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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   2116 thread views

Wellness Wednesday for June 21, 2023

The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:

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  • Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).

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For an opened door, a gentleman expects a polite thank you and ideally a smile. Same for burdens carried, seats given up, high shelves reached, and little protections offered. If he gets a sneering, “I can do it myself,” he’s not going to continue the behavior.

Any man who expects that, or who would be discouraged by a sneer, has long ago stopped doing anything of the sort. It is the year of our Lord 2023, if one consistently attempts to do the courteous thing one will be the subject of constant sneers. Yet in my walks it seems to me, that the Grace of God is in courtesy.

There are certainly emotionally stunted specimens of Homo Economicus wandering the streets, who expect that each act of courtesy will be individually rewarded in a great ledger book. But that man will be so consistently disappointed that he will likely cease to do so altogether, unless he sees an opportunity to give his seat to a woman he finds particularly attractive, and then call her a bitch when she fails to return his attraction.

At this point, I'm quite used to women responding to such courtesies with demonstrations of their independence and Feminism, "You don't need to do that." I've found that a slight smile and "I'm going to stand either way, I can't sit comfortably while you stand, you might as well sit down" gets right past that. ((Or something along those lines, writing dialogue in a forum comment always comes across stunted))

If one does it consistently, it is for oneself, not expecting rewards. Because the rewards are so inconsistent that you'd have to be blind to expect them at this point.

It is the year of our Lord 2023, if one consistently attempts to do the courteous thing one will be the subject of constant sneers

I must be doing something wrong, because I have been holding the doors, opening the doors, and doing the other stuff, for decades now, and I can't remember being sneered at. It could be I just forgot, but if it happened constantly, I'd surely remember at least some cases? Maybe I'm just not live in the right place for that.

I think offering your seat to a young woman is probably seen as pretty weird, but opening the door isn't, I think most polite people hold the door open for everyone if there's someone immediately behind them.

I stand if the woman I am with gets up from the table to depart (except obviously in domestic situations at home.) Weirdness scale there?

Perhaps undue (but not creepy) politeness, I think.

About even with being the guy who says grace at a business dinner. SUPER WEIRD, but also a total power move.

Interesting. I wonder if age is involved here, as in generation. Like taking my hat off indoors, this sort of thing has always just come "naturally" to me, via I suppose seeing it done around me at some formative point in my life. I've been called weird before, but maybe never super weird until now.

Yup. Not in the same universe of commitment/effort. One takes ~5 seconds of "discomfort" and the other anywhere from a couple of minutes to hours. I don't understand why these actions are being grouped together in the same category of things. It's "selfless" and "prosocial" to die for your country as well but you'd sound like an idiot comparing it to giving up your seat.

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