If You 'invite' People, You're Paying
DEAR MISS MANNERS: I have been slowly slogging through grad school -- one course a semester -- and after four long years, I'm finally going to graduate.
I work in the industry I'm going to school for, and I'd like to invite some of my co-workers out to dinner to celebrate. While I'd love to foot the bill for everyone, I'm not financially able to do so.
How can I tactfully word the invitation so everyone knows I'm inviting them to dinner, not treating them to one? I don't want anyone to be embarrassed due to assumptions or expectations.
GENTLE READER: Here is a lesson about the real world: If you cannot afford to do something, you cannot do it.
It is true that getting others to pay your bills has become a national sport, whether it is through gift registries, fundraising drives or by charging people you claim to entertain. The ruse of "come and honor me at your expense" is a common ploy.
Miss Manners will not help you do that. Why didn't you ask, instead, how you could entertain your colleagues inexpensively?
Perhaps you could treat them all to a toast in the office cafeteria, or in a bar after work. Or invite them to a weekend tea party.
Or you could just bubble over about how happy you are to be graduating and to have a great job working with people you admire. Then perhaps someone might think of toasting you.
DEAR MISS MANNERS: Should the bride and groom be shown the best man's speech before the wedding? Or, if not them, someone else?
GENTLE READER: What makes you think the best man needs vetting?
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COPYRIGHT 2024 JUDITH MARTIN
