I hold doors for people. It’s just something I think you should do. Recently, there was an entry in another blog I read that mentioned holding doors as one in a top 5 or 10 list of manners that need to make a comeback. I agree. But before I read that article, I didn’t realize how much people don’t do something that comes automatically to me.
I can mentally hear my dad saying “grab that door!” but only to drag me out of a conversation or contemplative state where I’m not paying enough attention to notice a shopper at J.C. Penney piled high with bags and struggling to make her exit. I’m sure he must have ingrained those three words into my subconcious from as soon as I had accumulated enough mass to actually win a struggle against the heavy doors in most public places (which Mike Turner would tell you was when I was about 17).
So, now aware of my own good habit and another blogger’s judgement of American society to be lacking in the same, I’ve been paying attention when I approach an ingress or egress around other people.
My data collection would warrant a C in either of the experimental science courses I’m taking this semester. No rhyme or reason to it, except taking note of people’s reactions when I happen to think about it. But I feel like after a week of taking note, I can draw some conclusions and tack science up on my blog right up next to the English language on the list of things I massacre.
School seems to win in terms of everyone following propper door-holding etiquitte. I have to pass through three sets of doors in two buildings on my cross-campus walk to 9:30 Spanish lab twice a week. And even at 9:29 I’ve had professors, students, and the seeminly sole maintenance guy left on campus all pause for incriments of time ranging from a heartbeat or two to an akward handful of seconds in an even more akward behind-the-back doo handle grasp to let me catch up to the open door, and I find myself doing the same thing.
Apparently, most stores have either automatic doors or a garage door that just stays open, but restaurants (I have the worst time spelling that word in Spanish or English. I think the “u” is poorly placed in both languages) tend to have heavy swinging doors and you are almost always approaching them along with other mealtime patrons. Several places in Elizabeth City (Ruby Tuesday’s Applebee’s and, strangely enough, the Ehringhaus St. Burger King) have two sets of double doors. This gives you the opportunity to hold a door and have one held for you, as long as whoever goes first is so kind. I’ve never seen anyone have the first door held for them and then fail to hold the second.
Just today I did the door-holding swap with a guy as we walked out with our double cheeseburger and whopper meals (is it stalkerish that I listen to what is handed to the other people in line?) and he smiled and gave me a manly nod as he passed through the outer set. I turned to face the parking lot and had to catch the door again when I realized there were two women coming in. As I hung onto it for them for just a couple seconds more, one said “thank you, sir” (the “sir” sounding more like she was talking to someone older and respected as opposed to something automatic or humorous- which is almost making me rethink the beard) and the other told me to “have a blessed day.”
Other public places fair pretty well, although at the bank, I’ve noticed people tend to be surprised if you hold the door for them. Especially because people tend to be almost racing you to it, making sure they beat you to the table with the deposit slips first, so they can have a head start filling out their life story on the thing and making it into and through the line in the shortest time. Verbal responses over the last two Fridays have ranged from “Oh!” to laughter (as we did the double-door-swap) to a totally shocked “Thank you!” all from males and all older than me (and this even at the downtown branch that is exponentially more friendly in general than it’s Ehringhaus Street counterpart).
I’ve heard horror stories of friend being ranted at for holding a door for a woman who turned out to be a feminist to the extreme that she wanted to open it for herself (and then the friend trying to politely explain that they hold doors for everyone, men too). And I have both thought “that guy should have held that door for me,” and “I should have held that for them.” But it seems to me that most of the time people know what to do when confronted with both a door and a fellow human being. I hope the non-door-holders will take a hint, but I’m thankful that in my experience, they are the few as opposed to the many.
H.G. Wells once said “Every time I see an adult on a bicycle, I no longer despair for the future of the human race.” And while controlling energy consumption is great too, I’ll settle for seeing a door held.
