civility lost

the bloke and i had a brief chat the other day. the chat was inspired by a rather unfortunate set of experiences, he had while tending to the grocery shopping during the holiday weekend. the bloke was sorely amazed at how rude we have become as a society. for the most part, social niceties and good manners seem to have gone the way of the dodo bird.

i listened to his rant and i sympathized with his experiences but i cannot admit to having been alarmed. i had an interesting experience with someone who, at the time, i considered a friend. you'll notice i used the past tense, as the entire exchange really coloured my opinion of her. which might not be fair, as it is likely that my behaviour contributed to the mess that ensued.

i got an invite to a wedding shower. i am not 'wedding shower' people and those who truly know me, know this. in fact i opted not to attend wedding shower of my sister-in-law and i had the misfortune of being in her wedding party!

anyway i arrived 2 hours late to the bridal shower. the event was hosted by one of her cousins. not counting the bride i only knew one other guest. there were 4 small children racing around on those little push toys. at least one other guest and i almost had our toes run over by these micro-hooligans. i lasted an hour before i escaped.

when i walked into the house, 2 hours late, i gave the bride a card that contained a $50 gift certificate. she did not open my gift and i understood that, as the gifts were opened before i arrived.

several weeks passed and i had yet to hear anything from the bride. she said thank you when i passed her the sealed envelope at her cousins door. but i expected a separate thank you for the gift within, or at the very least, the acknowledgement of the picture of the bride and groom i had super-imposed onto the gift certificate.

during a blackberry text exchange i asked how many weeks had passed since her bridal shower. the answer was six. i then asked her how long i should expect to wait before she thanked me for the present.

i heard that she was sorry, i heard about how much she had to drink that night, i heard about how many days straight she had been working for weeks on end, i heard that she had thought she thanked me.

she did text the hugging smiley to me through the phone to say thank you.

she honestly thought that was an acceptable way to thank someone for a gift. but for me that was unacceptable. if she had remembered on her own and had sent me a text i would have been receptive. but she didn't and to do so after she realized her error, lacked sincerity.

she however could not understand why that wasn't acceptable. and i can't understand why she thinks it should have been.

so how could i expect strangers, john and/or jane q. public to say please and thank you when i can't even count social graces from people i considered friends?

we live in a microwave society where we have, in the interest of time, shortened a lot of processes and cut out a lot of unnecessary steps. unfortunately along with that we have also lost some of our more civilized behaviours.

tis a shame that.