Whatever happened to good old fashioned manners?

I was walking across the quad (the big concrete space between the four school buildings made to sound a bit more glamorous than it really is) at just 9am this morning, when I was greeted by a group of teenage boys shouting abuse at each other along the lines of ‘I’ve fucked your mum anyway.’ Needless to say I was slightly offended when in reality these boys probably hadn’t lost their virginity they were so young. This was followed by being barged into by a different clique of boys in the corridor when I was just trying to eat my pan au chocolat and by the time I’d reached the class room a young girl had called me ‘fucking stressy’ when I asked her to politely move from the doorway and her boyfriend went on to shout ‘you're fucking pussy.’ Delightful.

This calamity happened this morning alone. I have experienced groups of people walk through a door rather than hold it open for a man carrying twelve laptops. Daily I hold doors open for students and the walk straight through, gracing me with only a dirty look as if I owed them the pleasure. A boy I’ve never seen in my life looked over my shoulder and said ‘who are you texting then?’ as I was trying to contact my mother. I over hear girls threatening to beat each other up and calling passer by's sluts. Old ladies have asked me ‘who do you think you’re smiling at?!’ when I smile at them in shops.  And what happened to good old fashioned manners?

And maybe I am just old fashioned. But I cannot see the attraction to foul language, lack of appreciation and being incredibly rude. It seems the younger students in my school find this whole demeanour to be attractive and something to aspire to be. When quite frankly where I’m from, manners, appreciation and good etiquette (I’m not talking knowing the difference between types of cutlery, just not barging into girls in corridors without a care in the world really) are three of the most important qualities going. But is this the future? Are manners simply old fashioned, is it generally accepted as okay among our generation to violently swear and never say please and thank you?

In Maya’s idea world, everybody would be kind to each other and give each other flowers on streets and give way in corridors saying: ‘after you, sir’. But we don’t live in a dream world, and from my experience people no longer share my ideal. Even elder ladies in shops feel the need to ask me not to smile at them, and grown men and women fail to thank me when I step aside and let them pass. It’s disappointing, I’m disappointed. But I have no idea what to do about it. 

As you can probably tell I let the events of today ruin my day a little bit. I have lost my tolerance for the humanity around me. Once a wise man told me a story though, about a shop keeper throwing the change at the customer with a snide look. The customer, rather than swear or throw the change back at him responded with 'thank you kindly, have a beautiful day.' This somewhat surprised the shop keeper, who asked him why he wasn't angry? And the customer simply replied with 'there are bigger things to worry about, I'm not going to let you ruin my day.' It's a lesson, right? Sure the World is full of negative people, but we shouldn't let them make us negative too. Maybe we can all kill bad attitude with kindness one day. For now, I'm focusing on ignoring negativity, and keeping my own manners intact.