You Look It, But Do You Act It?

[freebird]

I have yet to run into many gentlemen in my day to day travels.

Samantha

That is a shame. There aren't many Gentlemen left, but there are a few of us around.Most are found here on the lounge.

 

[byronic]

That is a shame. There aren't many Gentlemen left, but there are a few of us around.Most are found here on the lounge.

Hear, Hear!:eusa_clap

 

[Charlie Noodles]

Chivalry is dead.

If courtesy or assistance might be appreciated or needed I will offer it to either gender. I don’t see a reason to offer it to the ladies specifically. It might be nice, but doesn’t it operate under the idea that the ladies are not equal and physically as well as socially inferior?

In the age of gender equality and women’s gyms, they’re often more able-bodied than I am.

 

[Kishtu]

Couple of thoughts.

Slightly different take on Maguire's point about "...when you're in a relationship with someone who was in 10 relationships before. And you yourself having had a similar number."
I think I may have said before elsewhere but to me it's maybe too easy now to just walk away from a relationship/marriage; too easy to go and look elsewhere for "The Dream" that we're all encouraged to want, part of the great myth that we're all entitled to happiness falling into our laps. That aspect was ever thus (believe me I know) - but where's the incentive to work things out now? there being no consequences to walking out on your partner... "commitment" doesn't seem to mean the same as it did then. Maybe that's a good thing, means people don't spend a lifetime trapped with someone they hate, on the other hand it means a lot of people spend their lives moving from one partner to the next looking for some ideal that doesn't exist...
..anyway that was how I read it.

The other thing that's sad is a lack of innocence, not a personal innocence but a societal innocence - a time when people didn't automatically assume the worst about authority figures, when certain figures were "above reproach" - I don't think for one minute that they ever were, but how much simpler life would be if you lived your life with the assumption that they were....

Nope, I think, like Alexander the Great, we have no more worlds to conquer. Nothing to catch the public imagination on a grand scale.

 

[DeaconKC]

One of the most enjoyable things I do is teach the High School guys Sunday School class at my church. Once a year we have a day where they get taught how to open doors, hold umbrellas,chairs, assist a lady up or down stairs,and offer a lady or blind person their arm for assistance. It is usually a riot, but my "loyal minions' as they call themselves, are always getting compliments on their manners.

 

[SamMarlowPI]

i guess it does...
dance with me, Darhling...

 

[Edward]

That's why we need psychologists and counselors and antidepressants just to get through our coddled existences right?

I do feel the need to respond to this point.... clinical depression is indeed a very real illness, and some of us would be very screwed up today were it not for antidepressants. While certainly in some locations (I believe the US is notorious for this, whether fairly or not) doctors will hand them out too readily as a catch-all panacea, which they most certainly are not, mental illnesses such as depression are as real as anything physical, and require to be treated. One of many reasons that I'm very glad I live in the early 21st Century when that is recognised, and not back in the old days when I'd have been treated as some sort of incompetent idiot.

For me, an interest in vintage has nothing whatsoever to do with wanting to escape back in time - instead, it's about preserving what I believe to be worth holding onto from past eras, without giving up on the present, or indeed the future. To simply try to stop the clock and live in a past era is extremely unappealing to me: there is much of great value that has been produced since 1950 and there continues to be much that is great being produced. Why cut yourself off from all that because of some notion that to live a vintage lifestyle is some sort of higher path? I mean, if that's what folks want to do, it's their choice, but to arbitrarily cut things out simply because they came after a certain date seems rather narrow-minded a way to live your life as I see it.

Still, live and let live and all that.

 

[Charlie Noodles]

I do feel the need to respond to this point.... clinical depression is indeed a very real illness, and some of us would be very screwed up today were it not for antidepressants.

I'll second that.

 

[Burnsie]

Holy smackers, did this thread go haywire!!!! I looked at it last night and almost posted but I was too tired and now I find several raging debates - it's almost too much fun!
Some of you may have mistaken this for "How wholesome are you?" C'mon, have you ever seen a tijuana bible from the 30's or listened to them dirty blues (or jazz or western swing) or watched a pre code film? Some of the seedier aspects of the 20s - 40s are sometimes the most sinfully appealing. Yes I'm "old fashioned" in some ways, I'm certainly a gentleman to the ladies, I'm patriotic, I can even be reverent...but is Andy Hardy more fun to watch than the Thin Man? Is Deanna Durbin more intriguing than Barbara Stanwyck? I THINK NOT!

 

[PrettySquareGal]

There are as many ways to act vintage as there were people alive at the time.

I'm myself, and I suppose that many of my personality traits are consistent with those of a 1950's girl scout, like Lizzie. [angel]

 

[RIOT]

Someone may see me and say that I look the '50's part. But deep down in my pockets I carry a cell phone and a metrocard. I have accepted technology and it is not as evil as made to believe.

 

[pgoat]

I've tried to incorporate 'old school' manners my whole adult life - as far back as 25-30 years ago...I found back then it was generally appreciated, especially by older folks, who were perhaps accustomed to such niceties... Sadly, now that most of them are gone, people my own age, younger, or slightly older usually look at me as an anachronism - or just plain weird.

 

[Paisley]

If someone has had 10 other relationships, #11 probably won't be the last.

 

[Miss Neecerie]

If someone has had 10 other relationships, #11 probably won't be the last.

Well based on that assessment...some of us (including myself in this) should just not even bother with relationships because wow...even if we found the 'one'....it would just end...


lol

 

[Foofoogal]

a lot more realistic than a show like Leave it To Beaver.

I think we have all sort of beat a dead horse on all these issues but for the record I agree more with LizzieMaine on this.
I am a true conservative. Some may even call me downright wounduptootight Biblethumping and selfrighteous and arrogant.

I feel I lived on Beavers street in Beavers kitchen and in Beavers world. I yearn for the good old days. I mean the days I remember as a child and the people I had around me. People who truly shook hands on things and you could trust. In banks they don't give tellers I am told fake money to tell the difference. They give the tellers the real money to feel and know well.
I judge almost everyone I run into now by the people I used to know and trust a long time ago.
There was structure and roles were defined. Now it is all over the place.
Funny thing is many come to me for answers when they know they have been lied to everywhere else. I will tell you the truth in a heartbeat. Not maybe what you want to hear but the truth.

I was speaking to a friend of mine recently and we were saying isn't it funny how everyone is trying to get to as fast as they can the things we discarded a long time ago.
How can you teach someone not to go there or not to touch that hot stove when they are determined to. It is very heartwrenching at times.

 

[Paisley]

Well based on that assessment...some of us (including myself in this) should just not even bother with relationships because wow...even if we found the 'one'....it would just end...


lol

Time to call in Dr. Phil?

 

[Miss Neecerie]

Time to call in Dr. Phil?

or perhaps more just time to say 'Things happen in life, and making categorical statements about the future of others, perhaps not so great...unless you have a crystal ball I dont know about...'

 

[Maguire]

For the record i don't believe the 1920s was a great decade, i believe it was a nightmarish one and i probably would have been just as bitter about the times then as i am today (.. maybe a little less). There was a seedy underworld then as there is now.

Sorry but IMHO that's complete nonsense. It is capable for human beings to fall in love more than once. This seems more a fact that there are distinct differences between countries and individual levels of religious persuasion which seem to inform people's ideas of love and the nature of it. But I think it's slightly arrogant to think that those who have led, what could be deemed as a virginal life, have an exclusive market on love, or that how many people one has slept with previously determines how deep one can be in love. If such ideas stem from a religious belief fair enough, but that's a matter of belief and faith, rather than any real evidence of such. Classic case of each to their own.

Well just look at nearly every traditional song and story from nearly every culture and you will see the idea of purity, chastity, etc are constant. Then again there are societal reasons for these things dying off- marriage is put off far more now. Until the modern era marriage took place generally in the late teens, early twenties at best. If one is told to maintain celibacy until marriage and its only a year off, its not too hard, but today with marriages much later (30..40 etc) and careers being put first, that ideal is of course, not going to survive.

Edward: I agree- i think to a point we need to save and preserve what can be saved, but accept that most of the past is gone and is unsalvageable.

and Kishtu-s

The other thing that's sad is a lack of innocence, not a personal innocence but a societal innocence - a time when people didn't automatically assume the worst about authority figures, when certain figures were "above reproach" - I don't think for one minute that they ever were, but how much simpler life would be if you lived your life with the assumption that they were....

Well that is a result of the basis of power. Power is no longer derived from any sort of "divine" authority but "the masses" and the electorate on one hand, and military dictatorship on the other. genuine, respected power, that of Kings for millennia after millennia came from the belief in a natural order and the Sacred nature of the office which today has been turned into something of a joke. Look at the "leaders" today, politicians who whore themselves for votes and influence, who say whatever will give them a boost. Power does not come from below, it comes from above.


Paisley- this is absolutely correct.

 

[Paisley]

or perhaps more just time to say 'Things happen in life, and making categorical statements about the future of others, perhaps not so great...unless you have a crystal ball I dont know about...'

My only "crystal ball" is observing how individuals have acted in the past. People tend to do the same things again and again. A friend of mine, for example, has a 20-something year history of dating quirky, unserious men who don't appreciate her. Life isn't full of that many coincidences--the common denominator is her. And she has trouble committing to anything (jobs, etc.). As much as I'd like to see her marry and find happiness with someone, since that's what she wants, it's a longshot.

 

[freebird]

Chivalry is dead.

If courtesy or assistance might be appreciated or needed I will offer it to either gender. I don’t see a reason to offer it to the ladies specifically. It might be nice, but doesn’t it operate under the idea that the ladies are not equal and physically as well as socially inferior?

In the age of gender equality and women’s gyms, they’re often more able-bodied than I am.

Not in my way of thinking. To me, offering assistance is a form of showing the lady or ladies a common courtesy. It isn't because they are "weaker" and it isn't that they can't do it themselves, it's the fact that I WANT to open doors or whatever for them, and I believe in 99.999% of the cases they appreciate it. They may not express it in words, other than a quick "Thank You", but usually its a quick smile and a rather sheepish look, as if they weren't expecting a "guy" to treat them as a Lady.

In my case they are most often more able bodied than I. (I'm half blind, and have to walk with a cane because of a bad back), but I still take pleasure in doing the little things that most guys won't do.