Hosts, guests should make reasonable attempts to fulfill obligations

Dear Miss Manners: When is it allowed for a guest to bring his or her own food or drink to another house? This is in situations where there is no medical issue or allergy involved.

For example, one is visiting one’s aunt. She offers tea, but does not have your favorite artificial sweetener. Is it OK to pull a couple of packets of sweetener out of your purse?

Or one is on a diet and visiting a friend. Is it allowed to bring one’s own low-calorie, low-fat snacks and produce them when the host offers refreshment?

Or there is an invitation to dinner, but it is possible that the hosts are not aware that one is following a low-carb, gluten-free diet (not a medical need, just a desire to follow this particular diet). How much food can one bring? And does one need to bring enough to feed all the other guests, or just oneself ?

Gentle Reader: Alas. Miss Manners is reluctant to open up these floodgates by providing solutions to any of your situations — particularly when it comes to satisfying the changing “needs” of fad, fleeting diets (speaking of floodgates, which are sure to open up at that statement).

It is never polite to offend your hosts with the implication that (in nonallergic or medical situations) your own food is better and healthier for you than anything that they might provide.

Nevertheless, in the name of limiting those angry protests, here are some alternatives to what you propose:

If you want to provide your own packets of artificial sweetener, you may do so, but only if you say something like, “Oh, I’m watching my sugar intake and these new sweeteners are wonderful. Perhaps you would like to try one.” But then you must be prepared for whatever lecture your aunt might have about their more serious ramifications, relative to sugar.

It is rude to produce your own snacks when offered refreshment. If there is absolutely nothing you can eat, you may politely abstain. Fill up before you get there.

And no, you may not bring your own unauthorized food, particularly only for yourself, to a prepared dinner party. You are permitted one attempt to offer to bring one item to share with all of the guests, but if it is declined, you must adhere.

How any modern host could possibly account for every single guest’s tastes, diets, preferences, medical needs and allergies in this age is beyond Miss Manners. She only asks that they make a reasonable attempt to fulfill the latter two categories, and that guests make their own reasonable attempts to eat something on their plate and not complain.

Dear Miss Manners: When I saw one of my good and longtime friends at a party at another friend’s house the other day, she informed me that she was not inviting us to her forthcoming get-together. She explained she is cooking fish and that we are vegetarians.

She also informed me that some other common friends were invited. I know that the spouse of one is also a vegetarian, so being vegetarian was not the reason. She also knew that we were busy and would not have been able to come anyway.

I can’t understand why she would make a point of telling me that we were not invited. I find this very rude, and I am upset. Should I be?

Gentle Reader: Rather than flattered at being told, “Nyah, nyah, you’re not invited”?

Miss Manners is upset, too, at the emergence of the negative invitation — often bridal couples telling people they will not be invited to the wedding — and she doesn’t even know your friend.

Nevertheless, she suggests you focus on the larger issues — that you have not been excluded from anything you could have attended; that your awkward friend presumably does not want you to feel left out — and ignore the smaller ones: that some carnivores are married to vegetarians and that guests should not be excluded merely because they cannot eat everything on their plates.

Dear Miss Manners: We invited three couples to dinner for our 30th anniversary. Are we obligated to pay the entire bill?

Gentle Reader: You are obligated to notify them in advance whether you are actually inviting them, in which case you do not charge, or offering them an opportunity to buy your company.