How rude !!

Rudeness is the weak man's imitation of strength

A recent article in Metro Plus set me thinking about what exactly constitutes rudeness.

Rude as defined on the net :

ill-mannered: socially incorrect in behavior
ill-bred: (of persons) lacking in refinement or grace
uncivil: lacking civility or good manners;

Back when the telephone was the only medium of virtual communication I considered it rude to hang up until the person who calls keeps the phone down. Infact, I still feel the same.

What is also really rude is that you make a call and then expect the other person to do all the talking and ask all the questions !!

Its rude not to return a call.

It is rude not to look at a person when you are talking to him / her.

What I consider particulary rude is when you don't smile at someone whom you know ( even if u know that person only vaguely ) even if you are just passing by them or its a fleeting glance.

Its rude to interrupt a person when he or she is trying to tell something.

Its especially rude when you are talking to someone and that person cuts you off in the middle only to start on some other totally unrelated topic.

Its rude to make noise when someone is sincerely trying to teach something.

Its rude to applause before the speaker finished his/her speech.

Infact , the net has introduced countless ways of being rude
Keeping someone in your ignore list in yahoo or hotmail.

Not replying to scraps in orkut.

Many Guys in orkut have this weird habit of sending friend requests randomly to gals. Initally my friend and I thought that it would be rude to deny friend requests atleast from those who would be our future collegues and thats why we have a whole bunch of unknown people as our friends. Later we realised how dumb we had been. Its my personal opinion that its really rude sending a friend request to someone whom you don't even know , just on the basis of their profile. There are guys who send out mass friend requests to god only knows how many gals. Maybe they are just harmless people but I think its extremely rude and uncouth to do the same.


So , why am I going on and on about rudeness here ? I really believe in the fact that its the little things in life that matter a lot and make a huge differnce. Its also the little things with no consequence which also hurt a lot. Many a times we are rude unconsciously . Like when I am really involved in some work or in some great tension then things which other people say just go past my ears , hence they would construe this action of mine as rude !! That is why we should learn to identify the possible ways we can be rude in order to overcome the same .

Let me now just narrate two incidents which happened sometime back.

Once I was out buying veggies with my mom . The fruit wala was selling 4 Oranges for some amount of money. While paying that guy my mom also enquired about his wife , children and why he shifted his shop from there to here. When I came back home I saw that the fruit wala had dropped in 5 oranges. :-)

This other day I struck up a convesation with the icecream shop guy. The next day I went to the same shop and I recognised the guy and a smile was waiting to break in my face. I could see that guys face also contorting. I guess , it was a question of who would go first. In the end , both of us ended up smiling at each other at the same time.

After all it does not take much to smile at someone or to type a few words does it ?

So , why give in to rudeness, when you can fight back with kindness.