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Miss Manners: Would-be guests won’t stop angling for invitations

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January 24, 2018 at 12:00 a.m. EST

Dear Miss Manners: My husband and I have a delightful, very busy social life. We give and attend numerous dinner parties, and frequently entertain our 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.

"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 know they may 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 — finding a restaurant, placing an order, figuring out payment, and eating — is disruptive.

Perhaps in an attempt to minimize disruption to the game, 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? Am I being uncivilized in expecting guests to drink from bottles and eat from the containers in which their food arrived? If not, how do I keep people out of my cupboards? I am reluctant to provide disposable dishes as a substitute for the existing disposable containers.

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.

New Miss Manners columns are posted Monday through Saturday on washingtonpost.com/advice. You can send questions to Miss Manners at her website, missmanners.com.

2018, by Judith Martin