Rule #3

George Washington’s third rule of civility reads:

Show nothing to your friend that might affright him.

At first glance, it sounds like something lifted from a colonial horror story - “Beware, lest ye spook thy companions!” - but Washington wasn’t warning against ghosts at dinner parties. He was talking about restraint: not startling, overwhelming, or disturbing those around you.

Fast-forward a few centuries, and well, we’ve made “affrighting” each other a national pastime. From prank videos to shock-value confessionals, modern life thrives on surprise, spectacle, and overexposure. Washington may have been trying to save us from ourselves before we even had Wi-Fi.

The Eighteenth Century Translation

In Washington’s time, “affright” meant more than a jump scare. It referred to anything that needlessly alarmed, unsettled, or offended - behaviour that made others feel unsafe or uncomfortable in your presence. Civility, to him, wasn’t just about good manners; it was about emotional containment. 

To “show nothing that may affright” meant keeping one’s temper, opinions, or impulses from spilling out in ways that disturbed the harmony of the group. Rule #1 taught us we’re not the only person in the room. Rule #2 reminded us to govern our own impulses. Rule #3 takes the next logical step: now that you’ve learned not to take up all the space, try not to shake it.

Pranks, Clout, and the New Sport of Startling People

If Washington were alive today, he’d faint dead away scrolling through TikTok. Our cultural appetite for “affrighting” has become insatiable. We scare our friends, trick our partners, film strangers for “social experiments,” and call it content.

Clearly, humour has evolved (or perhaps it’s more… entertainment), but that’s not the concern I want to focus on - it’s that empathy occasionally takes a coffee break. The harmless office prank used to be a whoopee cushion; now it’s a fake job-termination filmed for likes. We tell ourselves it’s just fun, yet the person being filmed rarely looks amused.

Humour, at its best, connects; at its worst, it humiliates. A prank is only funny when everyone is laughing - including the target. Washington’s rule, oddly prophetic, reminds us that laughter built on fear or embarrassment isn’t civility; it’s cruelty in a party hat.

The Emotional Version: Affright by Overshare

But not all “affrightment” involves fake spiders or jump scares. Sometimes it arrives by a text message that begins, “Do you have a minute? I’m spiralling again.”

Emotional affrightment happens when we unleash the full, unfiltered storm of our inner world onto unsuspecting company. We call it venting, trauma-dumping, or just “being real,” but often it’s the conversational equivalent to tossing a bucket of cold water on someone’s head.

Of course, sharing struggles is part of friendship. The problem isn’t the sharing - it’s the ambush. Healthy vulnerability seeks connection; unhealthy unloading seeks relief at someone else’s expense.

So how do we tell the difference?

1. Trauma-dumping vs. Genuine Conversation

If you share to offload emotion without considering context or timing, that’s dumping. If you share to connect  - to be understood, to understand in return - that’s conversation.

A good self-check before you text that 2 a.m. monologue:

”Am I looking for empathy, or an emotional janitor?”

Conversation leaves both people lighter. Dumping leaves one person drained and the other guilty for needing sleep.

2. Playing Victim vs. Owning Pain

Victimhood is an experience; victim identity is a choice. Real healing requires acknowledging what hurt you while still claiming agency over what happens next. When pain becomes a personality, growth gets crowded out.

If every story ends with “and this is why people always disappoint me,” or, “clearly the universe is conspiring against me,” you’re not conversing - you’re recruiting witnesses. As one friend of mine quipped, “If your friend says they’ve had a bad day, listen. If they say they’ve had a bad life, every week, and it’s your job to fix it - that’s a hostage situation.”

Healthy sharing says, “This happened and I’m working through it.”

Chronic victimhood says, “This happened, and now the world owes me hazard pay.”

(Personal Anecdote:

I know this one intimately because I’ve been there. I used to be one of those people who truly believed the world was conspiring against me. I thought every setback was proof that life had it in for me, that people were unfair, and that happiness was something handed out to others but withheld from me.

So I overshared - constantly. Not because I loved the attention, but because I didn’t feel heard. I wanted someone to fix it, to fix me, even if I couldn’t articulate that at the time. What I didn’t realize was that I was looking outward for something that could only ever come from within.

I wasn’t happy - not with myself, my life, or my relationships (and even more so with the ones I didn’t have). But I was expecting happiness to arrive as a rescue mission instead of a renovation project.

I’d complain I was trying. I would have sworn up and down that I was doing everything I could. But if I’m honest, I wasn’t doing much at all - just feeling sad and exhausted and mistaking that emotional effort for action. All that energy I poured into being hurt felt productive, but it wasn’t progress.

Looking back, it doesn’t make much sense, but it’s the truth. And here’s another truth: I wasn’t a bad person, or a lose, or hopelessly broke. And surprise! Nor was the world conspiring against me. I just didn’t understand - and didn’t yet have the tools to understand - how to be happy and how to make my life better.

The moment that began to change was the moment I stopped waiting for someone else to fix it. Happiness didn’t come from being seen; it came from seeing myself clearly.)

3. Honesty vs. Oversharing

Being honest means speaking truth with discernment. Oversharing means giving the whole raw draft when a summary would do. It’s the difference between, “I’ve been anxious lately,” and “Let me read you my therapy notes in chronological order.”

Real connection doesn’t require exposure; it requires presence.

Washington’s advice holds: don’t show others what will affright them - not because truths should be hidden, but because respect should guide its unveiling.

The Pendulum Problem: From Stigma to Spotlight

To be fair, the modern movement towards openness has been miraculous. Talking about mental health, neurodiversity, and disability has saved lives and dismantled shame. We needed that swing of the pendulum.

But pendulums rarely stop neatly at the balance. Somewhere along the arc, vulnerability became currency. Platforms reward confession; attention rewards extremity. A decade ago we hid our struggles; now we brand them.

Diagnosis is not destiny, yet social media sometimes treats it as a team jersey. “I have anxiety” used to be a step toward understanding; now it can be an introduction, a tagline, even a defence against accountability. We’ve gone from silence to self-definition - and maybe, occasionally, to self-imprisonment.

The danger isn’t in recognizing the pain; it’s in living there. When identity fuses with struggle, progress feels like betrayal. Healing threatens the role.

We can honour our difficulties without worshipping them. Empathy should empower, not enable. Compassion says, “I see you.” Pity says, “Stay there.”

Washington, without ever hearing the term “trauma-informed”, understood emotional contagion. One person’s unchecked chaos can unsettle the whole room. Civility, then, is a kind of containment - not repression, but stewardship. It’s knowing when to speak, how much, and to whom.

Fear of Offence: The Silent Side of Affright

There’s another cost to our hypersensitivity: conversation itself becomes perilous. People walk on eggshells, terrified of saying the wrong thing. We’ve become so cautious not to affright anyone that we’ve affrighted ourselves into silence.

Respecting feelings doesn’t mean forfeiting dialogue. Disagreement isn’t danger. Yet in a culture that equates freedom with harm, every differing opinion feels like a jump scare.

True civility thrives not in the absence of tension, but in the presence of curiosity. We need enough resilience to hear hard truths without clutching our pearls - or our hashtags.

When Language Isn’t the Villain

Somewhere in the quest to avoid offence, we decided that words themselves were the enemy. Enter the debate about “bad language.”

Now, I’ll admit: a well-placed swear can be a linguistic espresso shot - sharp, energizing, and best not overused. But language is a tool, not a threat. The problem isn’t the word: it’s the wielder.

There’s a time and a place for colourful vocabulary. Stub your toe on the bedpost at 3 a.m.? An expletive is practically first aid. Use the same word in a staff meeting to belittle someone? That’s not expressive; that’s aggressive.

Context is everything. When passion or pain bubbles out as a spontaneous four-letter sigh, it’s human. When profanity becomes punctuation, it dulls rather than sharpens.

Washington might have blushed at modern vernacular, but he cared less about syllables than about self-command. Swearing, in itself, isn’t uncivil; losing awareness of audience is. The art lies in discernment.

If you’ve ever dropped a hammer on your foot and exclaimed “golly gee” - congrats! - you’re either saintly or lying. Civility doesn’t demand sterilized speech; it demands intention.

Civility as Emotional Intelligence

Across these first three rules, a pattern emerges.

1. Rule #1: Remember you’re not the only person in the room.

2. Rule #2: Govern yourself so others don’t have to.

3. Rule #3: Don’t terrify, overwhelm, or emotionally hijack the people who like you.

Civility viewed through Washington’s lens, isn’t stiff politeness. It’s the everyday practice of emotional intelligence - the ability to read the room, regulate yourself, and relate with grace.

Being “safe company” doesn’t mean being bland. It means people can trust that your presence won’t swing wildly from fireworks to funerals without warning. It means your words - clean or colourful - arrive wrapped in thoughtfulness 

In leadership, friendship and family life alike, composure breeds trust. We instinctively gravitate toward those whose steadiness anchors us.

Affright Less, Connect More

Washington never imagined a world of viral jump scares and public oversharing, yet his 18th-century advice feels tailor-made for our 21st-century chaos. “Show nothing to your friend that you may affright him” is, at heart, a plea for mindfulness:

• Think before you post.

• Breathe before you blurt

• Ask before you unload

Affrightment can be physical, emotional, or moral - but all of it erodes connection. When we shock for attention or wallow for validation, we trace intimacy for impact.

Humour, honesty, and even a well-timed swear can build bridges when wielded with care. What breaks those bridges is thoughtlessness - the absence of empathy that turns expression to intrusion.

So perhaps Washington’s ghost still whispers through time: Be interesting, not alarming.

As we move forward through his Rules of Civility, one truth keeps echoing louder than the rest: respect - whether for space, for self, or for one another - is never outdated.

The next time you’re tempted to film a prank, post a public meltdown, or deliver your life story to a half-awake barista, pause. Ask yourself: Am I enlightening, or just alarming?

Because in any century, the most gracious thing you can offer your friends isn’t perfection, polish, or saintly silence.

It’s calm.

It’s presence.

It’s the confidence that you won’t leap out from behind the metaphorical curtain yelling “boo”. 

After all, the world is startlingly enough already.

In my next post, I’ll look at Rule #4, where Washington reminds us - rather musically - that not every silence needs filling and not every surface needs percussion. Civility, it turns out, even has a rhythm section.

Ⓒ November 2025. Beki Lantos. All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, or transmitted in any form by any means without prior written permission of the author.