When it came to meeting the parents of my girlfriends in high school, I was never very smooth on that front, and intentionally so. Most of the time, it was usually the dads, or in some cases, the grand-dads, who didn’t really take a lot of favor to me. Don’t get me wrong, though, overall I was a hated teen when it came to parents in general.

Most of the time, it came down to manners. Now, obviously there are some other factors that can go into this. One girl I was with her dad didn’t like the fact that I had a mediocre GPA and wasn’t a football player or involved in sports. This kind of thing totally blows me away. Virtually any time I was dating, and a girl was inviting me to come with her to a party, she’d add on at the end of telling me about it, “Oh, it’s formal, by the way, I hope you don’t mind, and have something to wear.”

Much of my high school years was spent wearing nothing but cargo pants from Wal-Mart and a plain t-shirt – not exactly the most cutting edge fashion statement one can make. As a matter of fact, I’m still wearing some of those same cargo pants right now. And also as a matter of fact, those same cargo pants still haven’t changed in how they’re viewed in culture, they still don’t make a very strong, formal impression.

And that’s where this whole thing sort of comes to. Formality. The need to be formal in Amercian culture is just astounding. Why is it, that if you want to have a good party, or a nice social event everyone has to be wearing ‘formal’ clothing? Why is it that when you are writing essays, books, etc. and you’re learning from university professors, they teach you to do everything ‘formally?’

It’s all about rules of manners & eqtiquette. These are both things that have gotten me into heaps of trouble. If you’re too quiet, you must be angry. Not saying, “thank you,” for a recieving a Christmas/birthday present. Not saying “hello” when you see someone(even if you’ve seen that person HUNDREDS of times), not shaking someone’s hand when you first meet them, not saying please when you ask for something, not eating using your silverware from the outside in, not putting the napkin in your lap, the list goes on and on.

Just how is an individual expected to memorize all of these tiny little details? And why, in the scope of our everyday human existence, do people tend to concentrate on these, making giant issues of them? Some say you are supposed to be taught these things as a child. However, parents in our modern and diverse populace are teaching their children differently. If you’re in the United States, a handshake greeting would probably make more sense than a bow of the head, as you might do in Japan.

You would figure that once the population boom happened over a century ago and the world went from having 1.5 billion people to 6.5 billion, that the general population and international culture would come to an understanding of the diversity that exists all throughout the world. Not all kids are taught the same rules, just as not all cultures follow the same expected guidelines.

A lot of people claim that these rules of manners, etiquette, and formality are created to ensure that things run smoother, so that things can be streamlined. But what effect has this had? In my personal experience, it has only created conflict, misunderstanding, chaos, and offense. Generally, you can judge if someone is spoiled or not, for instance. Why, then, if you believe you understand them, would you get offended at their not saying “thank you” for a gift you’ve given them? And not just that, that can even be laid to rest, something that is beside the main point. Why did you give them the gift? Is it a gift, where you’ve given it to them to give, or is it a trade? A trade where they get an item, and you get praise?

Much of the time, it would be said that, “well yes, I gave it to them as a gift to be nice, but it would also be nice of them to say ‘thank you.’” You’re right. It would, it would be nice. It would be a nifty little addition, and tidy little accessory to the whole experience, but why do you slap a child on the hand for not doing this when it is not necessary? Why must a sense of appreciation be communicated through a verbal means? And also, why is the appreciation of the other person necessary when again, you gave the gift to give.
These rules, these supposed “streamline” mechanisms of social poise, do very little, in the long run, to aid us in better connecting with other human beings. Perhaps where all of this originated is still in one of the only places where it might remain useful, and that is in the business world. In the business world, formality has a distinct benefit in that business is business, activities can be kept neutral and disconnected. Business is money, money is systematic, therefore why should business be anything but systematic? In business, this concept just might make sense, but even so – does it have to stay that way?

These rules have helped to create, especially here in America, a culture of elitism, overachievement, and fast paced economic drivel.

When I was going out with the girl whose father was disappointed in my qualities and traits, the man based his perceptions largely on how he had been raised to think of others. Myself, I had been raised to try not to make assumptions, to be open, to ‘give the benefit of the doubt,’ to examine and analyze, to be caring and loving toward one’s enemy, etc. You know, a lot of those Christian, good-guy concepts. Perhaps if he had been exposed to my way of thinking first, he would have looked at me quite differently.

But what was the result of his failed expectations, his assumption that I somehow knew what he wanted, but that I was not willing to give him(somehow purposefully?)? The result was a sour relationship between him and I, a judgement he made for the girl to “watch out for that boy,” and in the end, a tension that was created between himself and her daughter that ultimately could have been a factor in ending a potentially good relationship. Bad things happen, I have to say, when you base your expectations of others on rules of manners & etiquette.

Perhaps an alternative to try would be to look at the soul of a person. Could these parents ever think of that? Maybe the best idea would be to really get to know other people, rather than just running them through your autopilot filter of pleases and thank you’s.

Another instance would be some experiences I’ve had with mothers. Lily, a girl I went out with for 2 years, had two seemingly polar opposite parents. Her father was a considerate, caring man who worked to keep the bills paid for his family and was always there for Lily when she was feeling down and in a time of need. Lily’s mother on the other hand, was a woman loaded with health problems, usually not listening to Lily when Lily had problems(maybe she should have after the first few suicide attempts), and was generally very demanding of Lily.

As you can probably guess, Lily’s mother had some problems with me, especially when Lily first began to interact with me. At the time I first met Lily, she was having a number of mental health issues, and had already tried to commit suicide before. She was a young girl on anti-depressants, and to this day still has a number of distorted perceptions on the world she remains at conflict with. When Lily would try to tell her mother things that were wrong and Lily’s mother would shut her up by saying, “Go do the dishes,” or something like that Lily would let herself be shut up.

Upon meeting me, I encouraged her to be more assertive and firm, to hold her ground and force her mother to listen to what she had to say. Well, the encouragement worked, and the next thing you know Lily’s mom discovered what was at the root of it. It was that evil bastard Scott Lee, the new boy. “He’s a bad influence on you,” Lily’s mom would say, and then atempt a number of things to prevent Lily from spending any time with me. It didn’t work – my rebelliious nature continued to rub off on Lily.

And this would be a bad thing in a number of mother’s eyes, or parent’s eyes in general. Who wants their already troublesome teen to question what they say, think on their own, and be rebellious to demands made of them? We certainly can’t have that, can we? Raising children to think on their own and question the world around them, what were my parents possibly thinking? Oh heavens no.

I eventually met Lily’s mom, though, and things took months and months to get any better at all, and even when they did get better, they only remained that way either temporarily, or they would just hit a general peak of how good(or how bad) they could be. She didn’t like me because I was quiet, didn’t have much to say to the chit-chat she tried to engage in, and worst of all she didn’t seem to know what to think of me when Lily herself started having problems with me. It’s true, when she would bring up topics like, going to the vet, or how much the prices were at the grocery store, I didn’t have much to say. Most other guys in Lily’s life would find something to say, though, and they’d fakely laugh their way through any dull, boring conversation they found themselves in with the mom.

I didn’t do that. I must be a terrible guy.

So you can easily see some of the situations you might find yourself in, some of the points that have been made here. Some of the rules we have that supposedly make society a better place, make the world easier to live in – they are not only unncecessary, but the potential side effects they can have on an ill oriented culture can be damaging, or just plain dangerous. They ruin relationships, they create inaccuracies in social interaction, they produce tremendous misunderstanding.

Part of it comes from the tendency to lay down and sleep, to sit down and stare – the tendency to let the media do the thinking for you, let your family do your thinking for you, while you sit there and take it all in. We live in a world where thinking is either not quite what it once was, or maybe it was just never there at all. If only more people could just stop and interrupt their every day impulses, just stop and examine what is really happening, maybe then the world could be a better place to live in with other people. Always remember that whatever a situation holds in front of you, you will see the literal before the symbolic. You will see past experience speaking to you before you learn something new. Do yourself a favor and attempt to jump to the second step before taking action that you later may regret.

Let’s do away with formality, manners, and etiquette, and move onto exploring true meaning, soul, and the mind’s of others.