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My kids love Olive Garden – a lot.
With an Italian last name like Barranco, I’ll admit I’m slightly embarrassed by how much they love what may be the most generic Italian restaurant in the country. But I keep that to myself and indulge them.
Every time we go, I’m reminded of a question I like to ask my students:
Why can’t we eat spaghetti with our hands?
Sure, it’s fine for a toddler.
But an adult?
Definitely not.
Seriously, though – why not?
It can’t just be because it’s messy. Pulled pork sandwiches and sloppy joes are messy too. Restaurants even hand you wet wipes because they know it.
So why is one acceptable and the other isn’t?
Most people answer the same way:
“Because… we just don’t.”
That’s true.
But have you ever stopped to wonder why we “just don’t?”
Probably not.
Most of us don’t spend much time thinking about the unwritten rules we follow every day.
We step onto an elevator and turn to face the door – only weirdos face the wall. When we’re ready to check out at the grocery store, we get in line. There’s no law requiring it. There isn’t a sign telling us where to stand.
We simply know.
The examples are everywhere.
We shake hands.
We leave personal space when talking to strangers.
We whisper in libraries.
Library patrons quietly use the services at Laurel-Jones County Library in Laurel on Wednesday, June 25, 2026. Credit: Eric Shelton/Mississippi TodayWe don’t wear pajamas to funerals.
We say “bless you” when someone sneezes.
I could keep going.
The point is that much of our day is spent following unwritten rules we hardly notice.
Sociologists call these social norms – the shared expectations that tell us how we’re supposed to behave and, just as importantly, how we’re not.
So what happens if we ignore them?
If you eat spaghetti with your hands at Olive Garden, no one is going to call the police.
But you’ll almost certainly get some strange looks.
If a student came to my class in a bathing suit, I wouldn’t throw them out.
But I’d probably wonder whether something unusual was going on.
So would everyone else.
Sometimes the consequences are stronger. People may avoid us, stop trusting us or quietly leave us out.
The fascinating part isn’t what the rules are.
It’s where they came from.
Who decided spaghetti required a fork?
Who decided we should face the elevator door?
Some norms began for practical or historical reasons. Others seem almost arbitrary. Over time, though, they become part of what we think of as “normal,” so we stop questioning them altogether. Most of us inherited them without ever being told where they came from.
We simply absorbed them by watching the people around us.
And that matters.
These unwritten rules are what make society possible.
Imagine a grocery store where nobody knew how to check out.
No lines.
Everyone walks to the register whenever they feel like it.
Every customer has a different idea of how it should work.
It would be chaos.
Social norms save us from negotiating every interaction from scratch. They make everyday life predictable. They allow millions of strangers to cooperate without ever meeting one another.
But that’s not the whole story.
The very thing that makes norms so useful also makes them dangerous.
A rule powerful enough to keep us all in line is powerful enough to keep the wrong things in line, too.
The same force that stops us from eating spaghetti with our hands can also preserve prejudice, discrimination, unhealthy traditions, wasteful customs and harmful silence.
The norm of “minding your own business” may keep someone from stepping in when another person needs help. A workplace norm against questioning the boss may keep people quiet when they see a bad decision being made.
Not every unwritten rule deserves to survive simply because it feels normal.
That’s why one of the most important questions we can ask is also one of the simplest:
Why do we do it this way?
Sometimes the answer is that the norm helps people cooperate and makes society run more smoothly.
Sometimes the answer is nothing more than, “Because that’s the way we’ve always done it.”
Knowing the difference may be the most important unwritten rule of all.
After all, some rules simply help us eat dinner.
Others help determine the kind of society we become.
Raymond E. Barranco is a professor of sociology at Mississippi State University. His writing uses everyday experiences and social science to help readers better understand society and one another. He can be reached at [email protected].
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