AWKWARD ANNIE
Staff Lampoonist
Holding the door open for someone behind you is probably one of the most complex gestures of kindness a person can show another. You simply use your spidey senses to tell if someone is approaching you and stretch yourself as far as possible to keep the door open as you continue walking. The question is, how close is close enough to hold the door open? Should they be in your bubble or within a stride’s length? Or, can this act of benevolence be spread as far as a stone’s throw away?
With this winter vortex fast approaching, it becomes even harder to hold open a door and let Jack Frost nip at your whole face. Especially when it starts to blizzard out, keeping a door open becomes more of a feat of strength. You should just stop yourself now if you are ever thinking of holding a door to Dods Hall open because that is close to impossible. It’s as if Dods knows you aren’t actually going to work out at the gym and it is trying to save you the trouble.
Whenever someone holds the door for you, you feel like you owe them some great debt of gratitude. They are risking this awkward exchange of thanks that normally happens twice because doors tend to come in twos around here. What really makes you feel terrible is when you are far enough away from them that you have to quicken your pace to a jog so you’re not being an asshole and making them wait for you. When you finally reach the door, out of breath and starting to wheeze from the thirty-degree temperatures, you can’t help but laugh and say “sorry.”
This is the sort of instance where I feel that chivalry can die. If someone is not almost touching you on the way to entering a building, you shouldn’t feel obliged to stand there are watch them walk to you. The whole situation just becomes unnecessarily awkward and wastes time and heat from the building. The only exception to this rule is in the case of the elderly and people who cannot hold the door open for themselves. Although holding a door open for someone else is extremely considerate, it is ultimately just a huge question of “what have I gotten myself into?”