politeness

i often happen to stumble across or deliberately stepping on these invisible ropes of 'DOs and DON'Ts' and the result of my social clumsiness sometimes are not so pretty.
however, i started to see some of these behavioural rules with less spite as it ocurred to me that they might not be so dishonest after all. Instead, these rituals might convey an archaic, but nevertheless important message, roughly translatable in 'i've seen you, realized that you are there. i don't have anything against you and pay you my due respect'. That would be a statement i could find a compromise with.