Tuesday, June 19, 2007

If Chivalry's Not Dead, I'm Gonna Kill It

Dudes, seriously. Opening the door for a woman is not polite or chivalrous if you're going to be aggressive about it.

This afternoon I'm entering my office building. There are two sets of double doors. I'm going in the door furthest to my right while two guys are coming out of the doors on my left. I have my hand on the door handle, about to pull it open, when one the of the guys says, "Hey, you don't have to go in that door. Come over here. I'll hold it for you."

So I reasonably enough tell him, "That's OK. I'm already right here."

As I'm going through the door he raises his voice to me and gets this nasty tone. "Fine. I was just trying to be helpful."

"Oh, and I appreciate it," I say. (lie)

Whatever. Like I'm going to shut the door I'm already using and take five extra steps in my uncomfortable shoes (thanks for that, too, by the way, patriarchy) to make you feel all manly and shit.

It takes a special kind of jerk to take a simple, helpful act and turn it into something mean and self-aggrandizing.

1 comment:

-S- said...

When someone goes out of their way to help you even though you don't need (or want) it, that's annoying but tolerable.

When someone expects you to go out of your way so that they can help you (not needing or wanting it), that's just selfish and rude.