Each week, Miss Manners answers questions exclusively from the MSN audience on all of your etiquette dilemmas. (Have an issue you want help with? Send in a question today.) Read on for this week's hot topics:
DEAR MISS MANNERS,
Two close-relative wedding guests at our daughter's wedding either did not bring a gift or the card was misplaced.
Anything to do about this? We do believe that they would not come to the wedding without bringing a gift. It could be a possibility that the card was lost.
GENTLE READER,
"Why shouldn't guests have attended the wedding without bringing an offering? Wedding presents are properly sent to the bride's home before or within a year after the wedding-- one reason being exactly that they do tend to get lost at the event itself.
But Miss Manners assures you that this is not your worry. Whether and how to give presents is up to the donors, not the recipients. Should these people later ask if a present from them was received, then you can explain that it was not."
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DEAR MISS MANNERS,
For the past several years I have worked with a gentleman who I considered both a co-worker and a friend. He has invited me into his home, shared his knowledge, and generally treated me well.
A few months back, his treatment of me abruptly changed. He began ignoring emails, calls, etc., even related to work. When he did respond, his answers were snappy and rude. I asked if I had done something that upset him and he denied that I had. He indicated he was unhappy in his current circumstances and had personal problems with friends and family.
I had considered myself a friend, but felt that I was no longer considered in that manner. I have cut off all communication unless strictly business related, but I miss the banter that we had. He told me not to take it personally, but I feel that if the negative and hurtful comments were directed at me or related to my work, they are personal.
Several of my friends indicate that I should reach out to him in an attempt to regain our friendship. I don't feel that I have done anything that warranted my treatment and feel that if he wished to have a friendship or any relationship with me he would apologize for his treatment. Have I overreacted?
GENTLE READER,
"It seems to Miss Manners that the former friend who insulted you and the friends who are now advising you are all operating from the same premise: that his having unrelated problems entitles him to be rude to you.
Only their conclusions are different-- his being that you should keep your distance and theirs being that you should move closer. Yet both assume that his feelings, not yours, are what matters. They even have you wondering if it is a failing in you to want to be treated respectfully.
Hardly. It will be time enough to reconsider the friendship should the other person repent having driven you away."
Judith Martin's latest book is No Vulgar Hotel: The Desire and Pursuit of Venice. She is also the author ofMiss Manners' Guide toExcruciatingly Correct Behavior(Freshly Updated). She and her husband, a scientist and playwright, live in Washington, D.C. They have two perfect children, of course.
