Are good manners a thing of the past in everyday interractions in Britain nowadays?
I don’t mean in internet forums (we can see even in this forum that at least some contributors seem to completely ignore the fact that what they are doing would simply not be acceptable face-to-face) but in real, everyday life?
As a man I have for example found in the past that even holding a door open for another to use rather than letting it close in their face can be problematic, and customers who are frequently unnecessarily disparaging or even downright nasty to retail staff.
It doesn’t seem to be generational either, because I have found during this pandemic for example that it is often the more mature person who barges me aside in the supermarket, leaving me some distance from the shelf where I was about to grasp a wanted product.
I have noticed this too @Zaphod Nobody says please or thank you, or even excuse me (when they reach by you to get something). Its every person for themselves at this time, it seems, and to hang with everyone else.
I agree there is a deterioration in polite common courtesy.
I noticed during lockdown and more recently as the restrictions were lifted that certain age groups were less inclined to move off the pavement and walk in the road to make space .
I’m thinking the age 20 to 35 here. Older people tended to acknowledge that you’d moved or gave you smile in thanks.
People just have less time for other people nowadays.
Oh my gosh tell me about it! Only today i was in a queue and it was slow to move forward. A woman with no mask on was huffing impatiently and I could feel it on my neck she was that close. So I turned round to her (with my mask on) and said:
“Sorry, but I don’t feel comfortable with you standing so close to me - I can feel your breath on my neck”
She replied “I’ve got a bus to get, I don’t have time to stand here waiting until she (checkout girl) finishes swapping money over!”
Yes, you’re right that people have less time for each other nowadays.
Maybe it varies by area too, because here it’s often the older people who are most likely to be guilty of not moving or of acknowledging you doing so, but then I do live in an area with an older average age.
That is so true, it’s like some look at you,if somethings wrong with you.…maybe they have never been shown manners at home,…so I guess it would be alien to them.
I couldn’t relate to people being nice to me many years ago, because of my background. I also thought something was wrong with them.
Someone being nice to me was alien.i was used to verbal abuse…I only knew that.
Yep, absolutely agree. I remember the very first lockdown, people danced round each other in the road to avoid getting close. Now they are halfway up your…back, all because someone said it was ok. I think its rude to be a space invader at the best of times, but now…ugh!
I meet quite a few people, many of whom, most actual, are very well mannered. My grand girls, age nine and thirteen, are exemplary. I don’t imagine there some that are absolute trash but I like to think that those are the exception…
I find myself saying “sorry” at least 50 times, going round the supermarket, and "thank you " 30 , or so, times getting out of people’s way, while out on a walk!
In fact, there’s so many “Sorrys”, & “Thank yous”, that I’m glad of a bit of quiet when it happens
Thank You for reading this!
Sorry about the spellings.
I see it as people missing human closeness. But yes it’s annoying. During the height I calmly told someone off and said that being close to me would not make the queue move faster. I think the guy doing this at the time was just losing his mind. He had also said something about being in a hurry. I think he was having a panic attack. Some people have just lost that social etiquette they used to have because they have not had enough polite peer censure in the last year.
I’ve noticed manners disappearing, especially amongst the young. Respect too.
I’ve also noticed ‘some’ men at my work just let the door go whereas at one time a man would always hold the door for a woman.
Men think nothing of effing and jeffing in front of a woman these days as with some children.
I suppose mostly here I talk of respect and the thread was about manners, sorry about that, see, I just used good manners to apologise for going off topic lol.
Manners comes natural , I’m not sure why they are dying out.
…maybe they have never been shown manners at home,…so I guess it would be alien to them.
