Rules are made to be broken, unless they’re common decencies

We’ve become so casual in our day-to-day social dealings that we seem to have misplaced the little things — like manners, writes Katy Hall. It’s time to bring back common courtesies, like the thank you bottle of wine.

Up there with talking back to teachers and smoking in your school uniform, my mum instilled a firm belief in me that one of the most unforgivable things a person could do was show up to something empty-handed.

Admittedly, I forgot this key life lesson for a few patchy years there in my 20s when I was too busy being a degenerate to worry about things like etiquette and taking anything other than the cheapest bottle of alcohol I could find over to a friend’s house, not as a gift, but for us to consume, preferably as quickly as humanly possible. Thankfully, like many people, I’ve recently emerged out the other side and am now a fully-fledged adult with a yearly planner, ironed clothes and a penchant for social norms.

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But like car keys, wallets, and $20 notes tucked away winter coat pockets, it seems that as a society, we’ve misplaced some of our manners.

Showing up empty-handed is a sin, according to my mother. Picture: iStock

The entry level beginner skills like saying ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ seem to be genetically encoded within us these days, but it’s the more advanced versions of these formalities that seem to have died a slow and silent death while we were all too busy on our smart phones to notice.

Birthday cards have been replaced with text messages; house warming gifts fail to make it out of the homewares stores in which they are so impeccably displayed; flowers and wine aren’t in hand when people come around for dinner, and Tupperware containers filled with something freshly baked are no longer tucked under an arm when we go to visit someone.

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In part, some of this surely comes down to the fact that we are living through an era in which people are more time-poor than ever before. Many of us barely have time to make dinner for ourselves, let alone make a cake on the weekend. But that’s certainly not all of it.

According to Zarife Hardy, founder of the Australian School of Etiquette, the main culprit behind formalities slipping is less about our time management and more thanks to our way of beloved way of life.

No one is ever going to be mad for you bringing over a bottle of wine. Picture: iStock

“We’ve become so casual. And there’s nothing wrong with casual — that’s life now. But what comes with casual is sloppy and people not thinking,” Hardy, who has 25 years of experience within the etiquette industry, says.

“Unfortunately, a lot of people are forgetting those little things, and it’s those little things that make such a big difference in our day-to-day relationships. It’s a great shame that a lot of it is slipping. It doesn’t have to be a bottle of Moet, it’s just a sign of respect and a thank you. Even if it is just a small box of chocolates, it’s literally just that non-verbal sign that says thank you,” she says, adding, “it’s really important that we do those small things.”

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More importantly, though, when you do go out of your way, even in the slightest, people love it. And it makes you look like a semi-decent person who is no longer a borderline alcoholic that once used your parent’s car for a week and forgot to fill it back up with petrol before returning it.

And on that note, I’m off to my mum’s. Flowers and reasonably priced chocolates in hand.

Katy Hall is a columnist for RendezView.com.au