I was sitting in the hotel lobby finishing my coffee in an armchair. A teenage girl was moving a dining chair over to another table to sit with her friends. She banged her chair into the arm of mine, accidentally. Not me, the arm of my chair, hard enough to startle me. She stopped and looked at my face, and when she figured out that the blank look on my face was being stunned, rather than an overture to getting angry, she just went about her business. Somebody behind me asked if she was going to say anything; her reply was "Oh, no she's not mad." And that was that. No apology. No pardon. No excuse me.
And I was NOT going to get angry. It was a simple mistake that anyone could have made. No real harm. But it did, I don't know, disturb me. Interrupted my train of thought. Gave me a moment. So, in my day, you'd have said something. Just to acknowledge that your world bumped into mine. Regardless of whether someone was going to get mad or not. The "sorry" wasn't there to avoid a fight (most of the time), it was just polite.
I think she looked at the situation as there being nothing that she was going to get out of that second of saying "sorry" and just decided to save herself the effort. And I think that happens all the time. Those moments when I think young people are rude and don't know why. They don't use social skills unless they're going to get something out of it, avoid a fight or curry favor. But if they bump into you in the hall and you don't immediately start to yell at them, they're just going to truck on down the hall.
I'm trying to avoid the automatic judgement of "they're so lazy/rude/anti-social". It could be just the new way that people interact, and I'm behind the times. But geez. My knee jerk reaction is that it scares the crap out of me. This is the world we're going to be living in?
3 comments:
Ya know it's also rude to leave your readers hanging, wondering who it was you were waiting for while sitting in a hotel lobby finishing your coffee!
Never mind--I'll make up my own ending.
It does sound rather risque doesn't it? Actually, I was down in Gruene with Mo and T for a Roger Clyne and the Peacemakers show (that's right, suffer!), and letting them sleep in while I swilled free coffee to my little heart's content. But if you want me to make up someone tall, dark and dashing, I'm more than willing to exercise my powers of creativity.
There will be a little more "girl reporter" from the show once I get a chance to pull my thinks together.
See I was in your shoes - feeling these youngins were a rude, selfish generation of ingrates - when out of the blue yesterday I was in a "gritty" section of DC and this little boy in school uniform opens and holds the door for me going into a store - then after I said *stunned* "thanks" - he said "you're welcome, ma'am" - and not a mumble either, he actually moved his mouth and used real words -- somebody is making sure he has some real home training and has restored my faith in youth!
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