Mind Your Manners

Do you want to know what are two things that will never click perfectly together? Me talking, trying to make a point out of genuine opinion and another person interrupting me in the middle of my sentence, trying to prove himself/herself right. Oh I'm sorry, where did your manners go?

There are some people I know who actually have this forte, and trust me, if this were an exam they would ace a perfect A+ and qualify themselves for a Scholarship Award for The Bigots. These imbeciles are the ones that I loathe to debate/discuss with the most. 

Here's a situation. Me and a certain XX talking about a random issue. When XX interrupts me while I'm talking, often occurs the argument no longer centres around relevance or logic. It is now morphed into a heated discussion and it's pretty easy to tell who's owning. XX's interruption forces me to seal my lips shut and afford to pay attention to XX making points, which XX does not care if any of the them are valid, because what it takes to win the argument is who can talk non-stop and put the other person on hold, no? Isn't it obvious? Relevance, logic and deploring skills are now merely the trivial essences of the discussion. So in this case, can you tell who's winning? Of course, how about a huge round of applause for XX! 

In the end, I'll just have to nod as though to agree to the conclusion that has been drawn - XX is right, I am wrong. Hypothesis is accepted.

And who doesn't love that flabbergasting feeling when you get to prove someone wrong and flare your nostrils?

I could fight back, I could rise from the silence that XX has forced me into, I could win the argument. But really, do I really want to win an argument over a person who clearly needs to make time during the weekend for Etiquette Classes? Not that I'm saying I could win every single argument. What I'm trying to say is that you still can win the argument by being polite and modest, a little respect for someone who is talking goes a long way. If you can manage to respect one, you will earn respect from one.

And have people nowadays forgotten to say 'Please' and 'Thank you'? I don't think I see the need to elaborate on this, because when I was in kindergarten, these two were the things that my teachers emphasised on. Nak pergi toilet, cakap please. Nak pinjam crayon kawan sebelah, cakap please. Bila pulangkan balik, cakap thank you. Nak mintak gula-gula, cakap please. Back then, I even had to include 'Please' and 'Thank you' when asking anything from my parents, and that still didn't guarantee to have my wish for a new set of Luna colouring pencils granted. 

At this era? "Ayah, nak iPad satu!" "Okay anakku."