here's life

Back when I was in College, I realized that it was socially uncool to run from place to place. Just wasn't dignified enough. But I thought that social rules were for the birds, and so if I wanted to get somewhere quickly, I would run. Now, being a decent guy, I would try not to run in crowded hallways, or where people have to get out of my way. I broke the social rules, and replaced them with limitations that were both practical and not harmful to others.
But it annoys me when others break the rules. Like there was a guy in some Sunday school class, that made me cringe every time he spoke, because he didn't keep some unwritten and probably undefined set of rules. What do you do when others don't follow what seems proper?
Here's an illustration from our favorite horror flick:
Two acquaintances are finishing lunch, and the first one says: "Hey, you gonna eat your tots?" The second one shakes his head, and so the first one picks up the tater-tots and puts them in his pants pocket. Ok, stop. It is ok to take things that are going to waste, if no one objects. Now, scavenging food probably won't make you popular with higher lifeforms, but it doesn't inconvenience others. Putting food in your pocket is really uncouth and gross, but hey, it is your pocket. Ok, start the film again...We are in the class room, and he starts to take the food out of his pocket and eat it. Another guy says, "Gimme some of your tots!" The reply is "Get your own tots!" Stop. Ok, this guy wasn't really his friend, and probably had a good lunch, plus, he didn't ask very nicely. All of which make his request not very socially fitting. But let's rewind and watch it again: Tot transferred to mouth,,,crunch, mmmm... his friend says:"Hey, I'm pretty hungry...I really like tots...do you need to eat all of those?" Stop the tape. What should the guy with the tots do? How does he react to this pseudo request for some tots? It really isn't socially cool to try to get stuff from people when you really have only your need to offer them. But should he say, "I'm going to eat them myself, leave me alone." like a heartless miser, or does he act the nice guy and say "They and soft and have lint on them, but you can have some." What if this happens with his tots in history class, some paper from his binder in Math, and a pencil in geography? The poor guy doesn't have a bookbag, how is he supposed to carry stuff around?
Back in real life, I didn't really want to cook for myself, so I bummed meals off of other people. "Hey, are you going to supper tonight?" was my usually line. If they weren't, I would try to hint that I would like to borrow their meal card: "Can I borrow your card?" Usually they were pretty generous, and so I was fed like this for several months. That was pretty socially awkward, and somewhat inconvenient for my sponsors, but I did it anyway. Now that I am the guy with the tots, how can I be so uncaring as to refuse when others ask me to do things that make my life slightly different from what I would like? Do I want to become an uncaring Scrooge?
It seems that the social rules keep me from refusing most reasonable requests from those who disregard the social rules that dictate how often you can make requests. Now if they replace those rules with concern about limiting their impact and dependence on others, it would be different. But I, who have so many resources, why should I just arbitrarilly refuse to help out sometimes? I should at least have an excuse better than, "I'm going to be busy painting my cat."
But the big issue is that refusing to spend 15 mins. here and there looks really bad on the resume of my supposed life of service.