Dear Queenie,

I was at a friend’s dinner party the other night and when I looked around half the guests were too busy messing around on their cell phones to talk to the other guests. When I tried to make conversation with someone next to me they got mad at me for interrupting what they were doing on their cell phone.

I was so disgusted that I asked them right out why they bothered to come to the party if they weren’t going to talk to anyone and I said if they were just going to be on their cell phones all night they might as well have stayed at home.

Queenie, what’s wrong with them?—Too much tech

Dear Too much tech,

In effect, they are so “addicted” to their gadgets that they get uncomfortable if they have to let go of them for more than a few minutes. Also, they become so accustomed to communicating via their devices that they seem to lose the ability to interact with others directly in person.

I have often been tempted to invest in a cell phone “scrambler” that would make my home a “dead zone” for cell phone communication for the duration of an event I am hosting. I have not done so as yet, but the temptation is getting stronger and stronger.

Dear Queenie,

My girlfriend and I have been together for several years and now we have a new baby together and that’s just wonderful.

The problem is that we also have her son and daughter from her previous relationship living with us and they are totally disrespectful to both of us and she refuses to correct them because she is afraid if she does they will want to go live with their father.

Queenie, how can I get her to understand that this is not right?—Angry stepdad

Dear Stepdad,

The real problem is that children need discipline, which these children are not getting. If you cannot make your girlfriend understand this, professional counselling might help. And if that does not work, you might consider whether you really want to stay with her, and taking the baby with you when you leave (which might just be a wakeup call for the baby’s rather negligent mother).

Actually, it might not be so bad if the older children go to live with their father, at least for a while. It is quite possible that he would crack down on them and teach them some manners, and if not, he would be the one to suffer from their behaviour, not you.

Dear Queenie,

When my niece got married we asked her mother what would be a good wedding gift and she said “money” so we sent a generous check.

However, we never received a thank-you note and according to our bank the check was never cashed, so we asked her mother whether she had received it. Her mother said “yes,” but the bride was embarrassed to receive such a large amount and refused to cash the check.

Queenie, shouldn’t the bride have thanked us anyway?—Offended aunt

Dear Offended,

Of course. If she did not want to accept the gift, the bride at least should have thanked you for your kind thought and returned the cheque to you with an explanation as to why she felt she could not accept it.

And just for the record, I have heard complaints from recipients about stingy (too small) gifts, but never that a gift was too generous. This is really one for the books!

Dear Queenie,

My cousin asked me to be her maid of honour at her wedding and I said I would. Later I received a formal invitation to the wedding, but I never bothered to send back the RSVP card because I figured it was taken for granted I would be there because I had already promised to be the maid of honour.

Then –at the reception! – my aunt, the bride’s mother, scolded me for being rude not sending the RSVP card.

Queenie, was I wrong or was she?—Etty Ket

Dear Etty Ket,

According to the etiquette books, whenever you receive an invitation with an RSVP card you should return the RSVP card as soon as possible. However, in this case, as you already had promised to be the maid of honour, the RSVP card would seem to have been redundant. And, for your aunt to have used the occasion of the wedding reception to bawl you out for rudeness was in itself rude, in my opinion.