I felt really kind of low yesterday evening, which hadn’t happened on me for a
long time. At about seven o’clock p.m. I went to the English Salon near to our
school, the first time since this year. It was as crowded and popular as usual.
A throng of people sat and talked in English hither and thither around the room.
After getting a cup of tea from the register table, glancing around the room, I
found a seat finally. The guy sat beside me was a business man. He asked my occupation and age first. After knowing that I am still a student and planning to be
a postgraduate next year, he asked continually how it was going. “Do you have
confidence in passing the exams?” He asked, with a snobbish look.
“Well, I am working on it.” I replied. He then summarized that I had no enough
confidence in myself. What a crap. I almost couldn’t help smashing my book right on his face. What right did he have to judge people totally new to him. “You
never know.” Saying this, I left for another table.
But I was hurt by his words, though he might not mean it. The truth is it’s not
his summarizing that really pissed me off but his attitude. There was kind of rudeness in his manner. I thought in a conversation two people should be involved
, the talk should be reciprocal. But with him, I didn’t see it. It was like a monolog, within which he was the sole king.
He reminded me of another person I came across in a coffee bar last year. He came to me for a talk, which I appreciated and accepted with pleasure. “You speak
English very well, that’s how come I come to you.” Well, it was a bit of direct, but still acceptable, wasn’t it? Later on, however, I found a problem. He was not listening at all. He did allow me to talk for a while, but he was not listening at all while I was speaking. He was just preparing for his words for later
use.
Really an awful experience it was. It seems even though we are not willing to, we still have to meet such similar guys in our life. So it was with my experience
yesterday evening. I didn’t mean that guy was totally rude and took no tiny consideration for others. He was courteous in some other aspects, like he filled my tea before he filled his. But if possible, could he be a little more courteousand considerable, like not doing “sum up” or probing stuff?
We live in a world with rules and manners, which came into being for the sake of
harmony. Keep them in our mind while we communicate outside so that the person
you come to might feel at ease and with comfort. Because maybe you may not realize it, but your poor manner has already ruined, or at least influenced, the mood
of the person beside you.
At the end, sincerely hope we'll have a world with good manners company.
Caroline
