When I first moved from Canada to Portugal, 25 years ago, I tried to be a gentleman. On the narrow beach boardwalks, if I saw elderly women coming the other way, I would step aside and give them space.

Instead of gratitude, I heard them muttering in a tone that made it very clear they thought I was an idiot. After a few days, one of them finally stopped me and asked, “What are you doing?”

I said, “I’m stepping aside so you can pass.”

She shook her head. “No, no. This is a macho country. You are a man, you walk down the middle with your chest out and you take up space. Everyone else gets out of your way.”

The next day I saw her again. This time, I walked straight down the middle. She did the same. Narrow boardwalk. Barely room for two. I did not stop. We collided. She landed on her backside in the sand, looked up at me, grinned, and said, “That’s right. That’s what you should be doing.”

After that, she and her friends would always move aside when I came down the path. And they did it with approval.

It was a shock to me. I grew up with British etiquette drilled into me by my great-grandmother, hold the door, offer your arm, walk properly, speak properly. Portugal had a completely different rule set.

The real problem is not which rule set you live under. The problem is when there is no rule set at all. That is what we have now in North America, no clarity, no hierarchy, no reciprocity.

If we want respect again, we must enforce our own rules and stick to them. Reciprocity always re-creates order, even if the start feels rough.