Delicate etiquette

People are annoying. Or rather, things that people do are annoying.

We all have our personal gripes (people standing on the wrong side of escalators at train stations, for example. It’s not hard. Just watch what everyone else is doing). 

In response, we often turn to etiquette to set societal expectations and norms. Which, of course, brings its own set of problems.

GQ recently released its ‘125 Rules for Modern Gentlemen’. It contains everything from the obvious (never insist on ordering for your date), to the wrong (don’t carry possessions in your pockets), to advice which should be taught in schools and plastered on billboards (don’t listen to music, podcasts, TikTok videos, or take phone calls in public without using headphones). 

It’s far from the only proclamation on proper protocol to have emerged recently. 

There’s been an online debate about how to properly eat bread and butter, advice around unexpected phone calls, whether you can bring your own snacks to the movies, and the rules around serving coffee to the royals.

Some advice is clearly wrong. A recent article on laundry room etiquette stated there should be a grace period to allow people to remove their clothes from a washing machine. Which is obviously incorrect, communal laundry is akin to a competitive sport and there’s no space for slackers.

In truth, knowing the etiquette of every social situation is a nightmare, and often entirely subjective. Correctly buttering your bread matters far more in a fancy restaurant with a date than during a hungover brunch with mates, for example. 

But surely we can all, regardless of context, background, location, or timing, agree on one thing. Stand on the right side of the escalator. Please.