Etiquette and common courtesy

Me too. Seems like sometimes folks who frequent more agreeable parts of the board are taken aback when an actual discussion breaks out.

 

I don't think it's gone away completely. But I rue the day when 'civilized discussion' becomes synonymous with 'pumping sunshine up one's skirt.' as it goes.
--- merged: Feb 10, 2012 4:19 AM ---

Also, I have a little perspective on the rest of your post, as well. Think of all the wonderful experiences you have had at movie theaters and restaurants and other places where people intersect. Well, sometimes things just aren't going to go that way. And, what's more NO ONE deserves it to be that way all the time because sometimes those experiences have to be reserved for other people. And we all need to accept that. Working in customer service now close to a year, I have a new appreciation of that universal truth. Sometimes your needs and expectations are petty in comparison to those of the people around you. Sometimes some one else's experience is more important than yours. Sometimes much more important.

 

Going back to the OP, I'm still confused by one detail, darynn.

This one:

Now I've admitted that I would probably have discretely asked for another table, if his eating habits were as bad as you described them and if I thought my own dinner experience would have been severely compromised. No harm, no foul there.

But I am left to wonder at your friend's reaction, which was not necessarily your reaction to this gentleman despite your less than generous use of terminology in describing him.

These questions may have come up already - I haven't read every comment of every post and it's only my uncontrollable curiosity which brings me to even ask you -

How do you feel about your friend's reaction?
Do you think think the man's annoying eating habits justified the level to which she reacted?
Does she often rise quickly to the point where she's "mere moments away from making a scene" over something that isn't posing any great threat to her?
If she doesn't often react this way, do you understand her well enough to know why this particular incident would cause her to get that upset?
How did you feel about the gentleman?
Did he really bother you or were you bothered mostly in "sympathy" with your friend?
Did you place yourself in the role of rescuer in this situation?
Might the entire experience have been different for you if you'd been at the restaurant with someone else?

I don't consider switching tables to be an act of inconsiderate behavior and I'm certainly not above making snap judgments about people. But to be honest, your friend's behavior baffles me as well as your response to that behavior. I almost feel as if that might be the more significant aspect to this.

But of course, your relationship is personal and I wouldn't expect you to answer any of these questions unless you felt comfortable doing so.

 

I agree. But I believe there are several different reasons why people behave in ways that may seem selfish. Some people genuinely are selfish. Some people believe in the old adage my mom used to say all the time, 'the squeaky wheel gets the grease.' Some people, especially younger people, believe in all the advertising bullshit they have heard while growing up through the me generation and me, me, me! generation. Have it your way! It's all about you! You are special! You deserve the best!

There are a lot of people that fit that category. And there are also a lot of people who allow room for unexpected setbacks and temporarily unmet expectations with grace. They understand that some things are out of their control and don't assume the worst of people when things don't go their way. They understand that these little things are trivial and pale in comparison to the things that could go wrong. I mean, getting upset about relatively insignificant mini-events in your life is a luxury, in some respects.

I am getting off topic, though. But I would say that acceptance of another person's lack of manners, if they are not being deliberately rude, would fall into that latter category.

 

I second it

 

Some of us don't realize what's going on in the ecstasy of those first few bites, eh curiousbear?

 

My friends outward reaction probably mirrors my visceral reaction. I think that in one of my responses I said something to the effect that, "you had to be there''. In my original post I tried to convey the essential facts of the situation as well as paint a mental picture. The words that I originally used to describe Mr. Og, were, "Neanderthal" and "barbarian" (I later tried to contrast that choice of words with a selection of words that were less kind, and even though I made the context clear, it was later deliberately misinterpreted) ... I think that those words may have succeeded almost all too well, but not as I had envisioned. As far as I know neither Neanderthals nor barbarians still exist in a purely prototypal sense. I would have thought that their use would have been received as droll. To my surprise some of us were rather offended ... dare I suggest on a seemingly personal level. That was not my intention.
Would have it been better to have said that Mr. Og ate more loudly than my Labrador Retriever eats? It's perfectly true. There was also an deeply irritating plopping quality to each smack of the lips that wasn't just irritating but actually made it difficult to conduct a conversation in normal tones.

I didn't want to bring my friend into this beyond a casual mention, as the facts required. My problem is that everything exists in context ... my friend included. I know now that her motivations are seen as fair game to be picked apart and ridiculed. If I try to tell you about her it will seem that I' trying to put her above reproach. As far as I'm concerned ... she is above reproach.
I will only go so far as to say that she does have a strong working temper and I would have to have been an idiot to have missed it's object. As for placing myself in the role of rescuer ... I didn't have time to think about it then, and that's not the way I would frame it now. I was being a friend.

The experience would have been insupportable for me personally whether I had been alone or in company ... anyone's company.
I hope that this clears up any bafflement that might remain for any reasonable person ... if not, then it may well be beyond my capacity to remedy.

 

I covered some of this in a reply to Joniemack, Post #130. Apart from that my friend is particularly qualified to make any judgments about any [likely] physical issue with which Mr. Og might have been troubled. He certainly wasn't troubled by our surreptitious change of seating ... and no fuss ensued as there were plenty of available tables that early in the evening.
I would have no trouble being in the company of your friend. Period.
Thanks for the congrats ... if only my poetry was this popular!

 

Yes when I am in my space. But otherwise am conscious about being considered ugly. And I am curiousbear not furiousbear

 

This thread has been exploring the importance of etiquette and common courtesy in the restaurant, and on this forum, and the question: how to respond when someone's doing something we don't like? There are enough connections between these two contexts and people's general wants, needs and expectations, that I begin to lose my initial sense of surprise that this thread has become of such complex weave and vigour.

This particular strand is very upsetting to me, because somebody whom I like and admire has a principle which seems to be the negative or positive of mine. I don't mean just mouth-opinions, but robust operating principles with which we seek to protect people.
MixedMedia: "I also have a long history of defending people who are being judged for petty aesthetic reasons."
My long history is of defending people whose 'reasons' are being judged 'petty' by others.

The idea that matters of manners are fairly trivial and insignificant, or that they are petty aesthetic, denotes an "ignorance of the significance of etiquette and common courtesy as navigation tools and indicators for a given culture's fabric of cooperation and survival."
My point is that etiquette and courtesy are the roadsigns, which if not referred to, make for clumsy social navigation. My post you responded to explains it in more detail.
However, as I ponder your response, I look at the possibility hat you 'really are' ignorant of that significance; or that you are aware, but do not care; or, that you are aware of that reasoning, but that you hold the proposition to be false.

I know it's your strong operating principle - possibly an important part of who you are. The fact that it irks me and I am constrained to move against it does not detract my seeing you've got a positive value in mind , or from honouring that you, like me, MM, defend others' welfare.

I never had issue regarding the response getting questioned, only about how.

Whatever the tone, in this case 'sarcastically', "Shut the fuck up" is a way of shutting somebody up - of choking information flow. The connection is one-to-one. The other person has the choice to not shut up, however, the pressure is to shut up. When a few 'likes' get added, then it becomes peer pressure. Doesn't matter what frame you put on it after the event. Add a few 'likes' to even a 'lol' 'winky' humourous "Shut up", and it will press toward shutting up, unless the receiver is intimate enough with the giver to know that it Really isn't meaning 'be quiet' at all.

I am ravenous to learn from people - to listen to them, and thereby, hopefully, learn to love them better. I also love to hear their responses to my and other's questions, and if someone thinks they shouldn't be coming from where they are coming from, then I want to hear that too. However, I want to hear the very best of your and her responses. Not poo slinging, which reduces the credibility of the giver, and which interrupts or kills flow as the poo-receiver either has to wipe it off elegantly or risk reducing their own point's credibility, or crawl away.

I do not question your worldly experience. I do question your reason-basis which, according to what you're saying here and later in the thread, indicates that your answers to 'what's important?' and 'what is suffering?' seem to entitle you to discount the answers of others.

About my last paragraph, MM. My bad - re-reading it, it sounds personal - I messed up. You came into the thread after I had laid some of my main general cards on the table, and I had settled back to amplifying those. A general gist is that when Bullshit's called, people 'fess up, or start wriggling. The bit that I'd retain specifically for you is:

I appreciate that you and some others miss some qualities of the old camaraderie.

This is, however, a new place with a new developing culture and camaraderie, therefore, when someone tells a new member to "Shut the fuck up" having judged the basis of their concern to be trivial, they can expect more than just the old responses. Personally, I can't believe that was part of the old camaraderie, but if so, I am glad things are different.

 

I have to start studying soon and I simply don't have the time to write down a response to every facet of this post. Suffice it to say, I am part of the new developing culture and camaraderie, Zen. And I don't intend to change. Those of you who are put off by some of my more colorful flourishes might want to find a way to accept them. I'm not about to start self-censoring after five years of participation on this site.

 

I eat in restaurants on average probably 8 times a week. Maybe more. I think that I've only been offended once, and that was probably more my fault than anyone else's (hangovers and crying babies aren't great together). I just don't get how you can be so sensitive that what's going on at the table next to you that you have to move. To my best recollection, no one has ever asked to be moved away from a table where I've been sitting, and I tend to hang out with some seriously obnoxious drunks. That said, when I've felt we've been overly obnoxious, I've apologized to those around us and offered to buy their dinners.

To me, it says more about davynn and her companion to me that they asked to move than it does their dining neighbor. Especially the descriptions. As others have said, those sounds could be the manifestations of something uncontrollable. Or they could be bad manners. I'll say that words like "neaderthal" are proof positive of bad manners, which is more than can be said of what was going on at the other table.

And, yeah, I wish we had more threads like this one. Even if I'm late to it.

 

I only asked because, as is usual with me, I'm less interested in the facts than I am the underlying dynamics at work in any given situation. I saw something potentially interesting in your response to her reaction - a dynamic at work which I thought may have had little to do with the gentleman's eating habits. I was not attempting to pick apart or ridicule your friend. I was simply attempting to pursue my interest in this other dynamic. As I offered in my post, it was left entirely up to you whether you wanted to answer any of the questions I posed. I wasn't looking for you to defend her or support her. I guess I was hoping for a little more insight into your relationship (very nosey of me). I fully accept that you are not interested in pursuing this. Done.

 

Hi, mixedmedia

About seven months, actually, but I would not expect you to self-censor "STFU", any more than I would expect Davynn to self-censor her developing position or me, my developing objections. I do, however, expect all of us to support the expression of our own and others' present development, that it may proceed more as a function of learning, than of pressure, thus to constitute evolution rather than conditioning.

I honour your present time constraints, and appreciate the clarity of the points you have already made, for I can extrapolate them and consider mine to be thoroughly and well met by you, with the caveat that my best mind-reading cannot be considered a proper substitute for your expression, especially valued because I consider you to be one of my teachers.

Hmm. You've shared, amongst other things, that some back-patting irks you, also there are many times my statements have been mistaken for compliments. Therefore I'll seek to minimize possible slippage between my intent and effect by clarifying: your solidity of position, like @Remixer's and Plan9 's (eg cf me, Poetry, and that woman who was going out with the coke addict), to name but a few, gives me crucial lessons which begin to fix a critical weakness of mine, most face-palmingly demonstrated when my own adherence to courtesy has led me to believing I was bending like the willow, when in fact I was losing hold of my position altogether.

All strength to your studies today, and continued condolences regarding those two dogs.

Take care

 

My fault Jonie, I was using your questions to clarify and consolidate some loose ends from earlier. Your thoroughness actually helped me to asses things. The old problem of not being able to see the the entire forest from my position within it.

 

Hi, mixedmedia

I appreciate you took time out from your studies, which are, themselves, part of a full schedule. I have thoroughly read and will thoroughly re-read. I believe our statements of present position and opinion of each others reasoning are now well aired, and your response filled many gaps in my understanding.

Much love and respect to you, too

Oh .. and appreciation of your recent goldmine in 'photographers we like' I've only looked through them three times so far - they need to 'grow into me'- I want some quality of his seeing to become part of mine.