Science confirms you'll be rewarded for saying 'thank you'

By the time you reach your mid-40s you're on the slippery slope to becoming a full-blown boring old fart, and one of the pit stops on Route BOF is when you start sentences with "Oh, how I miss the good ole days when ... ".

I say this to pre-empt any rolling of the eyes that might ensue as a result of this column, because oh, how I miss the good ole days when people used to say "thank you".

Don't get me wrong. People still mumble the words, but they tumble out of their mouths the same way that "Pleased to meet you" does, or "Bless you" when you sneeze. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about actual gratitude.

The other day I'm busy chatting to a friend on Daveyton's Judas Street. A girl approaches us and asks if one of us has a R2 coin because she's short on some purchase at the nearby spaza. I lean into the car, fish out a coin from my car-guard fund and give it to her. She palms it, turns around and runs towards the shop without a word.

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We're left standing there, our jaws scraping the ground. I wish that was the end. Hardly a minute later she's back, panting: "Uncle, I'm still R1 short." The words that came tumbling out of my friend's mouth would not pass the editorial team of this newspaper.

It is possible the problem lies with me. Maybe I'm a gratusophile. You know, someone obsessed with being thanked. (Don't bother looking the word up. I just invented it.)

OK, you tell me if I'm the one with the problem?

I'm leaving the Pavilion mall in Durban the other day. I reach the door just as three young women are hurrying towards it to escape the rain outside. So I hold it open for them. All three scurry past and continue with their animated, giggly conversation.

They seemed surprised when I went: "I apologise for forgetting my doorman uniform at home today. Would you like me to shine your shoes?" I bet they went on Twitter and posted, "OMG! Just got weirded-out by a short freak."

This reminds me of a woman who used to stay on the floor below mine in a block of flats in Yeoville, years ago. At least twice a week the elevator would stop at her floor. We all know how annoying it is when a lift stops immediately after you get on. And each time it stopped she'd be standing at her flat's door, still barking instructions to some hapless soul. I'd hold the lift open for her because I'm a member of the human race. She'd get on and turn her back towards me.

One day, with my patience worn to the bone, I lost it. As she approached the lift I pressed the "Close doors" button, with a fake expression of horror while muttering, "Why is it closing?" As the doors slammed shut, I felt great.

The next time the lift stopped at her floor, I attempted the same trick. It didn't work out quite so smoothly. She just made it. And there were already four other people in the lift who knew exactly what I'd tried to do. And now it's as awkward as hell, as if six strangers breathing within 15cm of each other's noses is not awkward enough.

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A few years ago a duo of geeks, Adam Grant and Francesco Gino, published an academic paper in some psychology journal proving that the probability of receiving help from someone you thanked the last time they helped you increases by 100% compared to when you didn't.

I drill this into my kids' heads. I must say, though, that when they thank me for cooking them a meal I do feel like a dog that expects to be thanked for barking. There are things fathers are just supposed to do. It's the same feeling I get sometimes when I get a little annoyed when a fellow motorist does not thank me after I allow them in front of me in traffic. I've been known to mutter, "Will that be all for you, Your Excellency?" under my breath. And then it hits me: when someone is indicating, we're supposed to just let them in.

But I'll tell you who doesn't thank me who should. The missus. Every husband will agree with me that we should be thanked each time we last longer than five minutes in the nocturnal scrum. Women take that sort of thing for granted. Let me tell you, it's much harder than they think.

Men could knock out this whole thing in five seconds flat if our reputations would not be impugned afterwards. But women react as if you are responsible for the S&P downgrade if you last 43 seconds. That's a long time. That's how long it took Wayde van Niekerk to break the 400m record at the Rio Olympics, and everyone calls him a hero.

I'm quite conflicted by the fact that I have passed my gratusophilia on to my little ones. On a recent lazy Saturday afternoon the 12-year-old spent 15 minutes peeling a giant mango and meticulously cutting it up into squares. He put a plate with the nine-year-old's share in front of him, but he was distracted by an intense Fifa game and didn't thank his brother. "Would you like to order something else from the restaurant, sir?" was the response.

• Follow the author of this article, Ndumiso Ngcobo, on Twitter: @NdumisoNgcobo