Something isn’t right here. Do you mean it feels like a status grab—a status hit to others, avoided out of politeness?
Politeness is about covert/deniable transactions in status-related attributes, so it’s a curiosity stopper in this context, not an explanation. It probably feels like a status hit because it’s expected (perhaps incorrectly) to feel like a status grab to others. What you feel isn’t generally a reason for responding a certain way, instead it’s a means: something external should be a reason, whose detection might be represented as a feeling, in turn triggering a behavior.
Politeness is about covert/deniable transactions in status-related attributes, so it’s a curiosity stopper in this context, not an explanation. It probably feels like a status hit because it’s expected (perhaps incorrectly) to feel like a status grab to others. What you feel isn’t generally a reason for responding a certain way, instead it’s a means: something external should be a reason, whose detection might be represented as a feeling, in turn triggering a behavior.