Violating Social Norms

My experience with violating social norms was a bit anticlimactic; I expected a lot of chiding to which I would apologize profusely for my rudeness. I have also realized that my confidence in approaching strangers is not exactly very high. Since I am on the bus every other day for class, I decided to wait until the largest bus was at its fullest to ask the poor fellow next to me who had snagged a hard-earned seat if I could have his seat. He looked a bit startled before awkwardly saying "Um...sure" while looking very confused. Other people around me seemed to give me dirty looks and thus, I vowed never to break a social norm again. I think I was lucky that the person I asked was a guy, because it is definitely more acceptable for a guy to give up a seat to a girl. If I had asked a girl, I think she would have denied me the seat. This made me reflect upon how much control we humans have over establishing social norms, yet seem to shy away from attempting to make efforts to change them. This made me wonder exactly how and when these norms were established, and I think it's truly remarkable that we humans abide by these rigid laws that when broken, are actually unpunishable.