MISS MANNERS: Hostess wants guests off her bed

DEAR MISS MANNERS: My husband and I live in a studio flat, so , as you can imagine, our bed is out in the open. It’s next to the kitchen and at a good angle for people to watch TV. We also have enough chairs for people to sit on and a very comfortable couch, all of these at good angles for people to make conversation and watch TV.

My parents always taught me to never enter someone’s bedroom without permission and never to sit/lie on someone else’s bed, especially couple’s beds (though it was normal for me sit on my friends’ beds during my childhood/teenage years, and the other way around).

But now that I am a married woman, for me, our bed is almost a sacred place. And just because it is in the same room as everything else, that doesn’t justify people using it when there are other comfortable places to sit down.

Is it just me? And how can I address this with my husband’s and my own friends?

GENTLE READER: Without making a laughingstock out of yourselves?

You can’t.

Your marriage is sacred, your privacy is sacred, but your bed is a piece of furniture right there in the room in which you also entertain guests.

Miss Manners supposes you can park serving trays on the bed, if using it as a table doesn’t violate its sacredness. Or you can keep saying, “I think you’ll be more comfortable over there.” But she begs you not to address your friends with your reasoning. You will never hear the end of it.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: Is it impolite to leave one of anything, such as one Oreo, or should you just finish the package and throw away?

GENTLE READER: Have you never heard the expression that was once routinely taught to children to discourage them from taking the last of anything?

It was “Leave something for Miss Manners.”

But never mind. Miss Manners is trying to stay away from cookies and does not begrudge your having that last one.

Unless, of course, you are sneaking into someone else’s cupboard. Because if it is your own cupboard, you can do what you like, and if you are being offered cookies elsewhere, they should be on a plate, not in the package.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: Is there protocol around whether someone should wait to announce their wedding date (when newly engaged) if a friend had announced their engagement six months before, but has not yet announced their wedding date?

GENTLE READER: Is this a competition?

That unpleasant suspicion arises because Miss Manners has received letters in which weddings are presumed to be staged in even fairly remote proximity in order to detract from other weddings.

She would prefer to believe that you are asking about a situation in which the bridal couples, being friends, are hoping to schedule things so that they can attend one another’s weddings. In that case, and if the timing is somewhat flexible, it would only be necessary to talk over the respective dates under consideration.