Orlando Sentinel

Wannabe guests won’t stop angling for party invitation­s

- Judith Martin To send a question to the Miss Manners team of Judith Martin, Nicholas Ivor Martin and Jacobina Martin, go to miss manners.com or write them c/o Universal Uclick, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.

Dear Miss Manners: My husband and I give and attend numerous dinner parties, and frequently entertain friends for weekends at our vacation home.

How do I respond to people we DON’T like who openly ask when they “can expect an invitation” to one of these events? Apparently our politeness has led these people to presume they are more appreciate­d than is true.

My usual response is “Well, we are pretty booked up for the foreseeabl­e future.” After several such instances with no invitation forthcomin­g, you would think they would understand that it is not going to happen.

Gentle reader: “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again,” appears to be their motto. Very well. The aphorism is as useful to you as it is to them.

Repeat your answer as many times as necessary. Etiquette neither requires you to issue the sought invitation nor to vary your response, though Miss Manners allows a masked, if rising, level of pique in your tone with each repetition.

Dear Miss Manners:

Every other Tuesday evening, my partner and I host six friends to play an ongoing board game. It is not a dinner party (we provide a snack and bottled drinks) but, because many come straight from work, we have let people arrive early and bring their dinner to our house.

However, several attendees have started arriving late and then ordering food for delivery. This has caused our games to end much too late for a weeknight, and the food delivery issue is disruptive.

They also have started helping themselves to plates and glasses from my cupboards, creating a large dishwashin­g task for me.

What is the correct way to request that guests be fed and ready to play by an appointed time?

Gentle reader: If you were to change the rules of the board game without consultati­on, you would expect your guests to be confused, if not upset. Why, Miss Manners wonders, do you expect a different result when changing the rules of etiquette?

The game has to start early enough that it apparently precludes a normal meal. Guests are allowed to bring food, but only if they acquire and eat it surreptiti­ously — and without disturbing any of the household implements made for the purpose.

This is not a workable invitation for either hospitalit­y or hungry stomachs. The most gracious solution would be to provide food, but if this cannot be done, then you will need either to provide the means with which to eat food, or modify the time so that guests can arrive fed.

Dear Miss Manners: A female friend and I went out nightclubb­ing one evening several weeks ago, and I drove. In the past, we have normally left to go home around 11:30 p.m. At 11:30, I told her I was ready to go.

She informed me (after four to five glasses of wine) that she was not ready to leave. Next, I told her that I was going to the car and would meet her there. Thirty minutes later, I was still waiting for her in my car. I went inside and told her that I would be leaving, and that if she wanted a ride, to please follow me to the car.

She came to the car, but started in on me, suggesting I was not acting rationally. She told me that the decision to go home should be a joint decision. I basically told her she was lucky I had not left her there and driven home.

This friend of four years has not contacted me or apologized.

Gentle reader: Your offer of a ride — and your friend’s acceptance of it — bound you both, in differing ways, as companions for the evening. She owed you the duty of a guest to be grateful and accommodat­ing; you owed her the duty of a hostess to show an interest in her comfort — and also to see her safely home.

This required compromise seems to have been lacking on both sides. But while the obligation­s may have begun the evening as more or less equal, they began to lean more heavily in your direction as your friend’s ability to stand up straight became compromise­d.

Assuming your friend was not wholly incapable of independen­t action after four or five glasses of wine, it would have been enough for you to ensure that she had an alternate way home, either by checking that she had cab fare or by asking around for an alternate chauffeur. This would, Miss Manners notes, have discharged your own obligation­s without either inconvenie­ncing you or losing you a friend.

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