Dear Mary | 9 May 2019

Q. I was invited to birthday drinks in London. On my way there the name of someone I haven’t heard from for months flashed up on my mobile. My instinct was not to answer — I’d heard the host of the party had gone off this woman and thought it best not to answer in case the woman asked what I was doing that night. I didn’t want to hurt her feelings if she’d been excluded. Nor did I want to lie. However, on arrival at the party my host told me that all was now well between him and her and she’d been invited but couldn’t come. When I rang her the next day, she said she’d been calling to say she was sorry she wouldn’t be seeing me that night. Mary, how could I have handled this better?
— Name and address withheld

A. You can avoid this sort of social ambush by texting the caller immediately with words to the effect of ‘In library/on walk without signal/in meeting.