RUDENESS IS UBIQUITOUS THESE DAYS

For whatever reason, too many people seem unaware that they impact (by their behaviors) on other people.  Tonight I was at a live live jazz concert in a restaurant/Inn.  It was to celebrate the 20 years of jazz played here.  I would rant that there is a difference in a public room that serves food and liquor when the music is ambient, everyone is there ready for conversation.  However, when there is a $10 cover charge and most people have come to hear the music because they are fans of the live performers.

As it happened, I was a guest of a couple, friends of mine, who really love jazz and occasionally I am their guest as I was tonight.  The table was set for four but there only the three of us so my hosts  welcomed the evening's singer when she said she had no place to sit.  As the evening progressed she pulled up another chair to the table and invited a friend of hers to sit there, talking through the music by her fellow performers.  That was inconsiderate and rudeness #2, the first being bringing a guest to the table without asking permission from the hosts who had reserved the table.  This finally forced a frustrated host to tell them they could move to another table if they wished to converse because we and all come to hear the music.

On the other side of the room, seated on tall stools at the bar serving drinks, a few people sat.  Clearly three women were friends and their cluster made it clear that they wished to socialize.  They were loud and definitely interfered with those who wished to hear the music.  The bartender also joined in with their loud conversations.

Many drivers seem oblivious to the fact that they are not alone on the road.  People often intrude into one's hearing space as well as physical space, seeming not to realize they are violating boundaries.  Have boundaries disappeared from the list of subjects one tries to teach a child at a reasonably early age?  I seem to be missing something critically different in the current society than I was taught how to behave sensitively of other people's personal and material space..