Do you follow rules of "social etiquette"?

[Faye]

Another thing- on more than one occasion last year, I pissed off my ENTP roommate for failing to apprehend and abide by the rules of social etiquette. He'd give me long lectures on why acting in such and such way is not acceptable because it is against some made up rule. It annoyed him more than anyone else.

 

[whytiger]

I caught a lot of flak as a child for not following rules of etiquette. Now I follow them pretty strictly. Whenever I'm in a new group, I try to figure out what's acceptable before participating.

 

[Odyne]

I've lived in different parts of the world as I was growing up, and both my parents come from two different cultures. So, I can't say that I follow a particular social etiquette, because i've been raised in and by different societies. However, I do use common sense and try to be considerate. I'm pretty sure, i've stepped on a few people's toes, and i sure have had poeple frown upon what i do, or shake their heads in disaproval, but this is who I am.

When it's something important, I usually look it up. I've been to a dinner with my best friends family recently, and before I went I had to look up the dos and don'ts at a North American dinner. Similiarly, for weddings and funerals.

 

[TurtleTrooper]

As long as the rules of social etiquette are the ones I'm used to, then yes. But certain groups have their own etiquette rules (different social contracts depending on the group) and those types of rules drive me nuts because those rules are unknown and tend to be unknowable. You only know you've committed a faux pas when the room (or your group) suddenly becomes deathly quiet, or they titter embarrassingly for you.

Those are the situations I do not like.

One of those situations happened with me in the United States, though, but it was a culture of people that I seriously did not understand going in, but I had to work with them. Man, was that a painful two years.

Wow that's really weird. I am the exact opposite. I usually can decipher almost immediately the social norms expected of me.

Online is a whole nother story of course.

I'll usually only abide by social etiquette when it hasn't been breached towards me. When that happens I usually introvert until my brain can hatch some kind of revenge plot. They almost never fall into the category of social etiquette. Otherwise I'm a pretty big people pleaser.

 

[Peppermint]

Do you follow rules of social etiquette? Why or why not?

What are some pros and cons of following such rules?

I show the minimum of decency and civility to people, but as far as the rules of social etiquette go, I tend to dislike and don't even want to bother with them. Half of the time I'm painfully oblivious to the expected etiquette, and the other half of the time it really annoys me because it has no real meaning or purpose to me, and I'll disregard it as a matter of principle.

 

[Julia]

Kind of.

I'm often clueless they even exist.

If I'm aware, I usually very quickly dive right past the surface expectation to the inner place that would give rise to that manifestation of social etiquette.

If I feel that inner place, the manifestation will flow and I'll allow it to be shaped by the surface etiquette expectation as long as it doesn't begin to reshape the experience so much it no longer feels like my honest expression.

If the situation I'm in is important and I sense this manifestation of etiquette is important for acceptance, then I may introspect and see if I can activate that inner place so the behavior will flow from it.

I'm pretty resistant to putting on a cloak of expected behavior without a matching internal state to support it.

^^This.

Wow, that was eloquently stated, tovlo. I sometimes avoid social situations because it is difficult to keep track of etiquette. My intentions are to understand and be kind to people, but there are some ritualistic exchanges that are stressful to me when they start. I prefer to sit quietly, listen, and get a feel for the person and come up with maybe one or two meaningful things to say. I feel some guilt about forgetting birthdays or not knowing what to say about birth and wedding announcements and graduations. I know I have moments of seeming really "off", so I smile at people and respond in a listening way to make up for not knowing exactly what I'm "supposed" to be saying and doing.

I also tend to not care what style of communication people use with me. If they are rude and blunt, shy, polite, etc. I just try to get underneath all that external style to understand the basic intent. If that seems positive then it is basically impossible to offend me by mistake.

 

[Quinlan]

No I'm a fool with no Fe, maybe I wasn't raised proper or sumfink.

I say please and thankyou though!

 

[BlinkandThink]

I'm conscious of some things but completely oblivious to others. I'm especially bad at adjusting to group situations, so I'm sure I've inadvertently offended a lot of people.


One-on-one, however, it's pretty good because I can focus on the person.


I'm really bad with any sort of long distance thing though. I forget to contact or follow-up with people all the time.