DEAR MISS MANNERS: Is it wrong not to give feedback?

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I am expected to “like,” whether virtually or in person, every little thing seen, done or eaten by my friends. Every item I buy and every service I use, I am asked, “How’re we doing?”

I don’t mind this if I have a real opinion, good or bad. But for most of it, I just don’t give a (bleep).

So you’re standing in front of a famous mountain. So you notified me that I should get a flu shot. So you sent me the pest spray I ordered (speaking of pests). So what?

It’s not a problem to delete email surveys from companies. But when it comes to personal feedback, some people are nasty about it, threatening to unfriend me.

So is this etiquette now? You have to give feedback to everyone?

GENTLE READER: Not everyone.

Your doctor’s practice has probably survived without your encouragement. And Miss Manners supposes that the people who enabled you to kill your cockroaches have courageously soldiered on, even though you have not declared that you enjoyed the experience and would recommend it to others. As you said, those pleas for praise can be safely ignored.

But you might say a kind word to your friends, explaining that you wish them well, even though you are not attentive about commenting on posts. If they are interested only in collecting “likes,” and if their posts bore you anyway, being unfriended would not be much of a loss. To see if there is anything else there, try communicating directly about areas of mutual interest.

But there are people to whom you most definitely owe feedback: anyone who has been generous to you. That means showing that you like it when someone gives you a present, does you a favor or offers you hospitality.

Just because this act goes by the fusty old name of “thank-you letters,” even the most avid like-pursuers fail to realize that it is a form of the same feedback that they crave — only something more has been done to deserve it.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I notice that alcohol has a role in many social invitations: “Would you care to join me for a glass of wine?”

I do enjoy wine, and have for many years, but I’ve decided to stop drinking alcohol for health reasons. I do still enjoy nonalcoholic wine.

How do I politely accept an invitation, while also supplying my own nonalcoholic beverage? My question applies particularly to situations that are spontaneous, such as encountering a neighbor on a patio pouring a glass in that very moment.

GENTLE READER: Surely the key phrase here is “join me,” rather than “glass of wine.”

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Don’t you suppose that you could have thanked the neighbor, sat on the patio and socialized while also politely declining the wine?

Yet Miss Manners reminds you that you, too, must treat the drinking part as unimportant. In an indoor setting, a nonalcoholic drink might easily be available. But in the situation you mention, it would probably require you to run home first for your own drink, or your neighbor to go inside to fetch one for you.

So wave away the drink with thanks, enjoy chatting, and — as you are in your own neighborhood — when your thirst overcomes you, go home.

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.