Excuse me while I pull up my bra

This is how it went: I’m sitting in my cubicle with a senior, a girl of 21 years who is two months away from graduation. She’s sitting a few feet in front of me. We are having consultations, and the discussion is going well. I tell her how dramatically she, a creative writing major, has improved throughout the year that I have been advising her. As our 15-minute conversation is about to end, she does something I haven’t been able to forget since: she raises both hands from her lap, brings them near her blouse’s neckline (which hangs neither too high nor too low on her chest), then takes her thumbs and plunges them behind and beneath the hem of her blouse and, presumably, beneath the cups of her bra. With bra and blouse firmly pinched, she gives them a good tug upward. After it is over — it couldn’t have taken more than a second — she brings her hands back to her lap, then makes a casual gesture here and there to continue our conversation.

I sit there aghast, but she makes no sign that she has done something you don’t do in polite company. I fumble for words, then decide that it’s better not to remark on it at all. (Because, really, what do say after that?) After she is gone I go over to some female colleagues and ask them if what she did — I imitate the girl’s tugging motion — is normal. They smirk and giggle fizzily, like shaken soda bottles. She did that right in front of you? they ask. Yup, I say, just like that, without warning or apology. It was nothing to her. They give a look that says, what do you expect with kids these days? Over at lunch, in the company of my colleagues, I ask the same question, repeat the gesture. They react the same way — with surprise, dismay and plenty of rueful laughter. Kids these days, they sigh, throwing their hands up.

I wonder: Is this a generational thing? I decide to investigate further. At a family gathering soon afterwards, I approach a cousin in her early 20s. I do what I now call the bra-tug maneuver. She shrugs and gives me a look that says, That’s it? What’s the big deal?

There’s another habit that I’ve found annoying: my wife and I are sitting in a theater. We arrived early and got aisle seats. To our left is a group of twentysomethings, one of whom stands and walks in our direction. When he gets right next to us, he hovers above us, gives us an expectant look and a thin smile but says nothing. We turn our legs to the side and let him through. He passes, again without a word. Later, when he returns, he does the same thing: stands wordlessly beside us, expecting us to let him through without a verbal prompt. We let him. I say to my wife, “Whatever happened to ‘Excuse me’?”

But I wonder: Is he being rude? Or are my expectations just not aligned with his? Maybe many of his generation behave the way he does. After all, the same thing happens in queues. Someone wants to pass through the line to somewhere else, and they stand there right beside you without saying a word, hoping you move aside so they can walk through. “Excuse me” is passé, except I didn’t get the memo. (Such memos never seem to get to my desk anymore.)

And then there’s something I see in my very own classrooms: yawning. I remember being told growing up that it was rude to yawn in front of others, so if you felt one coming on, you hid your yawn with your hand or turned away. No way would you yawn right in someone’s face. Yet this semester I’ve already seen students sitting in the first row give me big, full-frontal, mouths-wide-open, head-tipped-back yawns while I’m standing in front in the middle of a sentence. I think they’re being rude.

Or am I just being prissy? (And defensive, too — my classes aren’t that boring, are they?) Could I be overreacting, making a mountain out of a mannerly molehill? Or am I on to something real? Have I put my finger on an important characteristic of this younger generation, one they aren’t aware of but which sticks out to me like someone picking his nose in the middle of a crowded room?

And then there’s the matter of texting. If I send my parents a text message, I know that they will acknowledge it with a reply, even if just an “OK.” If they text me, they expect as much of me. My siblings are the same; send them a message, and they let you know they got it. My students, though, are not. I send a message — maybe I’m sick and can’t come to class, or I’m running a few minutes late — and very few, if any, reply.

I’ve got a theory: these habits are a sign of a blithe uncouthness afflicting our young. They simply don’t value manners the way older generations did and still do. They are less sensitive to how their actions will be seen by others. In the age of the Daily Me, that apt term for the ego-stroking echo chamber we make for ourselves in these gadget-infested times, this should be no surprise. As we become better at surrounding ourselves with experiences that please us and at keeping away those that won’t (only the music we like on our iPods, only our friends as contacts on Facebook), we become far less attuned to the feelings of others. Especially to feelings of disapprobation. To those on the outside of such a cocoon, the person inside looks indifferent and apathetic, not to mention underskilled in the art of living with others. And who else would be more accustomed to living in such cushy virtual aeries than our technology-besotted youngsters?

But then again, all this could be hasty generalizing, my quick willingness to attribute the faults of a handful to an entire age group. Besides, “rude” and “polite” are terms made meaningful only by context. We might want to think that these are objective qualities, but they depend on what people expect of each other, and expectations change over time, over generations. One example: The written invitation has become passé in the age of text messaging, but don’t tell that to my folks. They still prefer invites that you pull out of envelopes, that you can slip into your book to mark your place, that burn when lit. For my part, you need only text me if you want me at your party. I won’t think you’re rude.

Expectations depend on where you are, too. Just as I was explaining this theory of mine to another friend, cleverly linking the uncouthness of the young with a general degradation of good manners and hospitality in our society, she stopped me cold when she said, “But that’s only in the city.” Older and far wiser than me, she explained that people who lived outside the confines of our snarling cities still display the civility and kindness that is disappearing here. And since I’ve lived most of my life in the belly of the rude urban beast, I never noticed.

Ultimately, maybe I am making too much of all this. I think of my parents again. I love them, but sometimes I think they’re fussy old coots. It could be that I’m turning into one, too. Maybe the best thing to do is to shut up and accept this generation for what it is, full-throated yawns and all. Besides, things could be worse. Years from now kids might be fixing their wedgies in public and think nothing of it. (I hope to God I’m retired by then.)

And come to think of it, maybe it’s best that the girl who tugged at her bra right in front of me did so without any fuss. That showed a kind of grace, didn’t it? Imagine if she’d said, before doing so, “Excuse me while I pull up my bra.” Now how would I have reacted then? Some things should be done quickly and quietly, no? I’m sure the flabbergasted witnesses among us will be most grateful.

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Exasperated by yawners? Have your own theory on bra-tugging? Tell me about it by emailing me at dogberry.exie@gmail.com. Visit my blog at http://dogberryexie.blogspot.com. Follow me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/exieabola.