To be honest, I was pretty loathe to write about this subject. I don’t particularly have an axe to grind with anyone just because they weren’t raised the way I was, but on the other hand, I’ve been faced with the same behaviour so many times lately that I really felt like I couldn’t let simply let it pass without uttering a word.

I was raised in a house where discussing money or the price of things was considered to be bad form; we were taught from a young age not to gawk at people who looked different from us and certainly not to ask people how much their clothes, shoes or bags cost unless they were very close to us.

Asking where someone got the money for something was not only considered the height of rudeness, it was also taboo. You made the most of what you had and were happy for others if they had nice things; that was pretty much the long or short of it.

However, lately I have found myself in more than one prickly situation where people I barely know will come up to me, openly fondle my things and then loudly and vastly enquire as to how much they cost. On a couple of otherwise unmemorable occasions, I was even asked where I got the money to buy my things from.

We were taught not to ask people how much their clothes, shoes or bags cost

For one particular madam, even this line of questioning wasn’t enough: after I vainly attempted to keep things politely vague, I received an uninvited lecture about the value of money and was roundly asked why I wouldn’t put money towards a house or a car instead. Well, here’s your answer, it’s my money and I don’t want to.

For some reason unbeknownst to me, people really have lost the art of gracefulness. Not only will they go out of their way to make you feel uncomfortable about your sartorial choices but they seem to think it’s their God-given right to make comments about how you choose to live your life and spend your money, as if you were waking up at 5am each morning and bleeding their sagging coffers dry.

Not only do they not seem to be aware of how inappropriate their enquiries are, but if you do reply with something biting, they tend to look hurt and confused as to why they are being treated in what they consider to be an offhand manner.

The reality is that despite the fact that the number of supposedly educated people is growing, it seems to be doing little to help with people’s social skills and established codes of behaviour. Couple this with the voyeuristic worlds created by Facebook and Instagram, which give people the impression they know you better than they actually do, and you have a recipe for a rude, messy disaster.

Ladies and gentlemen, the next time you feel compelled to ask someone how much their shoes cost, take a deep breath and walk away.

Before you say that nasty comment about how and where someone got the handbag they may or may not have sweated blood for, remember that what you choose to say will always say a lot more about what kind of person you are than it ever will about them.