Ritual appreciation

[constance]

I've been thinking this week about this post on metafilter, which asks a simple question and in the comments section becomes a study in contrast, the ways people look at etiquette. How can I show you respect? How can you show me respect? How can I put you in your place? How can you put me in my place? And of course the most important question of all: Which fucking hand do I use to hold my fork?

I'm a big fan of etiquette -- I've got stacks of books on the topic, and I love listening to people talk about it. I don't come by my (somewhat meager) social skills naturally, see, and it makes me happy that there are basic rules I can follow to make things easier, for me and for everyone else as well. Shortcuts, you know. Things that -- so my mama, who is one of those people who's made a successful career of putting people at ease, taught me -- say, without actually spelling it out, that I have some consideration for the people around me and the world I live in, want to make things more comfortable for all of us. I'm interested, too, in an anthropological sense, in the ways people wield manners as weapons, and in the many ways people can get it wrong as they forget and misunderstand; but primarily, I'm in it so's to put some positive structure into my world.

How do you feel about it? And have you learned any manners that you'll never let go?

Comments

[laurelwood.livejournal.com]

I'm a big fan of etiquette, too. I wouldn't know what to do with a fish fork if you handed me one, but I do appreciate the niceties of manners, whether it's a timely thank-you note, the usual roundup of please, thank you, pardon me, etc., or people just using their darned turn signals.

One of my weird manners hang-ups is that if someone's introduced to me as "Mrs./Mr. _____" or by their full first name (i.e. Jennifer or Constance), I have enormous trouble addressing that person in a less formal way when I become better acquainted with them. Yet oddly, I used to prefer to have children address me by my first name, because "Mrs. _____" made me sound like my mother-in-law, but now that I've gone through this year of the kids at my school-of-employment addressing me more formally, plain old "Laurel" sounds a bit crass now when I hear it from the girls' friends.

[tofty.livejournal.com]

When I was growing up, we kids all addressed our friends' parents and our parents' friends as "Mr./Ms. [first name]." I didn't realize until much later that for the most part the practice is purely a southern one, and that in fact most people from outside the south think it's kind of weird. And maybe it's just that it still seems natural to me--I still call my parents' friends and my friends' parents "Mr./Ms. [first name]" -- but I think this is an ideal form of address for kids. Not too formal, but still more respectful than a simple first name.

Anyway. :D