So I had a situation happen to me a few times pretty recently, and I thought about bringing this situation to you all and get your thoughts on it. And as I pondered it a little more, I thought it might be fun to just bring random questions and situations to talk about here.  Perhaps if I get creative, make a google form w/a pie graph.  Who doesn't love pie graphs?!

So without any more ado, the situation I have encountered was this: I will be walking into a shop/building and if someone is close behind me, I will wait and hold the door open for the person. Now a few times I have had the person look at me in disgust, and said "What you don't think I can open a door myself?" The men that have said that didn't surprise me nearly as much as one time with the woman with the baby carriage.  All I ever really do is just utter a "You're welcome" in response.

What are your thoughts on holding doors open for people? Is is a nice thing to do? An old archaic gesture? Waste of time? Do you think it depends on the age of the person(s) involved? Do you hold doors for people?

As for me, it is how I was raised, just a nice/polite thing to do for another person.  I grew up doing it, and watching my folks do it for strangers.  So for me, it's just second nature to hold a door open.  It almost feels rude to me to just let a door close in a persons face. 

Anyways, I'd love to hear y'alls thoughts on it. :)

I am from deep south, just typically a gentlemen thing down here.  How ever I have got the woman's response here and there. That I was just trying to look at their asses..... to which i reply next time ill just slam the door in their faces. 

The idea of it is PURE-RESPECT it is a gesture of NOTICING someone else existence.... and for a man to a woman, being polite and showing court

To the elderly it is to show appreciation, to another man its simple respect to the dude same reason men nod at each other. 

Well being from Scotland I'd be astonished if the person didn't hold the door for you, tbh. I would imagine its the same across the whole of the UK, perhaps at least for all areas outside London anyway.

What generally annoys me is the ignorance of people you do it for. I don't do it simply to get a thanks, but if you hold a door or go out your way for someone then they should be at least acknowledging it with a Thank you to show that they appreciated the assistance, many times lately you get people just allowing you to hold the door without even speaking a single word back to you for it. It does boil my blood when that happens and like yourself I often will say something along the lines of You're welcome! loud enough so that they might hear it.

Thankfully i've never had to endure anyone trying to verbally attack me for having held the door though, I think I would be so surprised at that I might even just laugh in their face for it.

I've never really had a negative response from holding open a door, this is similar to a conversation I had recently.

It was regarding standing up on a bus to give a lady a seat, now I know this does not happen, including for women who are pregnant, all the time. That for me is incredibly low and poor manners. The seat thing also applies to more aged people and less agile people.

Have genuinely seen these people standing.

You may have saw the story in the news Lollipop of the woman in England recently. She was asking to sit in the disabled seats on a train as she was in chronic pain and uses a walker to get around; the people sitting in the seat actually laughed at her and told her to fuck off.

Utterly disgusting, I also have witnessed many people using disabled parking spaces.

So what is it? I don't blame it fully on upbringing, maybe we have just moved on, granted the above scenario is not a gentlemanly gesture but rude or ignorant just the same.

Force of habit for myself as i always find my hands holding doors open. Regardless the age i was raised to do so. Now if a person is far away i dont see myself waiting, but its more so a respectable thing to do. 

I was taught young to open the doors for other people.  It was sign of the respect to others.

I'm born and raised in the middle part of Norway,  and I always hold the door for the next person comming behind me if he or she is close enough for me not having to wait for too long. Might obviously wait a little extra if there's an elderly person or others that might appreciate the gesture. I've not yet had any bad experiences doing so,  as far as I can remember.  The most common place this happens in my whereabouts is on a ferry not too far away . It's a steel door,  fairly heavy that requires a little strength to open. I've yet to see anyone not doing the same here. 

I find the description of the video BobbyMunson mentioned quite frustrating. Not sure if it's due to lack of respect or whatever it is. I suppose if she's been a victim of sexual harassment or similar things frequently,  it's possible to forget that there is good people too.

I've always had the impression that Americans are friendly people,  and pretty much close to 99 percent of the Americans I've met online have been both polite and good people. I've always "heard"  and had the impression that it's fairly common to say hi and a lot easier to open up and striking a conversation with a random American compares to Norwegians. 

As for bus and train culture in Norway is a little different.  Everyone grabs one seat and put their backpack on the nose at next to them,  hoping Noone will ever ask to sit there. At least that's how the stereotype is :p people usually remove their backpack if you ask if the seat is free but not necessarily without anyone asking. I used to be like that, but towards my last couple of years in school I changed my attitude quite a bit. 

I try to appear friendly and helpful,  smiling and polite when in public. But piss me off and you will hear it. :p

I belive staying positive and friendly can have a bigger impact on other people's lives than one might think and realise, noone knows how shitty someone else's day might be,  so why not give them a smile instead of possible sending them more negative vibes? 

Holding doors is just common practice for me. I'm from Canada and I like to uphold the stereotype of being a "nice" person. Holding the door is also seemingly harmless, and helps people out, in addition it adds some aspect of positivism. 

I just do it to do it, I suppose. 

 

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I have heard of people getting this response but never witnessed it myself typically even if a person is a good distance away i'll hold the door open for them unless im in a absolute rush and regardless of the class of person or where the person is from an elderly lady to a tatted up gang banger with fuck you tatted on the forehead, i've only ever gotten thank you or some form there of, Ive always wondered where these people who dont appreciate the gesture are at or from because it sounds very strange to me but I have heard of it.

MOVE - the people in your State suck. Oklahoma if this is who I think it is.

I've never had anyone say anything impolite when I held a door .. or helped them. Not once.

An observation - all the nice people here are pushing up daisies. Scumbags don't bother answering here. Seems there are a lot of those here by the response to this thread.

As a Canadian it is standard practice to hold the door open for people. Theres a version of the Canadian standoff where one person holds the door open for someone who is very far away and then apologizes for making them jog up.

I was admonished as a child for not holding the door open by one of my teachers. I don't make that mistake again.

Cowgirls are sexy... usually 

Hey! So I absolutely love this question!  I'll be honest I used to be on the side of the fence that got irritated when someone held the door for me.  But it wasn't because I felt offended, or irritated because I could do it on my own.  But more I didn't want to have anyone go out of their way or be inconvenienced for me in any way.  But once I got it in my brain that they weren't necessarily doing it out of that spirit, I chilled out fairly quickly and just tend to say thank you and get on with my day.

So!  I feel it is a kind gesture indeed and also how rude is it when you come far enough after the last person that the door is shutting in your face?  Seriously!  <3

I'm in a fucking wheelchair and hold the door for people. It's polite, and anyone who thinks otherwise is just an ass