I realise I am soon to hit a big '0' birthday, but I know I have not lost it yet - I definitely remember being taught basic manners by my mother, my grandparents and various other adults in my life - including school teachers.
I am not talking here about anything in particular, no need to put yourself out at all but just a general understanding that to be a reasonable human being and a part of society you needed to act like that... i.e. as a reasonable human being who wanted to be part of society.
So, when you're walking along and you accidentally bump into another person, you'd say sorry, check they were OK and move on. If you were going through a door anyway and another person was following you, you'd hold the door for their ease of passage and that person would say 'Thank you'. If someone dropped something right in front of you, you'd alert them, maybe even pick it up and hand it back, they'd again thank you and that would be that... is all this so much to ask?
Apparently yes, it is.
On Monday a middle-aged woman who I was walking alongside, but not 'with' if you get my drift, suddenly veered sideways - no idea why, but she did - and bumped into my arm. She tutted, muttered something about looking where you're going and glowered at me. I made a decision in that split second not to react by explaining that her change in direction had caused the bump, that she was clearly in the wrong and that to tut at me therefore made her look even more of an idiot than she already did by dint of her lack of directional control... in fact I simply smiled and walked on. What was going on in my head / under my breath is no one else's concern.
In my office, to get from the main office to the loo, you go into a communal hallway and push open a door onto a stair well, which services both the 'services' and other offices. In doing this the other day, I held the door open for another person (not a colleague of mine) who said 'thank you' and smiled - marvellous. On my return to my office someone was coming through the door towards me, not only did he let the door shut behind him when I was on the bottom stair, he then proceeded to walk straight at me as he approached the stairs, so I would have to move out of his way. I'm afraid I was not quite so controlled that time - I stopped in his path and simply smiled at him - he moved over... Sometimes of course there is the inadvertent 'dance of the route finder' as both parties on a collision course try to avoid the other - this too happened on the same day as I walked out of my place of work, we smiled at each other and mutually apologised. It restored my faith in humanity.
Then today I had the utter temerity to tell a man he had dropped something out of his pocket. It was a piece of paper and looked like a letter, something official. He said 'Oh it's rubbish' and went to walk on - this time I had to say my piece. I picked the paper up and said, 'Excuse me, this is yours' again 'yes it's rubbish', I decided not to let it go 'OK, then can I suggest you put it in a bin?' I asked. I was then asked in a most impolite manner if I was a member of the 'Litter Police', 'No' said I, 'I am not, but there really is no need to leave litter when there is a bin less than 10 feet away from you'. This man then told me to go away (only of course he was far ruder than that) and I was just about to get riled when another voice said 'There really is no need to speak to her like that - why can't you just put your rubbish in the bin?' it was another man, about the same age as 'Mr Litter' only about twice the size. Mr Litter snatched the paper out of my hand and walked away. I have no idea what he did with the paper after that, but I do know that Mr Saviour asked me if I was OK, was quite rude about Mr Litter, made me laugh and walked off...
All this has made me realise, it is not the grand gestures that are important on a day-to-day level - throwing down a cape to save my shoes from a puddle is simply not necessary - but I really value the normal niceties of human interaction and think that if we all concentrated on those a bit, the world might be a happier place.
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