Door Holding: Helpful or Just a Pain?
Today during my final I thought about door holding a lot. Before my final, I held the door for a few people around campus and noticed a common trend every time. As I held the door for someone, they were immediately obligated for some reason to hurry along and grab the door from me even though I was just standing there waiting. I don’t know why people feel this way. My first point is that I think that it chivalry is not dead so, it is perfectly acceptable for a male to classically take a step or two ahead of his lady friend in order to make sure she does not have to brave the elements or slow down in order to pass through the door. But today we have a society where chivalry is out of mind of most men. What we still do a lot of is holding the door for the person behind you, which brings me back to my main topic. I held the door for a few people and it doesn’t seem like it is a big to-do for me but for the person that I held the door for, they were forced for some strange reason to run to the door like if the door was to close behind me, that they would be banished from passing through. It is not like if I were to let the door to close that their shoulder would be dislocated in the incredibly violent act of pulling back towards your body to open the door. I came to the conclusion that holding the door for someone behind you that is pretty far away is actually an inconvenience. There are certain scenarios like if someone was carrying a large load or if the door was to close that they would have to unlock it, but for normal doors around campus, it actually does more harm than good to hold the door for someone not immediately behind you. What do you think?
