Agreed on dressing respectfully at a funeral: it’s just basic courtesy, people are grieving and upset, don’t do anything to distract or irritate them. The last thing a grieving widow needs is to have her mother in law complaining to her that someone is wearing shorts. Just understand that the day isn’t about you and do what you can to make the hardest day of their lives a little easier. It’s astounding to me that more people don’t get this.
I always wear a suit, unless there’s some specific stipulation that I dress a certain way (I’ve been to beach weddings that said no suits), and I’ve seen people at weddings and funerals who look like they usually just rolled in off the street.
But a lot of them look like maybe they don’t have enough cash to afford a suit, especially when they won’t wear it often- weddings and funerals maybe, probably not job interviews.
I can’t say I’ve run across a lot of people who look like they can afford to own a suit and just choose not to.
In the American branch of my employer, wearing a shirt with the F-word will get the person sent home, if they don’t have another shirt, or can somehow cover the shirt.
Where I am now? Not a problem. It’s a different standard.
I would rewrite that sentence, “The last thing a grieving widow needs is to have her mother in law complaining to her.”
My husband has a suit, Hasn’t worn it in more than 2 decades, not sure if it even fits. He wore clean jeans to his father’s funeral - no one blinked an eye, and it was exactly as his father would have expected of him. My father-in-law didn’t really care for public formalities such as dress code. And he would always be polite to people, including people performing services, such as cashiers and cleaners.
One of my favorite cruise ship activities is people watching, and I’m frequently amazed at the lack of self-awareness. Sometimes I just want to ask “Don’t you have a mirror in your cabin?”
My all time winner was a woman that had dressed for dinner. The dress itself was lovely, white with an asymmetrical cut, bare on one shoulder. It would’ve been beautiful had it clung where it was supposed to cling and flowed were it was supposed to flow, but it was about three sizes smaller than the woman wearing it.
On this woman, it looked like a defective sausage casing. But that alone wouldn’t have been nearly enough to make her my grand prize winner.
This woman had been in the sun all day and had gotten burned. Really burned, while wearing a swimsuit. Let’s just say the swimsuit pattern burned into her bright red skin did not complement the lovely white dress.
Her shoes were OK though. I love people watching.
Sounds like he dressed and behaved respectfully at the funeral.
My main gripe is the people who film stage performances with their phones. Instead of watching the carefully choreographed show with the MK 1 eyeballs they were born with, they watch it via a tiny screen. This even happens at events that are going to be broadcast on TV and could easily be recorded.
*I realise that not everyone has fully functioning eyes, but surely the view on a phone screen is far worse than the stage.
There are cultural factors involved.
In my country, for instance, the goal is to bury the body as quickly as possible, usually within 24 hours of death. A few years ago, the mother of a friend of mine died in her sleep. Her father found out when he woke up at 7:00. I heard about it at around 10 AM. The funeral was at 3 PM, an hour and a half from my home. Believe me, I came in my work clothes, and so did almost everyone else. Nobody cared.
Well, I agree with that. My point was that one should dress a little better for a funeral than they would for the gym. Most men have one dress shirt and perhaps a tie on hand, and khakis would be fine to go with it. Sweats, however, are inappropriate. Just my opinion.
I own one suit, which I bought from Land’s End 30 years ago. It still fits me, more or less (enough to get by), and I only wear it for a formal occasion. I live in a somewhat blue collar-leaning area. There are no men’s stores. There used to be several, but they closed years ago. I don’t even know where men who need to wear a suit buy one, much less have it tailored to fit.
Ten-ish years ago I decided I wasn’t going to ever wear a suit again. I had hundreds of ties, so I took them along with my three suits to Goodwill. My gf thought it was a joke and I was just updating my wardrobe.
I would have considered renting something for my kids’ weddings, but my son had a beach wedding and my daughter eloped (COVID). I generally do not attend funerals, so that hasn’t been a problem. When my gf’s dad died I wore clean pants and a Hawaiian shirt to his funeral. I was dressed better than many.
That’s not a functional benefit?
That’s not new. That’s been happening for decades.
I could never understand that either. Performances, events, competitions etc. I noticed this decades ago in the VHS/Hi-8 camcorder era. Some friends of mine were all ga-ga about getting everything on film. While I was enjoying myself soaking it all in with my eyes, they were “seeing” the same thing through one eyeball via the grainy-ish square inch B&W image the viewfinders of the camcorders of the era had, and further distracted by their attempts to fancify their filming by constantly zooming in/out, panning etc.
Later they’d almost brag about how they got 30 minutes, and hour of footage they could later watch, forgetting it’s all second hand by then.
Hope I make the edit, but another thing about these people is they are always shushing everybody because “I’m filming here!”, or rudely demand that others get out of their way.
If you’re 20 & female I probably won’t be too upset about it.
It still depends on the funeral.
I put on my one Weddings and Funerals Dress to go to a good friend’s funeral some years back. The grieving daughters, as well as some of the other attendees, were in work pants. Nobody thought anything of it.
In case of doubt, I’d put the dress on, though. (I’m not sure, in that case, that the deceased had ever seen me in one. Several people commented on it.)
Yes, but I’m VERY old.
I can actually remember the moment - walking from the car to a pumpkin patch w/ our toddlers, 25 years ago, holding the big VHS camcorder on my shoulder, getting ready to record a bunch of tape I’d never look at again. Looking at all the other idiot dads doing the same. From that moment I resolved to primarily experience whatever I and my family were engaging in first, with pictures video a distant 2d (or 3d, or 20th…).
Really did not prepare me well for today’s camera focused world.
Even worse, people standing at a sit down venue that start what I call “Muppet Dancing”, the whole show, if it’s musical. To muppet dance, get up in a hurried motion, wave your hands all around above your head and jerk back and forth to the music. 
I must add: my most favored public formality is wearing clothes in public. Ok, maybe you locked yourself out of the house in your pj’s and have to go to the closest restaurant to call for help. Maybe you lost a bet. Or have issues with the details(maybe you have a broken limb or condition/disability that makes something fussy like a button up shirt impossible). If you’re not in any of these situations and you’re going for brunch or dinner in something not intended for public wear, WTF? You don’t have to be dressed for church or the opera, but yoga leggings, pj’s and bathrobes aren’t what I was getting at.
Exactly. The idea that you should wear a suit (or whatever) to some event is a gesture of respect toward the person(s) who are the focal point of the event. If it’s a wedding, it’s respectful to dress appropriately, whatever that may be. Same thing for funerals. It’s saying “I care enough about you and consider your ceremony important enough to dress appropriately for the situation, instead of wearing what I feel like wearing.”
That doesn’t necessarily mean a suit- if say… the couple getting married are big Star Trek fans and have a Star Trek themed wedding, you’d probably be perfectly respectful by wearing your best Klingon armor and bringing your bat’leth.
Most of the time for men in the US, it’s suit & tie for weddings, funerals, job interviews, etc…
Perhaps, but I have to agree with the poster that it seems much more obvious nowadays particularly on younger women.
I was taught to hold doors open for people–both men and women. I was taught to say “excuse me” if I walk in front someone in public. Both of these are becoming rarer.
As a guy, I normally don’t expect a door to be held open for me, but please don’t let it slam in my face when you are one step ahead of me. Come on folks.
Last Fall I broke my shoulder and was wearing a sling for some weeks. I was shocked at the number of people who just didn’t care that I didn’t have use of my dominant arm: there I was, a gray-bearded older guy with an obviously broken right arm, and they would shove past me to get to the door of a business and not hold the door for me. Of those who opened doors for me, it was almost always men–women would shove past briskly without as much as an “excuse me”
…which brings me to the second point: I was taught to say “excuse me” any time I pass in front of someone. That includes walking between a person in the grocery store and the can of beans they are contemplating from six feet away. Some older guy violated this rule with me yesterday when I went to get coffee–I was standing two feet from the counter and he crossed between me and the counter twice without caring that he had done so. Very rude.
Like many manners, neither of these two rules of basic manners are requirements for life, but they can certainly smooth some of life’s bumps over.