesting that she wait. How could I have made this situation a more comfortable one for all parties involved?

Gentle Reader: By not telling your girlfriend what had happened.

But this was merely a tactical mistake. Miss Manners agrees that you said what you did delicately, and with the polite intention of sparing someone else the unfortunate but unavoidable consequences of your trouble.

The disgusting act here is the one committed by the other lady, in dramatizing and therefore broadcasting the situation. She may not have fully understood your attempt to spare her feelings, but she made none to spare yours.

How your girlfriend concluded from this that you were the offensive party, Miss Manners cannot imagine. Make that: “How your girlfriend concluded from this that you were the deliberately offensive party…” Dear Miss Manners: When I periodically invite friends to join me for outings, dinners, etc., I frequently do not speak directly to the individuals I am inviting, but leave messages on their answering machines. At what time should I assume silence means “no” and invite someone else instead?

I want to be fair and give people time to respond, but I don’t like giving the next invitee no notice - i.e., “Do you want to go the ballet tonight?” Neither do I like letting tickets go to waste.

Is it unreasonable to expect a reply indicating either yes or no? And what does one do about “friends” who repeatedly fail to return calls?

Gentle Reader: Miss Manners has a policy of giving people the benefit of the doubt, and doesn’t in the least mind blaming innocent machines in order to do this. She always assumes that an ignored invitation is the result of a mechanical malfunction, rather than a manners one.

But she has an increasingly hard time maintaining this fiction. Machines seem to be improving at the same rate that people are getting worse.

Nevertheless, the polite assumption could be that the invitation was not received, so there is no harm in inviting someone else. Should you get a last-minute acceptance, you could protest, “But I hadn’t heard from you, so I went ahead and made other plans,” provided you use a tone of flustered apology, rather than a censorious one.

But it might be less emotionally strenuous simply to make a second call. If you get the actual person, you can repeat the invitation and ask for an answer; if you get a machine, you can leave the benefit-of-the-doubt message: “I left a message before, but you must be away, so it’s too late for getting together on the 17th - but do call me when you get back.”

Judith Martin is the author of “Miss Manners on Painfully Proper Weddings” (Crown).