how polite are you?

A lot more than you would expect. Learning formal Japanese and Korean jacks up your awareness and performance of your politeness in English. True story: an elderly Korean woman in a bodega in Manhattan where I bought snacks during Asia Week in 1998 thanked me for honoring her culture by taking the effort to learn their language.

It's not a matter of degree, when you deem it right, you be polite. If someone got to ask, the one who's asking might've done things wrong. Go to the states and be as rude as you want. Kiddin'! It's conditional. See how this works? It shows how people can be ugly, a little kitten would just meow when it wants something. I don't need to return politeness, if you don't love me, I'll flip you a bird. This all sounds like I have a personality disorder.

Parents teaching kids to say please and thank you. I hate remembering the moments of failed parenting. They forgot to tell me that it is conditional. So this logic kinda makes you right, it totally depends who you dealing with.

Asking someone to be polite, it's insulting. I don't mean to disturb the smoothness of this fabric of society, it gives me ****in' itches!

I admire your politeness.

ETA: I'm still wondering about the politeness level of various countries. Rudeness is highly underappreciated, frowned upon, suppressed in my culture, like in music. How can a human nature, our culture can be smoothed out? No one's really being polite, you can't be polite in a sense that helps the society move smooth or whatever. You are flip flopping like politicians. Wiki-how has this page titled "How to be polite", corrupting young minds. It's teaching them how not to be you. It's nothing, man, if your young depressed *(no one in particular) is trying hard to be polite, follow the proper etiquette in the social situation and almost killing you, they need to learn how rudely assert yourself, politeness kills. So they'd be polite and put on a headset, listening to their beats, getting way better education through the words. Books and internet. **** you say and do won't satisfy every single person around you, what's the point of being polite then?

I am polite most of time but not all of the time, Every day is different with me and every person I am around may get a different reaction from me, I can be really mean verbally and I am very out spoken at the same time, I guess if a person respects me then I will respect them

this should probably go in the hospital experiences thread (but then again, it's not really that crazy)

i remember once a nurse was trying to tell a patient to go back to her room and she kept refusing

so in sted of being polite about it and having patience, the nurse went off on one and litirally dragged her back to where she wanted her to be

i feel sorry for that patient and I still wonder how that nurse ended up in her job. I mean okay, dealing with patience on a psych ward isn't always easy, but do you have a right to drag them through the coridor screaming at them?

As a rule, I think courtesy or politeness is the grease that helps things run smoothly.

However I no doubt break this rule. As I have no a real perception of how I come across that question would be best asked to ppl who know me. I suspect one would get different answers depending who was asked.

I choose to be polite in all situations. I like to be in control of my own behaviors, not simply reacting to someone else's bad mood or poor manners.
I can politely set firm limits if needed.

I am especially cognizant of being polite to service people, as they so often take the brunt of frustration/anger from people.


WC

This is such an interesting topic that I need to understand through and through.

Bully mentality, mob mentality, they just being polite, each one that stands there, the bad mood spreads like plague, like white cells attacking the foreign objects, the foreigner is afraid. Being brought up punished for what they were, some are afraid, some learned to fight on his own.

Frustration/anger label can be put on anyone. Who brought it there? It's in all of us, politeness doesn't always apply to,,, I hope this is obvious to everyone.

Umm,,,my thoughts are on this youtube video shot in Glasgow, an African man busking being interviewed and recorded on this video, two drunks started picking a fight.

"I'm just asking you to leave me alone!", the man repeated while defending himself.

Politeness, it's not that bad, one could say "I'm just being polite.". I shouldn't but I look down on people like that. I guess I'm being a word connoisseur here, it's a bit distasteful and too abstract. Funny how the word 'polite' is being used, maybe time have changed that, what was it used to be like?

P.S. I skimmed through real quick, haven't read all the replies, and now I'll get to that. I'm excited more than you can imagine, I liked your post WC, it sounds so clean and polite, giving off good impression but I'm not surprised, you always do that. I'm wildin', this is all virtual reality if you know what I mean. Thanks for the lessons.

ETA:

I make efforts to be polite as much as possible. Actually, I have been told I say "sorry" too much and "thank you" when unnecessary......maybe I do over apologize, but I do not agree with the person about me saying "thank you" too often. When irritated though or when others are rude to me, I can fight fire with fire when you catch me on the wrong day, but this is rare now. I do notice sometimes I'm a little more quiet and withdrawn, so I have days at work I might only seem moderately friendly. On days I'm "up" though or during hypomania, I'm a lot more cheery and friendly. Manners are very important to me, and I make efforts to treat others with respect and convey that.

I always like to say I am good but not nice.

hah

2 experiences i just need to share (thanks for this post)

1 is a woman who told me a story of how in polite her son was. he went to mcdonalds and said to the waitress please can i have a burger with fries, so he gets it.. turns to her and goes, i don't like ****ing cheese. you hear me?. i wanted a ****ing plain burger you *****.

i am not sure how the waitress felt, probably not good

the other one was me trying to explain the lion king to someone who had never watched it

"so the movie is about simba, a lion cub trying to become king of pride rock"

this person:

so, does it have lions in it or not?

no, even though the movie is called the lion king it has tortoises in it.
omg