Which should lead her to accept and be used to different social norms.
I don’t tend to push handshakes, and I probably end up shaking hands with 75% of the men I meet. Closer to 50% of women.
You won’t get an argument from me.
“90% of pedestrian deaths happen while jaywalking, please don’t”.
As opposed to when? When pedestrians are on the sidewalk? Or in the mall? Not a strong stat.
I’m not going to walk two blocks out of my way to cross like a good citizen. Don’t take that to then mean that I can’t distinguish danger and you must therefore coddle me across the street. Or fail to, rather.
Romani or Roma people, traditionally known in Anglo-American culture as Gypsies and in European culture by other terms now often considered derogatory.
Did not know that they originated in India. Huh.
Guess not. I grew up in rural Michigan and was pretty culturally isolated in my early life. Attending the University of Michigan radically altered my understanding of the world because it was so damned diverse, including a ton of international students. But we were all sort of adhering to university culture, too, right? We had these shared traditions and values based on our ages and the fact that we were attracted to that university in the first place. We were almost entirely super liberal hyper-intellectual young people. There was a sense of ‘‘we’re not that different after all.’’
Well, that’s not true. Some of us are really different. In fact, Americans are fucking bizarre compared to the rest of the world. We are extreme outliers in social behavior and in our internal psychological makeup. We take so much for granted as ‘‘the way things are’’ that the majority of the world just sees as fucking insane.
And you can see that, a sort of cross-section of global diversity, in American culture, too. But depending on where you live geographically, you can spend your whole life never getting the bigger picture. The east coast (probably both coasts, and major cities also) are very culturally diverse not just in terms of ethnicity and religion but class and value systems and levels of education. I suspect people in those areas, or very diverse areas, take a lot of stuff for granted as ‘‘common knowledge’’ that people where I grew up don’t have a damned clue about. Jewish cultural mores are a great example. Hell, I didn’t even know anything about Catholics until I got to college. My husband was raised Catholic and I still don’t really understand Catholicism!
By the way, Penn was shockingly not diverse compared to the University of Michigan. There were things I loved about that program and obviously, social work school was quite progressive, but as an institution, it seemed like decades behind the times. I found that shocking and disappointing in the middle of a city as lovely and diverse as Philadelphia. Philadelphia is the reason I went to school there, but Penn is not Philadelphia. Guess there are pockets of isolationism everywhere.
I’ll devil’s advocate this a bit. Sometimes, sure, the “nice” driver is making a hash of things. Other times, specific roads and intersections make a rigid adherence to the rules more dangerous.
Near my house, an extremely narrow road intersects a slightly larger road. Let’s say the narrow road runs east-west, the larger one runs north-south. There’s a 4-way stop-sign. A lot of people turn from the wider road east onto the narrow road. If there’s another car on the narrow road coming from the east, it’s a very difficult maneuver–especially if there’s a third car parked on the narrow road. So almost always when this situation arises (and it arises pretty often, maybe 10% of the time I drive through this intersection), the person on the larger road motions the narrow-road person to come through first, even if the larger-road person reached the intersection first. The narrow-road person waves, they drive through, everyone’s happy. Sure, we could all follow the rules of the road rigorously, but that’s likely to delay us both as the wider-road person goes very very slowly to avoid scraping the car of the narrow-road person.
The grocery store near my house has a parking lot with an entrance 40’ or so from a stoplight. Cars are almost always backed up to this stoplight past the grocery store’s entrance. If you’re leaving the parking lot, you’ll pretty much never get out unless, when the light turns green, some kind soul waves you on. So that’s what people do: just like merging on the highway, you let one car from the grocery store lot turn onto the road in front of you, then you go. Again, that’s not protocol, but it works.
I suspect that this has things backwards: a certain approach to cultural norms and etiquette will necessarily lead to a more . . . exciting . . . life.
For whatever it’s worth I asked 8 female friends/acquaintances about the “congratulations” issue. All of them said they would be flattered. Most were baffled by the question. Only two had heard of the tradition, which was, in their words “archaic sexist bullshit.”
All cultures everywhere have etiquette. And in fact, the actual rules of real etiquette are the same everywhere: Rules like “don’t make other people uncomfortable”, and “don’t impose on people”, and “don’t assume that people are going to do something without asking them”. But many societies insist on creating extra, superfluous rules that have nothing to do with real etiquette, like “don’t eat the main course with a salad fork or vice versa”, or “don’t congratulate a bride”. These rules are idiosyncratic to particular cultures and societies, and will bear no resemblance to the superfluous rules from other societies. The superfluous rule against congratulating brides comes from WASP culture, and so it might be referred to as a WASP rule. Calling it a WASP rule does not imply that other cultures don’t have etiquette, because it isn’t actually an etiquette rule to begin with.
If we aren’t aware of it, and we don’t bother to learn it or to follow it, then it’s not part of our culture.
Well know you know your 8 female friends are gold digging whores, don’t you?
Specially as that’s what we’ve been taught to say in English. I don’t recall any of my ESL classes including the expression “best wishes”. I’ve learned it from media… or maybe from Hallmark cards. Yeah, I think it was Hallmark cards.
As opposed to, the other 10% was in parking lots, along the side of a road or in marked crossings. You really need a Sesame Street level explanation of “places where a car may run over a person”?
Only upper class women. Middle and lower class ones would have been stunned if anybody had tried to kiss their hands.
Did those interactions lead to marriage?
If so, congratulations are certainly in order!
Let me preface this by saying I’m fully aware that we’re in IMHO, and I’m also fully aware that based on the thread topic, it makes sense that discussion would wind up with discussion of and disagreement about etiquette. Therefore, I’m not faulting any of the participants in this thread for talking about handshake etiquette.
HOWEVER, I think most regulars here would acknowledge that there are a LOT of threads around here that get bogged down on that particular topic when it isn’t (or shouldn’t be) the focus of the thread, and we seem to have arrived at that point once again. So in order to promote discussion about other relevant answers to the OP, I am asking that there be no more talk of the handshake issue in this thread.
Anyone here, of course, is welcome to take that conversation to a new thread or an appropriate existing thread, if there is one. I appreciate everyone’s cooperation.
This is an anonymous message board. We have no way of knowing if she (or anyone else here) is what she claims to be. Or, she could be an extreme outlier. Let’s not make any judgment of Roma from anything she posts.
The old etiquette of ‘don’t congratulate the bride’ is WASP American culture, as is Miss Manner’s type stuff generally. That culture does/did apply to some people who were not literally WASP’s, and not apply to others who technically are (Scots-Irish Southerners for example). You can argue for or against that particular characterization, but it’s not ‘bigoted’, and SJW excess to try to claim that, IMHO.
I don’t think anyone was assuming any particular person is a WASP or cares. I wasn’t. I find ZPG’s sensibilities, on this and the handshake/rape threat thing, odd, frankly. But that’s all.
This thread reminds me that I’ve done a great job jettisoning the pain in the ass etiquitte-zillas from my life. Brides getting angry because someone says “congratulations” instead of “best wishes” and ranting about prostitution has never occurred.
I can see why, but I had to edit the scenario to reality…
Option 1:
Option 2
Option 3 (which literally has never happened to me, but let’s pretend the bride notices and her manners slip because she’s a bit tired and frazzled on the Big Day; it happens):
Etiquette is not meant to be a game of “gotcha”, and if someone is “incorrect” to you, you go with it and make sure no one else notices if possible. If you are “incorrect” to them, they go with it and make sure no one else notices if possible. What you don’t do is respond like an entitled, petulant asshole (or asshole-ette).
That’s certainly true. I want drivers looking at things with an eye toward what’s safest and most efficient, not what’s friendly or what benefits them the most with no eye toward safety.
There is a Pit thread just for ZPG Zealot and her handshake rape thing.
Can we take this hijack there?
There is a way. It’s called google and there shows absolutely zero evidence of the handshake thing being Roma. None whatsoever. ZPG Zealot has been challenged to produce any evidence. Short of that, I suggest people stop taking it seriously.
Her arguments are basically disingenuous and imply that a personal belief is a cultural belief. Look at the following:
Note that she never states that handshaking is part of the Roma culture, yet reading that would give that impression.
She’s never directly stated it’s a Roma thing and other Roma posters in the past have stated it’s not.
So, again, Zealot. Is this a Roma subculture? If so, what is the name of the subculture? Where is any evidence this is not some personal agenda?