One of my personal pet peeves is being asked to drastically change the way that I act or that my desk looks because company is coming. The love of people to make a good impression, at the cost of being dishonest about the way things actually are on a regular basis, is something that really offends and incenses me, especially if they ask me to be a part of the act. Such pretense, with the implied insult that my normal way of behavior is not acceptable for company, is deeply offensive to me, but also extremely common.

In musing about how I tend to get rather heated about this issue, I pondered why it was that people do this sort of behavior, and what sort of level of respect I have for people in general. After all, the love of people for putting on ‘company manners’ is the desire to make a good impression. To some extent I tend to be rather disinclined to engage in image management. It is not only a skill I happen to greatly lack, but something that often stirkes me as dishonest and fake, and something I rebel against for moral reasons.

And, truth be told, I am not by nature a very rude person. My tendency to engage in ferocious debating notwithstanding, I am not someone who greatly enjoys fighting, and tend to seek a wide emotional distance from other people if I cannot trust them (and I have pretty serious trust issues in general). At least if one judges politeness by the waiter rule, I am a very polite polite person to waiters and waitresses. My fairly radical egalitarianism tends to mean that I treat everyone with the same standard of politeness but often a pretty fierce willingness to tell unpleasant truths to others and a discinclination to defer to others or to put up with very much nonsense. Thus people who expect deference are likely to get nothing more than chilly politeness where they expect genuflection and adoration. Meanwhile, those who tend to expect brusque and abrupt behavior receive very civil and friendly politeness. I am far more at ease around servants than I am around those who fancy themselves lords.

I’m not sure if there is a way that company manners can be made more appealing to someone like myself. I suppose if it were part of an effort to increase civility across the board to the level of company manners, it would be less hypocritcial in my estimation. It would suggest, on the one hand, that my own normal way of behaving around people was not sufficiently polite and friendly, but at least it would suggest that company manners ought to be behaved around everyone, being one’s learned but normal standard of behavior, whether around friends or family or important strangers. It might be a bitter pill to swallow, but it would not fail my test of sincerity.

And yet this is not often the tack that is taken by those who seek to impress others with company manners. Instead, the sham act of politeness towards important visitors leads to a deep farce about how things really are. Potemkin villages become the rule, rather than the exception, and everyone involved engages in a dishonest show. Eventually, if all involved are equally instead in pretense, then the person visiting only wants to make a pro forma tour of the operations, not even being interested in the regular people who have been primped and pushed into what is thought to be an acceptable form, but rather only interested in the other important people, aside from whatever adoration he could receive from a commoner. I detest this sort of farce personally, as it reminds me of the sort of show that would be common among slaves putting on a whiteface show for their masters, or for serfs and servants to dress up nicely and flatter the important people, and I strenuously object to being seen in such a fashion by others. I have no qualms being a servant to whomever I am called to serve, but no one save God Almighty and His son Jesus Christ is my Lord and King, and I will not primp myself to put on a pretty show for someone else. People will love me for the real me or they will not love me at all.

As I am someone who considers flattery (whether given or received) to be offensive, I tend to find the games that people play with images to be very irritating. I suppose that my own rather fierce opposition to looking nicer for others than I would by my normal standards is somewhat off-putting to other people as well. There are a couple of starkly different worldviews in conflict between those who want to put on a pretty face and smile falsely for the world and those who are grimly determined to expose and demonstrate the truth, whether pretty or ugly. Those who want to put on a pretty show above all, and flatter others and be flattered in return are not going to like someone who hangs their laundry to dry outside their door.

If only we could be better (and I speak for myself as well here) at showing respect without the need or appearance of falseness, then those who genuinely deserve respect would feel respected, and only those who demanded more than was proper would be offended. That is a delicate balance to maintain—honoring others while being totally honest and sincere, and I would not pretend to have mastered that balance. But that is the goal, at least for me, so that company manners would be the manners for any company, whether rich or poor, young or old, great or small.