I'm so glad I finally "ran into" a new case study for my decorum post series.
Today I was in the same room as an old acquaintance. We were actually friends at one point in time, but that was a very long time ago. I'm going to refer to her as OA (Old Acquaintance).
In the past, whenever I'd run into OA I'd naturally say hi. Sometimes when I'd pass by her somewhere I never get the chance to greet her, because it seems she's not looking in my direction. I never really thought any of it. Well now we're in the same class! I was there first and she walked in later. She didn't say hi or even look at me!
Hmm... Did she not recognize me or wasn't she paying attention to the people in the room? Or was she ignoring me? I looked over at her direction a few times in an effort to smile at her, but my efforts failed; she didn't even glance at me once!
I won't jump into assumptions, you never know if someone is having a bad day. You never really know what a person is going through, so it's a bad idea to label people instantly! And anyways, just because people aren't nice doesn't mean thet you should be too!
Plan of action:
Next time I see OA I am going to: 1. Say "Hi OA" ; 2. Give her a compliment ; 3. Start a converstation (not necessarily the same day). We'll see how it goes from there!
ALWAYS try to greet people you know. At least acknowledge their presence with a smile. If you ignore people they might think that they are not important enough for you to greet them, or worse they might think that you don't think they might recognize you because you've got 0 self esteem!
"True politeness consists in being easy one's self, and in making every one about one as easy as one can." - Alexander Pope
For the first post of this series including why I started it,
click here.
