The Last Polite Woman in Town Gives Up

Or I certainly did consider giving up. After all, why should I continue to use the simple manners and courtesies that I learned as a child? So many others have apparently elected to forego the use of decent manners. Why should I be the last one to hop on the “rudeness, ignorance, and hostility” bandwagon?

I know, I know. I sound really bitter, and old, and cranky. But the truth is that I get truly and deeply tired of offering up timely and heartfelt apologies whenever I commit some minor offense against a stranger and then being treated as if I were a leaky bag of foul smelling garbage that had just been dumped on their front lawn.

Today, for instance, as I was deep in conversation while walking out of the grocery store, I lightly bumped into a woman as I passed her by. I quickly turned around and offered her an earnest apology as courteously as I could. Did she receive my apology genially? Did she smile and tell me there was no harm done? Did she even nod and go about her business? No. She literally rolled her eyes and curled her lip at me.

People, I don’t mind telling you that this kind of behavior really chaps my ass. In my opinion, if you can’t graciously accept a sincere and promptly offered apology, then you don’t deserve one. While fuming over this incident I briefly considered giving up on courtesy and manners altogether. That thought process went something like this:

That's it! I will no longer hold the door for the elderly woman walking just behind me. No more will I make an effort to allow others to merge into traffic ahead of me. From now on, I will leave my cell phone on and take calls in the cinema. The viewing pleasure of the rest of the audience who paid through the nose to see the movie is not at all important to me. When I approach a group of people waiting patiently for service of some kind, I will not ask politely where the end of the line is and fall quietly in place. Nope. No more. I will do and say exactly what I feel like whenever and wherever it pleases me to do so. From this point forward it’s “I, me, and mine” – the rest of the world be damned!

Yeah, well, okay. Once I cooled down it was clear to me that this isn’t the answer. But just saying it out loud made me feel a whole lot better. However, regardless of how good it felt to imagine myself being rude and self-centered, I know that the next time I am in public I will probably forget my bitterness and fall back on the habit of being nice just for the simple reason that ‘it’s nice to be nice’. Because, in reality, life is a lot easier when we all try to treat each other gently and with kindness. And I really do miss it when that’s not the way I’m treated by the world. I know that being rude to others will make me no happier than being treated rudely has. So, as trite as it sounds, I will ‘do unto others as I would have them do unto me’. At least then I won’t be part of the problem.

Photo by Calamity Hane