Church chat becomes invasive interview

DEAR MISS MANNERS: A couple who recently assumed a leadership role at my church announced that they wanted to become better acquainted with the families of the congregation. They scheduled 30-minute chats with individual families before and after church services.

They interviewed my husband and me using a prepared script of six pages, which included questions about our marriage, our psychological states and our disabled adult child.

I felt almost as if I had gone to a physician’s office and undergone an unwarranted exam. I also felt deceived since I was expecting a conversation.

This couple used their church status to obtain information that wasn’t their business.

The wife now approaches me after services and tries to converse about my interests or activities that were revealed during the interview. I am polite, but distant.

How do I make her understand that I would prefer her to leave me alone? I am not angry with her, but I do not care to have these conversations.

GENTLE READER: If you will forgive Miss Manners for contradicting you, you are angry at having been interrogated. But as you willingly cooperated up to this point, the couple is going to be perplexed if you give them the cold shoulder now.

You are left with two alternatives. The first: Each time you are approached, you can apologize and explain that you cannot talk now. The second option is to write a letter clarifying that since the interview was both more formal and more personal than you had expected, you trust that any information shared will be held in the strictest confidence.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: My husband and I have been married many years and have two grown children. If we all go out to dinner together, we pay most of the time. The kids always make a point of saying “Thanks, DAD.”

If I cook a meal at home for the family, I may or may not receive a “thank you” from these same adult children. What gives, and should I say something about it?

GENTLE READER: It is worth allowing for the possibility that they are saying, “Thanks, Dad” rather than “Thanks, DAD.”

The former could be unthinking habit, perhaps because your husband is the one physically making the payment. And thanks for cooking more often takes the form of a compliment on the results.

Miss Manners does not therefore approve the status quo. Gratitude is due for both activities.