Be kind if you want him to like you.

When I was 15 and traveling through Israel I had a number of debates about the topic of “universal politeness.” I remember arguing with Adam a lot about whether it’s necessary to try to empathize when someone gets hurt or to express gratitude when others do for you. He was against what he considered arbitrary kindness. I disagreed. From then on I’ve always been the one who offers “god bless you” from the other side of the room, because I think it really does make a difference.

Especially now, when we’re all mature enough to recognize “what one should do.” It’s conspicuous when someone doesn’t return a gesture or offer thank you. And, quite frankly, it bothers me. If you’re not sure what to do, just say something nice and move on.

My gripe of late is actually a bit more specific. A couple of my friends saw very obvious demonstrations about how I would react in a particular circumstance, and then didn’t reciprocate in similar circumstances. In one case it was not offering their apologies when they seriously ruined my day (though it wasn’t intentional, they knew what happened). In another it was about offering to share something very important with me but then avoiding it the multiple times the opportunity arose. Alone these would only mildly bother me, but having nearly the identical thing happen with both of them within a week when I went out of my way to do “the right thing”…. Gosh I wish I could write the specifics, but I feel like I’m going to get in trouble for writing just this much.

Is there a moral to all of this? You never how people are people are going to take your inaction, so you may as well be nice. You may even make a difference in their day. At the Perk today, when I was feeling a little down and there were two new people working there, one of them grunted and didn’t say anything much whereas the other smiled as she brought me extra chutney. The first person kept me in the same mood (by the way, you should thank people when they give you a tip!). The second one made brightened my day (well worth the tip!).

The irony with one of the two people that my real gripe is with is that she’s been trying to get to know me better–yes, romantically. I know that it’s not personal that she didn’t reciprocate here. But it’s hard for me to even maintain a friendship with people who conspicuously avoid going a little bit out of their way for you. Or worse, they only do it when there’s something in it for them. Boo.

So the message is simple, be kind to people because you never know how much it’ll help them or affect your friendship. We’d all like to think we don’t keep score, but deep down it’s hard to always look the other way.