I don’t think I look my age. I certainly don’t act my age. Not that I know how my age is supposed to act – this is the first time I have been this old.

So I was taken aback to be offered a seat on a crowded light rail train heading into downtown Ottawa. Not once, but twice. The same day.

Ottawa’s transit system remains a disaster. One day last month they canceled 800 bus runs. Seventy percent cent of the light rail fleet is inoperable until repairs are done. (I will do a post about this ludicrous situation soon, but this isn’t it.)

With only 30 percent of trains running the cars are, as you might imagine, crowded. I expect to stand.

Fortunately it is only three stops, so it isn’t a long trip. My arthritic knees don’t complain much about the situation.

I was taken aback though when two different people offered their seats to me. A man and a woman. Late thirties to early forties I think.

I turned them down with a smile, saying I wasn’t really that old. Even though I am.

It did get me thinking though as to how our society has changed over my lifetime. When I was a kid, younger people automatically offered seats on crowded transit to those who were older. Which back then we probably thought of as those who were in their forties.

I wonder if teenagers are still taught such manners by their parents? There were no teens on the train that I could see, so I have no idea if they would have offered me their seats.

If they had, I probably would have accepted. Not because I needed to sit, but because I want to encourage the development of social graces in those younger members of society. I would have wanted them to feel good about their offer.

Yes, I could have done so with those who did offer their seats, but it didn’t feel the same. They were adults, they have probably been making similar gestures their entire lives. It is now ingrained in them.

Are people in general (and perhaps younger people in particular) less inclined to display the social graces that once were the norm? Are those things important or outmoded?

What have you observed? How do you feel about it?