Manners: they matter

I am officially "getting old". I wasn't convinced by the encroaching presbyopia (first spotted last November, anxiously observed ever since), the accumulation of changes to skin tone - facial and otherwise, nor my decreasing ability to bounce back from a late night; no, the clincher is this: I find myself becoming less and less tolerant of bad manners.

Foul language doesn't bother me per se, provided it's not used as a tool of abuse. Conventions such as one gender opening doors for another still baffle me somewhat. I don't even particularly care which knife you use to butter your bread roll at the dinner table; these are not the 'manners' I'm talking about - they don't matter terribly much. However, I am increasingly incensed by those who ignore the rights and needs of others, even (or perhaps particularly) in small matters.

Take my journey home from the CBD today, during which I observed two examples which may illustrate my point.

At Flinders Street Station, three boys in their tweens zoomed on through the crowd on skate boards, narrowly missing many people and causing various minor collisions. Is this cool? No. It's just plain bad manners.

On the other hand, forced to switch from train to bus at Dandenong Station due to 'rail upgrades', a crowd of commuters crushed through the gates to claim a precious seat on the connecting buses. One woman in her thirties charged through the cluster, literally pushing all aside with loud "excuse me's" trailing in her wake. I can only assume she had a pressing need to be somewhere; so was this cool? I'm willing to give her the benefit of the doubt and say "yes (provided ...)".

But my biggest gripe at the moment is when individuals do not return messages. I have to be precise here: I'm not talking about messages I send to a company or workplace - there can be constraints beyond individuals' control placed on those (part-time work, the appropriate person not being available, internal procedures, etc). I'm also not insisting that every person I call, email or text reply immediately: the world does not revolve around me!

But I do not like this trend I'm observing of people not returning personal emails or texts for days, and I am incensed particularly when repeated personal phone calls are left unanswered. In my opinion, there is simply no excuse for this, when a simple text along the lines of "Really busy, lovely to hear from you, will call when I can" would take mere seconds and would mean that my care for the recipient was acknowledged, returned, dammit - that I mean something to them.

The only positive I think I can take from all this is a personal determination not to inflict this indignity on others, and to apologise - here and publicly - for anyone to whom I have been inconsiderate in this manner in the past.

And to cringe as I observe my devolution into a peevish woman ... and I don't even turn forty until September! What will I be like at sixty? Long term friends, beware.