In his description of love in his first letter to the Corinthians the apostle Paul lists several attitudes and behaviors which are not characteristic of the kind of love that Jesus teaches his disciples to show one another. They include rudeness.
When we are rude, we behave in a way that hurts other people’s feelings. Rudeness can take a variety of forms.
We rush past someone we know and do not acknowledge their existence or say hello. Someone that we know greets us and we deliberately ignore them.
A family member, relation, friend, coworker, partner, or spouse sends us a text and we do not respond in a timely manner and keep them waiting for a response or we do not respond at all.
We may be busy, but we can show them the courtesy of acknowledging their text, “I am running an errand for my boss right now. Can we talk later.”
When we are slow in responding to a text or we do not respond at all, we may cause the person who texted us to feel slighted. When we slight someone, we insult them by ignoring them or treating them as if they are not important.
They may feel that we are giving them the cold-shoulder, displaying an unfriendly attitude to them by intentionally ignoring or showing no interest in them.
They may respond with anxiety and pepper us with more texts.
Among the forms that rudeness may take is making unkind, insensitive, and unpleasant remarks to someone, remarks that cause them to be upset or to have hurt feelings.
We may behave in a way that is not socially correct and shows little or no understanding of or care for other people’s feelings.
We may speak and act in a way that shows no respect for them as a human being or a fellow Christian, which does not treat them with kindness and care.
We may show what earlier generations called “bad manners.” We do not apologize when we bump into someone. We may jump the line, skip to the head of a queue without waiting for our turn. We barge in front of someone when it is their turn and demand that we are given attention first.
We may invade someone’s space and move uncomfortably close to them.
We may stare at someone too much for their comfort.
I must mention that people stare at other people for a variety of reasons—concern, curiosity, hostility, interest, and the reasons that they stare may not always be rude.
I was taught as a small boy that it was impolite to stare at people, particularly strangers and people who had physical deformities or exhibited unusual behavior. In the first case it was to avoid drawing unwanted attention to ourselves. I once stared at a man who was intoxicated and he staggered over to the car in which my grandmother, mother, and I were waiting for my grandfather. In the last two cases it was to avoid causing the people in question embarrassment.
I was also taught to look at people when I was talking to them and to not avoid their gaze. It was to show that I was paying attention to them and not ignoring them.
In some countries in Northern Europe, however, it is not unusual to stare at strangers. US visitors to these countries find this habit disconcerting. It makes them feel uncomfortable and self-conscious.
We may gaze at someone, look at them for a long time in surprise or admiration, or because we are thinking about something else. We may look at someone in hopes of catching their eye and their attention.
As a social worker I learned to be observant, good or quick at noticing things, while at the same time not looking at a client or around me in such a way that it would raise the anxiety of the client or provoke a hostile reaction.
When we made an unannounced visit to someone’s home in the course of an investigation, we had no foreknowledge as how the person or persons that we were visiting might react. We had to be aware of our own body language and how they might react to it.
An anxious or embarrassed or mentally unstable person might interpret a steady gaze as a hostile stare.
The love that Christians show for each other pays attention to how our behavior may affect each other and tries not to deliberately hurt the feelings of each other.
We may unintentionally upset each other or hurt each other’s feelings, but we do our best to keep that from happening.
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