[earthboundkid]

My experience was that people follow the politeness “script” very well but don’t actually go out of their way to think of or help others. Part of it is there’s no cultural middle ground: either you’re ignoring someone or you’re going to work 90 hours a week to pay for their dialysis, nothing in between (okay, an exaggeration). It’s different. In the end, people are people so you can squeeze the toothpaste on one end, but it has to bulge out on the other to compensate.