DEAR MISS MANNERS: Our group of friends is about 15 people large. We have known each other for over three decades.
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At the opposite end of the group is a couple that we only see when the entire group gets together.
We like to entertain and have invited this couple for years. They have never accepted our invitations, though they accept invitations from others in the group. In some cases they RSVP “no,” and other times they do not reply at all.
Finally, we hosted a party and decided not to invite them. The entire group got together a few days before our party, and several people were talking about how much they were looking forward to it — not realizing that two people present didn’t get an invitation.
Suddenly I felt like we did the wrong thing by not inviting them. On one hand, I thought perhaps there’s no harm in sending an invite if you know they won’t come anyway. On the other hand, we have finite space, we’re buying food and supplies, and I’d rather invite people I know will come.
Part of me also feels that you don’t get the courtesy of an invitation if you never show or if you repeatedly fail to RSVP.
GENTLE READER: Listen to that latter part of you.
Miss Manners assures you that the repeated offense of not answering an invitation justifies not getting another one.
She further suggests you use caution with the excuse that they will not come anyway if you invite them. Too many wedding hosts rely on that logic and suffer the consequences when they guess wrong.
Had the couple or someone else in that pre-party gathering pointed out the omission — or if the tension was palpable enough — you might have said, “Lacey and Doug, you never seem to be able to attend our parties, so I didn’t want to burden you with an invitation.” It sounds as if it did not come to that, but it is there for the taking if it does.
DEAR MISS MANNERS: What’s the polite, kind thing to do when one must miss a funeral for reasons such as illness or injury?
My aunt’s mother just passed away, and the funeral is in a few days. However, I’ve come down with a bad cold and, in the interest of not making others sick, I plan not to attend unless I recover far faster than expected.
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Dear Abby: My own kids tell me I need to ‘get over’ my bad childhood. It doesn’t work like that.
I want my aunt to know that I care enough to attend, but I don’t want to make this about me. Is a text appropriate? A note after the funeral?
GENTLE READER: Assuming that you have already written a condolence letter, a phone call would be more personal than a text — and more polite than a note afterwards, when everyone will have wondered where you were.
“I am so sorry that I won’t be able to attend, but I’m afraid I have a dreadful cold and I don’t want anyone to catch it,” you might say. It goes without saying, Miss Manners hopes, that you avoid using hyperbole (e.g., “I’m feeling deathly ill”) for obvious reasons.
Please send your questions to Miss Manners at her website, www.missmanners.com; to her email, [email protected]; or through postal mail to Miss Manners, Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.