As in the saying. And if you know the saying, you know what I mean, and you will also know that there is usually more than one, but that’s enough to upset the applecart as they say. Social etiquette and civility is a dying art these days. People and their attitudes had been on the way down for a while, with the latest collective social episode fraying the edges a little more. My previous piece Where did courtesy go? looked at this issue and now we have had another four years on top, so thought I would revisit it.

As we know, not everyone has the same ideals or attitude towards society and their fellow man (and woman). So, we go about teaching people from a very young age about social etiquette and standards to go by, to keep everything mostly on a level and civil. Just for the purpose of getting by I thought, get on to get by. Simple. Except, we have many other factors ruling a person’s demeanour and behaviour, and knowing how you should behave and then doing so, seems a bit of a struggle for some being honest. Leading to issues, of a communicative nature and everything that follows thereafter. Because if you can’t communicate properly, or said communication is not understood then there is a problem. As well as if the receiver of that information, lacks the capacity to understand what is required of them, or how to fulfil the implied request of being a normal person within the interaction. It is strange to think that you can have two people, who can speak the same language and appear mostly the same but don’t have a clue what the other is saying. That quote by Alan Greenspan comes to mind here again –

“ I know you think you understand what you thought I said but I’m not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant”

But there are people who know full well what is being said, and know very well what they are doing. Unawareness is one thing, but actively being a nuisance or causing a disturbance to others is downright rude. And some thrive on it, because it gains them attention which they crave, but lack the ability to achieve it in a positive way, so they follow the negative scenario to get what they want. It would take effort, experience, knowledge and understanding to react differently or in a more positive manner, so often it is bypassed altogether. People can be lazy mentally as well as physically, that has been well proven. But the fallout from that is evident, because it only takes one they say. One bad apple to spoil the lot. In fact, apples feature a lot in this type of thing – as I said in the beginning, it upsets the apple cart. That bad apple soiling the lot reference being another, and then one more which most would be familiar with. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, there to mean that if the parent is dysfunctional and the child turns out to be as well, then it’s not hard to see why. Not sure why apples are so intertwined with sayings related to bad behaviour or ruining the overall mood, morale, situation or ‘cart’, but there it is.

And what of the ones who go out of their way to piss people off or just ruin it because they don’t care, well, they used to get their comeuppence a bit more perhaps, by way of peer pressure or eventually being ousted as a disruptor. Often ending up being an outcast because people’s tolerance will only go so far, and they end up having to distance themselves if they don’t want to deal with the fact they are the problem. Instead finding it easier to come up with many excuses as to why they are the victim, or not the one at fault and moving onto new people to be part of their play. Probably crossing over into narcissism at some level, by whether they are really that complex remains to be seen. It can make someone sound far more interesting to give them such a label, when in reality they should just be called a user, or an arsehole. And yes, there could be extra time taken to look at the condition of being one and give it a fancy name, but no need sometimes for people such as that. But once you identify one such as that, it’s best to just give them a wide berth as mostly you won’t even feature in their reality as anything but useful, as an audience or as expendable depending on their requirement at the time. Unfortunately if you work with people in that category, then it’s hard to side-step them, so you can only do what you can do.

(c) K Wicks