A man is sitting in a very large, semi-circular booth speaking to his girlfriend.

Instead of keeping his hands in front of him or to his sides, where there is room enough for condors to spread their wings, he drapes his left arm as far back into the adjoining booth as it can go.

Dangling there, his fingers twitch and scratch, causing considerable distraction to the woman seated mere inches from his dirty digits.

She looks to her friend and says, Thats disgusting; get his arm out of here!

Understanding her plight, but not wanting to provoke a fight or cause a scene, quickly he considers his options, knowing its a matter of seconds before this brute brushes the exposed shoulder of his companion:

(1) He can raise his voice and say: Excuse me, would you please remove your arm? and point to the offending limb.

(2) He can do nothing, hoping the man spontaneously shifts his position.

(3) He can get or flag down the hostess that seated them, but she seems especially wimpy.

(4) He can summon his waitress and have her speak to the interloper, or

(5) He can physically remove the arm.

What would you do?

This situation is real, it happened, but more important, scenes like this take place all the time because people have poor manners, especially in public.

Clearly, if the space invader had a modicum of consideration, hed be aware of the area around him, appreciate that some of it belongs to him, some of it is shared space, and the remainder is out of bounds.

But his negligent (or perhaps intentional) projection of his arm into anothers area provoked a confrontation, and it could do worse. It could spawn violence.

Manners function like lubricating oil, said famous management consultant Peter F. Drucker.

When people mingle, theres always the potential for friction, and thats why we need the lubricating oil, he explained.

He went on to says that people mistakenly believe that manners are about content, about feelings, about being sincere or insincere or even being polite.

All of those are secondary.

They exist to keep us from reaching for other peoples throats.

Back to the story.

The gentleman whose booth was under siege summoned the waitress and whispered: I dont know how to put this but that guys arm is grossing her out.

The waitress whispered something to the intruder and he removed it immediately, without incident or even a glance backwards.

However, the meal didnt taste the same.

By the way, the fellow that summoned the waitress is a Black Belt in Karate, and a martial arts instructor.

To serve everyones best interests, he took as much time as he could to do the well-mannered thing.