07.26.07
Supermarket etiquette and why we don’t have any.
Remember last Tuesday when you were grocery shopping at Bloom, and you recognized an acquaintance from high school? You directed your gaze towards them, waiting for them to turn your way so you could say hello. But suddenly they realize they need windex, and not ketchup, so they turn on their heel and are out of that aisle in seconds; leaving you in their dust.
Did the person not notice you? Maybe. Did they not recognize you? It’s possible.
But more than likely they are playing the “game of invisibility.” Just one of the concepts that P.M. Forni discusses in his book Choosing Civility. A simple “hi” or a smile to acknowledge that someone is there and they aren’t invisible really isn’t that much work. It doesn’t take much energy to simply acknowledge others, so why don’t we do it? It’s simply a lesson in civility. “A greeting is a minimal yet meaningful conferral of honor on a person for just being a person. With it, not only do we acknowledge and validate, but we also put at ease and wish well. We announce that we intend to do no harm and express our concern for the well-being of others. As we do so, we invite others to look upon us with the same benign disposition we have toward them. This is the stuff civility is made of.”
I have been searching for this book without even knowing it! This is the kind of thing that people need to work on. There is no reason that we should be acting uncivil towards people. Interpersonal relationships are what make us human, so let’s start being better at them.
Russell Heimlich said,
July 26, 2007 at 2:56 pm
(That is all…)