[druddha]

Personal growth through empathy.

As in the example of the jeweler, the author's politeness caused the woman to reveal information about herself. And as he states later in the article, he actually enjoyed learning about her work. He now understands this person's perspective a bit better.

I would be interested to know how he has handled conversations with similarly polite people. Did they arrive at a common ground, resulting in a profoundly enlightening conversation, or did they end up in a sort of politeness stalemate, with neither party wanting to disclose information about themselves?