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You'll know when your #TimesUp, my dear

It comes from not wanting to make anyone uncomfortable. Basic respect. Decency.

The other day someone I barely know approached me and from ten feet away called out, "thanks, my dear!" Maybe he was being sweet, genuinely grateful for a work-related thing but I pretended to not hear. I don't really know this guy. Why is he my dearing me?
He walked towards me, in better hearing range, and repeated it. I ignored him, again. The third time, standing virtually on my head, he dropped the My Dear and went with a "Hey, thank you". I could live with that. So I looked up and conveyed an adequately cordial expression: Yea, it's okay. I got back to what I was doing. Interaction over, curtly dealt with.
I was discussing this episode later with a friend and I said, I wish I had turned around the first time and ticked him off in a reasonable tone: "Hi! I'd appreciate it if you didn't My Dear me".
But I didn't tick because firstly, too minor an infraction. Nothing threatening about a however unwarranted My Dear. But I was irritated. Where do these people get off sounding so familiar?? I am not his friend. Can we stick to a professional tenor?
And I hate how this sounds, but I have to recognise my biases, my misplaced pity for people like My Dear Man. If a person is in any way less privileged, I tend to give them benefit of the doubt. If I think so-and-so went to a less 'hip' school or college or is in any way 'disadvantaged' - no 'cultural capital' as they say - I tend to try harder to be nice. I am considering changing this about myself. How? I don't know yet. Be curt to everyone perhaps.
But back to the friend who I was telling the My Dear story to; he said he understood, that it was why he doesn't abuse in front of women.
It comes from not wanting to make anyone uncomfortable. Basic respect. Decency. A thing that has been ingrained in him from an early age. I like that. I think it's gentlemanly, nice, old-fashioned, classy, to not abuse in front of women.
Then he went on a trip about how regional abuses are the worst. He said cuss words in Hindi and other regional languages come off sounding much worse than in English. I agree, but I am unsure why this is. Depends on the user and usage too somewhat, surely? How is Hindi made to always sound more crass than English?
In the light of the overdue #MeToo storm in India, saying My Dear or debating which language abuses sound less obscene in is the least of anyone's worries. Not when over 100 names of perpetrators, some well-known, have been taken and it's only a matter of time before more vermin crawl out of the woodwork. The news about harassers triggered several conversations over the last week. People have been talking about everything related: Comfort. Discomfort. Consent. Entitlement. Privilege. Power play. License. Patriarchy. Propriety. Tone. Professionalism. Screenshots. Morons. Idiots.
WhatsApp groups are lit up with people asking: what is a line crossed? When do you believe the man? How can a verbal overture be considered harassment? Surely there is a difference between hitting on someone and harassing someone? (yes, of course).
I've been a part of conversations where people are speaking admiringly of this generation of women who are gutsier, not taking any bull-. What passed off as banter and par for the course 10-15 years ago is now being called out for what it is. Men are having to rethink what they say and do. It's a great thing that a movement in our lifetimes is causing people to reassess their behaviour. And like I told a colleague who asked me to not look so thrilled that people are being called out - there is much to be celebrated when the chickens are finally coming home to roost. Puck, Puck.
- nivriti@khaleejtimes.com