DEAR MISS MANNERS: On our neighborhood app, one of my neighbors cautioned that two young men had recently knocked on her door. She could see them on the security camera and she did not know them. She thought them odd, but opened the door anyway.
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Nothing bad happened, but she felt unsettled and brought the interaction to our community’s attention.
I commented that it was fine to ignore knocking and to not open your door to strangers, adding that it is not even impolite. Another neighbor disagreed and said it was impolite. Please settle the question.
GENTLE READER: Safety — and legality — transcend etiquette’s social obligations. You do not need to be welcoming to someone who is robbing your house.
The fact that your neighbor was unsettled is enough evidence to affirm that she should not have opened the door. Trespassers of any kind need not be treated as guests, Miss Manners assures you. Even the police may not enter without a warrant.
DEAR MISS MANNERS: I have a number of food allergies. I can manage them when dining at home, and even in some restaurants, where I can choose what I can handle and request “leave-outs.” But dining at other people’s homes is a challenge.
If a host/hostess announces their menu ahead of time, and I can tell there’s nothing I can eat, what do I do? Go, but take small portions and pretend to eat, possibly asking a neighboring diner to eat what I can’t? Not go at all, even though I’d like to see them? Or tell them I’d love to come, but will need to bring my own fare, as delicious as theirs sounds?
Please help. I’m discombobulated.
GENTLE READER: Allergies (not mere preferences) are legitimate things to mention to a dinner host, even if unsolicited. The inconvenience of rearranging a menu, Miss Manners assures you, is still less than that of having to resuscitate a guest.
DEAR MISS MANNERS: While traveling abroad on a group tour, I invited three travel companions to share a bottle of wine with me, and they agreed. None of us were teetotalers.
As the waiter poured for us, one lady refused the wine and ordered a soda. Was I obligated to pay for the soda? I did, but if she had decided on a cocktail instead of the wine, what would my obligation have been?
GENTLE READER: Obligation is a strong word, but it was a reasonable presumption that you were treating your companions to a round of drinks, not just that one particular bottle of wine. That your friend deviated from the plan is less of an assault on protocol than you make it out to be.
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Paying the nominal cost for her soda — which she might have ordered for any number of reasons: a pending work call, say, or a propensity to headaches from that type of wine — was the gracious thing to do. Getting her a cocktail, if she preferred, would have likewise been kind, although the added expense might have prompted her to offer to pay.
In either case, real or imagined, Miss Manners thinks the cost of accommodating your friend’s changed mind could hardly be greater than that of hurting the friendship and maintaining a grudge.
And she trusts that they will treat you for the next round.
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.