After years of holding the door open for mommies corraling a bunch of kiddies, for anyone impaired in any way, for people older than me, it truly rattled my cage when suddenly I became the old lady who had the door held open. I remember when one mom chastised her strapping teen son to hold the door for me. Boy, the world’s axis tilted that day!
I don’t recall the particular arrangement Beck mentioned in her OP. I can’t loosen a memory of a similar circumstance, but I’ve only had one cup of coffee so far this AM.
When somebody does hold a door for me, I make a special effort to thank them. I may even remark about the establishment having handsome doorman.
Door holding is a courtesy that’s disappearing with all the other courtesies we used to take for granted. I will always make a point to say “thank you,” and maybe even try to generate a smile or two.
Of course, there are plenty of assholes who practically push you out of the way so they can get inside, and often drop the door on you and your struggles. For them, I usually yell out “Thanks for nothing!”
If it’s the person was shabbily dressed, typically this is a tactic used by panhandlers. The idea being you toss them some coins for holding the door open for you.
If it looked like a regular person it’s weird as fuck!
Typically if I’m going into a store or whatever, I might hold the door for someone exiting, as per the social convention. Maybe there are a few people behind them so I might keep holding the door if there isn’t a natural gap. it seems rude just to arbitrarily let the door slam on the nth person coming out.
But holding the door for people going INTO the store? How does that happen? Doors tend to open outward for fire code reasons. So this lunatic would either 1) be coming from INSIDE the store, clear the doorway, then hold the door for other people coming IN. Or 2) they would be on the OUTSIDE, open the door, then let a bunch of randoms go ahead of them into the store. Who does that?
The OP is correct. Without further information, this behavior would seem to defy all social conventions!
The guy’s behavior was kinda weird. In my culture-- rural Deep South, USA-- it is expected that a man or boy will hold the door for women and girls, and everybody will hold the door for elderly folks. It is not expected that the holder will motion the holdee to hurry up, unless it’s an emergency like an approaching tornado or the mosquito truck.
Whatever the reason, if I’d felt the way you felt then I’d have acted the same way. For that type of instant decision, I don’t argue with my intuition. It’s interesting to analyze things later, like you’re doing here, but in the moment it’s safety first.
@I_Love_Me_Vol.I ..I’m sorry, late last night I was a bit of a witch. No worries.
@VOW ..my sister from another mister, I love you to pieces. There were extenuating circumstances that I didn’t reveal in the OP that caused me to be wary. The dude was sketchy. Leave it at that.
Anyone reading what I write today, I’m in quite a state. I’m trying really really hard to Pre- apologize(is that possible?) for something I may say.
Women have an innate sense of sketchy, it doesn’t hurt to trust it.
No harm done.
That said, I regularly eat with homeless at dinners and to normies they might Look sketchy but they okay.
And there’s still the occasional asshole, though now less common, who practically pushes you out of the way in order to get in front of you so they can hold the door for you.
Lots of people: who were going out, had the door open, and held it for someone coming in; or who arrived at the door from the outside in company with, or just ahead of, someone who was or looked to them less able for all sorts of possible reasons to be able to easily open the door.
This ain’t what this was. This is an older pharmacy. The doors push open from the inside, it’s very easy to catch the door before it soft closes. Done it many times. The difference is I walked in, not stood there holding the door. Doing a weird come-on hand signal.
We’ll just say I did not like what I saw. For whatever reason.
