Gratitude

This is one of the trickier social customs.

Personally, I'm not very good at communicating my gratitude to people. There's a certain degree of acting involved that I'm just not willing to comply with, so I fear people think me ungrateful. I always think of it as an ultimate gratitude though, like one that even if the person that gave me the thing doesn't know about, still exists, so at least I know it does actually exist even if my physical participation in the expected fanfare is lacking. Knowing this, I tend to get all ironic and obvious about the fact I can't express my gratitude as well as I'd like, but that the gift-giver should rest assured that I am very, very grateful. That's how I say thanks. I say hello to people I don't know very well similarly, that's if I don't pretend to have a text when they walk past, or rub my eyes, or cross the street, or turn around and run away.

I make a point of discussing this because at work on Wednesday this girl brought in like thirty French strawberry dessert things for everyone. Her mum had made them for us. I was like WHAT THE FUCK, HOW DO I REACT TO THIS, THAT'S SO GOD DAMNED NICE OF HER. It was too nice, to the point where I resented her for it. It meant it put me in a position where I had to effectively communicate my gratitude, which I know I can't do very well. The interesting thing was I think that she sensed that. As in, I think she knew I would be too 'polite' to take one, and you know what, I probably would have been if it wasn't for the fact it would be really obvious if I didn't take one. She was sat next to me and they were right in front of me. Also, I was kind of thrust into participating because the dude to my right was like "can you pass me one of those please?" and I went to grab them to pass them to him and realised as I did it I was initiating their consumption! I shat myself and blurted out that it was for the other dude, all amidst flamboyant hand-gestures signalling that it was for him, and not me. She said something like "yeah, take one, everyone, just grab one" and then she turned to me and was like "seriously Mr. Pseudonym, have one, really" in like a sympathetic tone. I think directly addressing me sealed it. If she didn't, I probably wouldn't have had one. A girl the week before made brownies for everyone and I didn't take one because I knew I could get away with it. I was sat on a corner, slightly facing away from the table, but still at it. It's my natural reaction to distance myself from that type of thing, and just kind of view everybody else participating. I don't know why. I mean, I can identify all the reasons I don't, but not why it's instinctual for me to do that. I never played musical chairs at parties when I was a kid either, or anything similar. I only played pass the parcel and would cry if somebody made me do anything else. I always say no when people offer me stuff like chewing gum too, even if I kind of want it. I know part of the reason I say no is because I know everybody else will say yes, so I remove myself from being responsible for the fact that now three-quarter's of this dude's Tic Tacs are gone, but at least I know I saved him one more. But, that's not the main reason; I don't know what is.

My workplace is a fucking horrifying body-snatchers type universe for 'common' courtesy though. There's nothing common about that shit. It's very, very uncommon. Bordering on grotesque courtesy. Let me explain.

It's nuts how far people go above and beyond the call of duty when holding doors open for people at work. In public general protocol is that you hold the door open for as long as it takes you to walk through it, and as long as your arms can reach as you move further from it, then, if nobody is there to grab it before your distance from the door surpasses the length of your arm, tough shit. Sometimes you can wait, but never longer than 2 seconds. 2 seconds is pushing it. 2 seconds becomes awkward. At work people will gladly hold the door for like 10 straight seconds. Seriously, they do that shit from like 50 paces away, and wait the whole time. That puts me in an awkward position, literally; I have to then do a gay little jog to get the door in order to reciprocate their courtesy and express my gratitude. It's bad when you go through four sets of doors with the same dude in front too, holding it each time. That's four thank yous in the space of like 20 seconds. Any idea how retarded you think you sound saying thank you that often? You try and vary the way you say it but there aren't that many ways to switch it up. You have "thanks" and "cheers" and that's about it. I said "thanks again" once and did a little chuckle to break it up, but the dude didn't laugh. Fuck him.

Anyway, people kept making a point of thanking the girl for her desserts, and I kept kind of jumping on the tail-end of their thanks with shit like "yeah, that's really nice of you" hoping she might hear and know I'm not some ungrateful twat that eats her mum's desserts and doesn't say thank you.

I'm just some ultra self-aware twat that can't say thank you.