Hold the Door

Taking a break from Star Wars related posts, because I underestimated how long they took to write! Looking at my time spent writing blog posts, and it's a lot!

Granted, most of that time is spent watching the movies and checking things and not all of it is writing, but the entire process is taking up more time than I have on weeknights! So I might have to leave it for weekends.

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My confusion around door etiquette started with MrMan5. He said that one of the things that annoys him most is when he's in an elevator with a woman, and he will hold out his arm for her to get out first, but then she'll insist that he gets out first, but due to societal pressures, he will have to insist that she gets out first. And they do this little dance until eventually she gets out of the elevator. It's a process that slows everyone down, but it seems to be what you're expected to do.

I'd never heard someone put it like that before, but now I wonder if a lot of people feel like that. My personal policy is always last in, first out (assuming you're all getting out at the same time - obviously if it's not your floor, but someone else's, you should let them get out and not hold them hostage in the lift, or do some crazy lift jiggle where you all position yourself depending on when you are getting out (although in my ideal world, that is what would happen, as it's the most efficient!)).

I feel the same way about holding doors open - rather than allow gender or some other factor to determine who does the holding, just allow whoever it's more convenient for to hold it open.

This situation comes up a lot at work: I will be entering a meeting room as someone else is leaving. They will hold the door open for me to enter the door, and because they're on the wrong side of the door, I kinda have to awkwardly shimmy around them, and they are holding the door open in an awkward position.

Not that I think it's bad of them to hold the door open for me, I appreciate the gesture! But I think it would be more efficient for me to hold the door open because I can stand sort of behind the door and allow people to walk past.

Whenever I try, we start to do the "no you go through - no you go through" dance, and it reminds me of MrMan5, so before it even starts to happen, I just thank them and walk through the door. But I feel like doing this is perpetuating the inefficient door holding convention!

I know what you're going to say next: you're going to tell me that life isn't always about finding the optimal solution, and sometimes people just want to do things to be nice.

(This scene always has me tearing up. :'( )

And maybe this isn't the optimal solution anyway. Maybe all doors should be replaced by automatic doors. Or all doors should be sliding doors so you don't have to worry about this problem.

I just think that if door holding etiquette wasn't based on something like gender, and it was just a courtesy that people did for other people, then maybe MrMan5 wouldn't be so worked up about it, and you would have the camp of people complaining that chivalry is dead and nobody treats women well anymore, or the camp of people saying that it's unfair that they should be expected to hold doors open for women just because society says so, and that most women don't even say thanks and act entitled if you don't open the door for them.

Have I been spending too much time on reddit?