Miss Manners: Restaurant meals aren’t the only friendship currency

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I’m not well-off, and my friend is. She loves eating at nice restaurants. I can’t afford those, so I usually take her out for hamburgers. She knows my financial circumstances.

I am very uncomfortable letting her treat me to fancy outings because I’m unlikely to ever be able to reciprocate. When I’ve asked her to take me to inexpensive hamburger joints, she will make excuses like she wants to try a restaurant she just heard about, and I’m the only one who can go with her.

Should I refuse to accompany her? Or give up and figure that she can afford it, and that she doesn’t care that I can’t reciprocate?

GENTLE READER: The latter is obviously the case, but you should still reciprocate – just not in a restaurant competition. Unless you can find a really good restaurant that is not yet well-enough known to charge high prices.

Nah. Your friend would not be able to resist telling her rich friends about it, and the prices would soar. If you must stick with food, perhaps you can manage a good home-cooked meal.

But you needn’t; there are other ways to reciprocate. She must have interests besides eating well. You could give her a small, well-chosen present, such as a book that might interest her, or a gadget that could solve some problem she mentioned. Or volunteer to run an errand, saving her time or stress.

You needn’t do this at every meeting, as if in payment for lunch. Just often enough to show that you care about your friend and enjoy contributing to her happiness, as she does to yours. That is what reciprocation in friendship is.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I’m in serious need of help. My husband and I are both considered leaders in our community, although my husband has a professional role as such, while I do not.

I was quoted in a newspaper, and people have mentioned to my husband that my statement resonated with their own feelings. One gentleman said, “Your wife is becoming more famous than you.”

While I thought this comment was rude and offensive, he insisted it was “just a joke.” Yet my husband’s reply was, “Yes, well, one of us has to work.”

I found his response disrespectful. I know this is all about his ego – which is why I was upset originally, which I felt was a slight. However, I am deeply upset by his reply, which not only insulted me, but did so while speaking to someone else. I am even more hurt because I wanted to come to his defense about the “more famous” line, and before I could, he used it as an opportunity to put me down.

I really don’t know what to do and wonder if I’m making too much of it.

GENTLE READER: Now Miss Manners is in need of help. It seems to her that if anyone was insulted here, it would be your husband, for the implication that he was in competition with his own wife.

But why make something of this trivial exchange instead of deflecting it, as your husband did? Is there some sinister subtext missing here?

Please send your questions to Miss Manners at her website www.missmanners.com.