Isn't he lovely?

There's a colleague at work, of a senior position, who is just so lovely. He's polite, considerate, respectful, well-mannered and good-humoured. In terms of pecking order, I'm pretty much at the bottom, yet he speaks to me very respectfully and doesn't presume I will drop everything for him. (Actually, I know of two such men at work.)

My other colleagues and I gush regularly about how lovely he is and we share stories, "Oh, I ran into x and he did abc! He's so lovely!" or "x just said abc! Isn't he lovely!"

I'm sure one day I will be inappropriate and just blurt out, "Why are you so lovely???"

What's made him so nice? His upbringing? His personality? The cultures he's been exposed to? HIs values? How do you cultivate loveliness?

The world would be such a nicer place if we all made an effort to be lovely to one another.

Telling

Alain de Botton recently tweeted,

The most romantic gesture is to spend an hour listening closely and sympathetically to someone else's anxieties & hopes.

and the only people who liked that comment on my Facebook wall were women. It's telling, isn't it?

(By the way, I can't seem to link to specific tweets anymore? Can anyone help?)

It's alive!

Woah. I got on the bus today. Nothing special about that. It was a bit crowded. I slowly made my way down to the back of the bus, planning on standing there so there'd be more room up front as more passengers got on. A guy gentleman sitting down saw me make my way down the bus. As I got close to him, he leapt up and offered his seat to me. It's alive people! Chivalry is ALIVE! I didn't even look at him or anything, or expect that kind of thing to happen. It just did.

Even though I'm capable of standing on my own two feet on a crowded bus, I graciously accepted. After all, how could he feel like a gentleman if I refused? :) I appreciated his act of chivalry. Acts of chivalry always make a woman feel like a lady and feel special :)

A gentleman would

Upon hearing a lady ponder about braving the pouring rain and gusty winds in order to fetch a skim chai latte 20m across the road, a gentleman would offer to complete the task for the lady. Should the lady accept the offer, the gentleman will keep his word and fight the weather for the latte.

Such a gentleman is my boss :)