DEAR MISS MANNERS: My wife was out of town for two weeks with her mother. I invited several male friends to visit - mostly men in the same line of work.
All invitations were made in person or by phone, for Monday night, 6 o'clock, for a cookout, some pool in the pool room, some poker, maybe a video. I laid in steaks, deli food, drinks, the works.Six o'clock comes and goes. Likewise 7, then 8. The dog and I eat steak and watch TV. No one shows. I don't have B.O., so that's not it.
A couple of days later, one of my best friends said, "Oh, you never called back."
Am I suppose to reconfirm? Am I missing something?
GENTLE READER: You seem to have missed the demise of guest manners; the mere offer of hospitality no longer suggests to people that they are under any obligation to cooperate.
As this outrageously selfish notion has been around for some time now - making havoc out of social life and disgusting many otherwise sociable people to the point where they refuse to do any non-business-sponsored entertaining - Miss Manners is intrigued that you had been hitherto protected from it.
Is it possible that in your circle, the wives, retaining the once prevalent idea that social life was their special obligation, had been covering for the husbands' bad manners?
Notice how someone you call a best friend has neatly managed to blame you for this failure. He is trying to suggest that all the obligations are on the host's side, including that of nagging the guests into attending.
Others may tell you that the event sounded so "casual" that they didn't think you would care if they showed up or not. This is a bogus argument. Miss Manners assures you that if the event had been anything but casual - had it been your daughter's wedding - the same people would have argued that it was so grand an event that they figured you never would have noticed if they had attended or not.
But do not allow yourself to be bullied into accepting this callousness as a standard. Anybody who tries to tell you that nobody cares about such essential points of etiquette nowadays is discounting the feelings of a kind gentleman left with a free evening, an empty house and a lot of steaks.
DEAR MISS MANNERS: My friend introduced me to her male friend when we were all single. He later became my husband, and my friend was matron of honor at the wedding.
Since then, my friend has married, too. My husband still considers her his friend. Is it proper for him to call this lady on the phone for a friendly chat? He feels awkward about it, because we don't know her husband very well.
Since our marriage, my husband and I have each maintained several non-romantic friendships with people of the opposite sex. Is it permissible for a married person to visit such a friend without a spouse or other person present? Can one develop new friendships of such a nature?
We trust each other, but we wouldn't want to give anyone the wrong idea or cause our friends to feel uncomfortable.
GENTLE READER: It strikes Miss Manners that you, of all people, should be grateful for the changes in society that make genuine friendship possible between ladies and gentlemen.
In a more segregated era, you would never have met your husband. He and your friend, having discovered that they were not romantically interested in each other, would have had no relationship to sustain until you came along. At best, she might have said, "Hey, I don't want him (as a beau) - do you?" which is not the best way to meet a possible suitor.
So why are you having doubts about this wonderful innovation now?
Miss Manners certainly hopes your trust has not diminished. It would be dreadful to imply that you believed your husband could have rejected other ladies before you came along, but not after. And it would be highly ungrateful for him to cut off his friendship with this lady after she did him the enormous benefit of introducing him to you.
So the problem, as you correctly identify it, is to avoid misunderstandings with others. Your friend's husband, for example.
Of course friendly overtures should be made to him as well. You cannot have so close a family friend without at least attempting to make a friend of her husband.
But as we know, these attempts don't always work. And you don't have to be a foursome now, with them or any other couple, to the exclusion of old or new two-way friendships.
You and your husband can help each other in dispelling any notions he or others may have that your opposite-gender friendships are disguised romances. A social posture toward a spouse's friends should be obviously warm. And any hints to the contrary should be indignantly rejected.
- Judith Martin is author of "Miss Manners' Guide for the Turn-of-the-Millennium" (Pharos Books).
Feeling incorrect? Address your etiquette questions (in black or blue-black ink on white writing paper) to Miss Manners, in care of this newspaper. The quill shortage prevents Miss Manners from answering questions except through this column.
991, United Feature Syndicate, Inc.