This is not about holding the door for women. This is not about holding your own door if you ARE a woman. This is about having the common decency to maintain a social contract where we all simply DON’T ALLOW PEOPLE TO WALK INTO SOLID PLANES OF MATTER.
1. Hold the door for anyone and everyone.
I personally feel really uncomfortable when someone holds the door for me. It’s like, “I GOT THIS I WAS RAISED TO BE INDEPENDENT I CAN HANDLE A DOOR.” However, nothing infuriates me more than when I’m walking towards work and someone sees that I have two bags and a cup of coffee and will deliberately not make eye contact so as to lead me to believe they didn’t see me and didn’t have to hold the door. So, don’t feel embargoed by gender or age or race. Better safe than sorry.
2. If someone is less than six feet behind you, hold the door.
Not six steps, six actual feet. Just wait and keep your hand on the door, allowing for someone to enter the building in front of or behind you. Start here, and extend your range – try ten feet or even whenever you see someone who may reasonably make it to the door within 30 seconds of you. This applies doubly for anyone with their hands full. Christmas is a’comin’ and everyone is going to have packages, small children, animals – do them a solid and get the door for them.
3. “Holding the door” has many meanings.
It can be holding the door completely open like a doorman and allowing a group of people to go in front of you. It can be making sure the door is open enough to let someone slide through. It can be keeping your hand on the glass pane of a door as you see someone dashing to make it through.
4. This applies to all doors.
Elevators. Buildings. Cars. Trapdoors. Just hold them. Not to a wide, vacant space, obviously, but to another person in the world who simply needs to be move freely.
5. Don’t be a jerk
Don’t scowl at people who you are holding the door for. Try saying, “No rush” when they are scuttling up the sidewalk to relieve you from the duty of door holding. Don’t make stupid jokes about how you should “get a tip” for holding the door so long. Behave like a person capable of social interaction, even with strangers.
6. If someone holds the door for you, say thanks.
Just like when you’re merging into traffic, give some kind of acknowledgement of a person’s unselfish acts.
7. Awkward is going to happen.
Sometimes, people are going to hold the door for you while you try to hold the door for them, or sometimes people are going to try to come through when you’re trying to get out to hold the door handle. Just grit your teeth and deal, because none of that is as bad as watching a door slam in your own face.
Door holding in 2013 will automatically get you elected to sainthood. Let’s get out there and hold some doors, team. The world needs us.
Let us print thousands of copies of this post and paper the world with them. I can’t believe how many times I’ve had the door slammed in my face by people I know have seen me coming, or how utterly shocked people are when I hold the door open for them. And seriously, I get a bit stabby when you don’t say thank you when I do hold the door–I have no issue being a decent human being, but a little acknowledgement never killed anyone, either.
Extra points if you’re a kid and you hold the door open for me. I will make it a point to make direct eye contact, say, “Thank you so much!” with a big smile, and then throw a bonus smile at the parent/guardian who is clearly DOING IT RIGHT.
Honestly. I am always almost gushing with gratitude when people hold the door for me. When really, it should just be a thing people do.
You’re so sweet, Marianne, you have perfectly outlined what everyone should know. I always hold doors, and have taught my daughters to also.
On a related note, I think all guys should be taught to address every woman they don’t know as “Miss” and NEVER “Ma’am”, even if she’s 90 yrs old.
Your daughters are way ahead of a lot of people, that’s for sure
And I definitely agree – ma’am is a word we can do without, unless addressing royalty haha.
It should also be noted that the door at work you are referring to also locks automatically when it shuts, so it takes even more effort because you have to unlock it with a key card then open it.
truth.
Errr…..it occurs to me that a security locking door is a tricky situation, be it at work, or in, say, an apartment building…you need to know for sure that the person is OK to let in, lest they have nefarious intentions. However it would also be awkward to deliberately let a door shut…what a quandary, and you only have a split second to debate it. :\