It has become clear to me that some people just think they are too cool or too professional to be courteous. Lets be honest, some people are just too insecure to be polite or they are too pretentious. Many of you know me and those who do not and have only read some of my brain farts understand that I do not hesitate to be myself.
I like to say “hello how ya doin?” to strangers.
I like to open the door for people.
I like to yield.
I like when people properly alternate vehicles when merging out of a crowded parking lot.
When someone sneezes I say” God bless you”.
When I am sitting on the boat in the morning around the same people every day of every week and someone sneezes I say “God bless you”. The thing is, I am one of very few people that do that. Most people just continue to read the paper and pretend they didn’t hear it. Is that because it is not cool to be nice? Some people are so stuffy and anti-social yet the very same people will be your best friend when you are introduced by the “right” person. This morning someone sneezed in the chair three over from me. I leaned forward after an uncomfortable silence and blessed this man. Maybe he didn’t want to be blessed? Who knows? What I do know is that if you make an effort to be nice most people are nice right back at you. If you make no effort at all, you will just sit around trying to look cool all the time with a mean look about you.
http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mgesundheit.html
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I think that people tend to shun interaction when forced into crowds in order to maintain some sense of privacy. Years or decades of ignoring everyone around you probably makes it so that one doesn’t even register that sneeze. You choose not to be that way, and I think that’s good. Some of the people you have a problem with probably are a**holes, and others are probably just dealing with their depressing commutes, dead-end jobs, or low self-esteem as best they can. Just keep being yourself, Hempstead, except, of course, in your political thinking, and then you should be more like Jim and me. :-)
Those kind characteristics of yours seem very midwestern or southern. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. I’m guessing you live in a big city, with lots of cool people. Or people who at least think they’re cool. Anyway, whatever, I’m nice to people, too, and if they don’t like it, it’s their problem. And all of this begs the question: can one be cool and kind at the same time. Or are those two characteristics polar opposites by definition?
you gotta be cruel to be kind……