Acquaintances asking where invite went

DEAR MISS MANNERS: Occasionally I encounter someone I haven’t seen or heard from in a long time — since before I was engaged. A co-worker from a past job, a former high school or college classmate, an ex-girlfriend of my brother. These people have asked me why I did not invite them to my wedding.

I am puzzled, because they never responded to any of my previous attempts to stay in contact : holiday cards sent to their families, lunch or party invitations extended through mutual friends, phone calls and social media messages that they never returned.

I assumed we had simply parted ways. They apparently expected me to send a wedding invitation, yet they showed no interest in continuing our friendship. Why do they feel it was appropriate to be at the wedding?

GENTLE READER: Are you asking Miss Manners why people like to feel included? Even when they rarely make a social effort themselves? Human nature is a contradictory, if predictable, condition.

However, Miss Manners notices that only one of your methods of communication to your former friends was an actual invitation: Holiday cards do not require a reply; invitations through mutual friends are vague at best; and social media messages — surely you are familiar with how those generally go.

Perhaps your friends thought a formal answer to casual invitations was not necessary. And had they received a written invitation, they might have risen to the occasion.

Probably not. But weddings seem to be one of the few social events taken at least mildly seriously — and past relationships, no matter how distant, expect to be acknowledged.

Miss Manners does not condone your friends for chastising you. Rather, she bemoans the casual way invitations are treated in general.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: My husband says any thankyou note is fine. I think a thank-you note should detail the gift given. When I was a kid, my mom made me tell the person “thank you” for what they had sent.

Please help me prove my husband wrong.

GENTLE READER: If all it took was a generic thankyou note, you would merely have to sign your name on the inside of those horrid pre-printed ones.

If recipients of presents cannot be bothered to write out “thank you” by hand, let alone specify for what they are thankful, they are hardly worthy of the effort that it took to procure the present in the first place.

Submit your etiquette questions to Miss Manners at dearmissmanners@gmail. com.