Opening Doors

Apparently, the way I open car doors confuses my friend. 

"What are you thinking when you open the car door?"

"Huh? What?"

"You always pause for a moment before you open the door, like you're thinking something, I don't know..."

"Oh... okay... and what do you think I'm thinking?"

"I dunno... like maybe, is this guy a gentleman and will he open the door for me, or something like that... I'm just curious. You're always thinking something."

"Heh heh heh heh heh... dude, I don't need guys to open doors for me..."

What is it with guys and opening doors for girls? More than that, what is it about girls opening doors for themselves or for guys that upsets everyone?

Really, opening a door is not a huge task, anyone can do it. I don't understand why this 'chivalry' factor is so special. Sure, it's a thing coming from old times, and women are thought to be the more 'delicate' sex, and so must be treated very nicely and politely all the time. It may have made sense in those times, if the doors were too heavy or something, but that argument just does not work today. 

The history of how this situation comes about is long and complex, and certainly no afternoon read. But it's fascination to observe how it operates. If a third party looks at a guy opening a door for a girl, the unconscious thought triggered is, oh isn't he being a perfect gentleman. If the girl opens the door and the guy just walks through like nothing special happened, the idea generated is, what a jerk! he's allowing a girl to open the door for him! This has actually happened to me. I've gotten those "Oh, poor girl, what a jerk she's with" kind of stares a couple of times.

Guys have opened doors for me before now, for no other reason than that they are guys and I'm a girl. I've opened doors for guys, only to have them look at me awkwardly and then proceed through the door, or try to take the door from me and let me enter first. I've never myself seen a case where a girl opens a door and a guy goes through without thinking anything more or less than that the girl is just being nice.

It's just plain polite manners to open the door for someone else. I'll accept an argument that younger people should open the door for the elderly, or that it makes sense to open the door for someone senior, like your parents or your boss. It's polite when guys open doors for girls. It's equally polite when girls open doors for guys. There shouldn't be anything weird or awkward or extraordinary about that, for either guys or girls. 'Chivalry' isn't something special; it's just this subset of nice behaviour, and shouldn't be considered anything more than that.

I won't bother to talk about picking up bags right now.