RUDE!

 Source material for this entry

Talkin' 'bout my generation....

and those who have come after me, and what they've gone and changed,  and whether or not I agree with it. Maryanne: these are patterns, not iron cages to lock the generations in, please understand I'm not dumping on anyone's generation.

This is a list of used-to-be-normal occurrences that are nowadays considered gauche, rude, offputting. Most of them I agree with. A couple I really, really don't. 

We'll first cover the one I've bitched endlessly about before, and nothing anybody's told me in response has changed my mind one bit: 

Calling without texting first turns a courtesy into an ambush

I really must protest. Still.When EXACTLY did the voice of a friend become "an ambush"? 

No. Don't brush that off. Sit with it. Examine it. Who convinced you that talking to someone you ostensibly care about is such a fucking burden?  I play along with this lunacy because I have no choice. But it irks me every time. 

Look, I understand that maybe right now is not  a good time. That's why there's....ta-da! VOICEMAIL! It's existed in one form or another since 1959. How it works is, see, if you're not available, your caller can leave a m--oh, you've heard of it. What's that? Your voice mailbox is full and you haven't checked it in six years?

And we wonder why so many people are so lonely. We wonder why so many teens struggle to form relationships. USE. YOUR. MOUTHS. FORM WORDS. SPEAK THEM ALOUD GA GA GOO GOO. 

Dropping by unannounced asks for time instead of offering it

And yes, I do recognize this is a more intensive version of calling without texting first. 

There are close family friends (call them family, really) who do drop in unannounced, frequently, and many more people who could. With the caveat that if you do show up without warning, you need to be prepared to accept what you find. I no longer breeze around the house bare-skinned, so you won't find anything too shocking. But we make no apologies for living in our home. 

If you're not close to us, of course an unannounced visit is a stressor. If you ARE close to us, know this: we operate this place in two states, the state where you're here and the one where you're not. The two look similar enough that you might not perceive a difference. When you're NOT here, part of us is missing you. That's one of the few distinctions. 

Showing up early stopped being a virtue the moment it had an audience

We're told this is rude because it steals the host's final prep window. Can't I help with whatever needs doing? And if I can't, how does sitting on your couch steal anything at all from you? 

Okay, I'll admit this, I don't show up early to parties. But I used to show up on time -- which is, depending on the party, somewhere between 30 and 90 minutes early. I still haven't determined how I'm supposed to know that "7:00 pm" is a lie, never mind what the actual truth is. It's something that lowkey drives me bugshit: we used to be taught that punctuality is a virtue. And it is, as long as you're not going to a friend's house. 

Refusing to take no for an answer at the table stopped counting as hospitality

I hadn't noticed this until this article brought it to my attention, but it's true. People my age and older hear  "no thank you, I'm full, I don't want any more" as "your food tastes like ass". People younger than I take it as a simple statement...which is all it ever was. 

I'm all for anything that promotes directness in conversation. Having to refuse second helpings more than once is awkward and makes me seem like the rude one. Sometimes I actually DO want more food, but shouldn't have it because I've already eaten too much. I've actually had people tell me "if you don't eat this I'm only going to throw it away".  Cool, now I'm going to puke later, thanks. 

Commenting on someone’s body lands as evaluation even when it’s meant as praise

Eva once weighed well over four hundred pounds.

She lost a large chunk of that with bariatric surgery and people treated her markedly differently. This didn't just bother me, it actually upset me, and it still does. Losing weight did not make Eva any more intelligent or compassionate. It didn't change any of the reasons I love her one iota. To see men suddenly noticing her, recognizing at long last the beauty that had always been there,  should have made my heart sing. It didn't. Because I knew they saw her as a body, nothing more. It couldn't have been more obvious. 

Eva has lost a good deal more weight recently. It's not something she wanted to do, and she'd just as soon not have to answer to anyone about it, if it's all the same to you. Because if you press her, she might just unload the truth on your ass, and then you'll be mortified, and rightly so, and just don't mention it, okay?

Asking when the kids are coming treats a private grief as small talk

This one applies in spades to us. Seven miscarriages. A gruelling adoption process we failed out of at the last minute. I'm SO glad this question is increasingly recognized as invasive and hurtful. It always was. It's always been a struggle for me not to retort "Kids? We ordered them half an hour ago, I guess the kitchen's busy." Or "Tell you what, we'll call you when we're fucking. You can be there for the insemination!"

I love this next one. 

Making a child hug a relative teaches something nobody intended to teach

Namely, that the child's comfort and autonomy means nothing. Is that a lesson you want your kid to learn? I hope not.

I love hugs. I have loved hugs all my life. And I once ran away from one and caught shit for doing so.

We had gone to see -- I think it was my stepfather's grandmother. Or great aunt, or some other species of graveyard dirt. I would have been ten or eleven years old. I can't even recall if it was the selfsame Aunt Grandma, or just someone else in the nursing home, who caught sight of seven year old Kenny  and began to hobble towards me, arms outstretched, bits of oldperson wrinkleskin hanging droopily like the shutter on the window of a very haunted house. Four year old Kenny first backed away, then turned and ran on legs that had just learned how. 

I had nightmares about that woman for years. And my parents were furious at me for being so rude.

Touching another human being requires some level of consent. This goes double for kids. Period. 

 Offering advice before it’s asked for reads as a correction

I'm STILL occasionally too male about this. Someone puts a problem in front of me, but I'm not supposed to solve it? It's just supposed to fester there? We can bitch together about what a shitty problem it is, I can hold you and listen to you describe every last detail of the problem...and then I'm supposed to....walk away? Fuck you and your problem? I mean, it's still there. Still probleming. 

"Do you want thoughts on this, or do you just want me to be annoyed with you about it?" Okay, yeah, it's annoying. (And it doesn't have to be, but it seems like you want it to be, so...)

sigh

Reading this did make something click for me, though. Odds are excellent you have already come up with every "solution" I can. If the problem still exists, those solutions didn't work. Turn it around, Ken. 

"You really don't have to overthink this." 

"Oh, really? Gee, thanks, I never knew there was a dimmer switch on my brain, can you point it out for me, please?"

 And you probably don't feel like a big long discussion about each possible solution and why they all failed. I could even be seen as a criminal going downstairs for suggesting something. You know, condescending. 

You wonder how I don't better live by "treat others as you'd wish to be treated", it's because your problem is different from mine. Even though it doesn't matter what the problem actually is. 

Refusing to let anyone else pay leaves them holding a debt they didn’t agree to

No, it doesn't.

Maybe other people have this happen to them weekly or something, I don't know. I'm in a position to treat or be treated once or twice a year. Sometimes I treat, sometimes I'm treated, and I try to minimize friction either way. The thing is? I look at being treated to dinner as a gift. Refusing a gift feels just as rude as having my gift refused. I'm not crass enough to keep a detailed ledger...I just try to give sort of as often as I'm given. 

The article makes reference to "fronting money for a group trip or event" and something like that I see as (a) an equal split and (b) non-negotiable. My share is my share. I don't expect to haggle over it and YOU expect me to pay you for it. 

That was fun, and I learned some stuff. I hope you did, too.