Chivalry…Let’s kill it already

To all you women out there who fantasize about a man swooping you up in his arms while galloping into your life on a white horse....this post is not for you.

Here’s the deal, I can carry my own bags provided they aren’t too heavy and open my own door provided my fingers are functioning. I had to laugh when I saw a middle-aged woman patiently waiting beside her car door (it wasn’t locked btw cuz I saw the tail lights flash indiciating her man had hit the “unlock” button on his key chain) She stood there like a statue, lips tight, beside her passenger door until he finished chatting with his friend so that he could walk over to her side of the car and open the door for her. She did not thank him, or smile sweetly, she looked perterbed and irritated by the fact that it took him so long. She had hands by the way. And all the limbs. I stared at the incident in a confused sort of “WTF” manner. Do women like this really exist?

I was on a date one time where the guy made it a point to grab my hand off the door handle so that he could open my car door for me and announced the words “Chivalry is not dead my dear. “ And I thought “No, but this relationship is.” That is how much it annoyed me. It embarrassed me that he seemed to be trying so hard.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind if someone ahead of me into a store holds the door a tad so I can catch it. That’s normal. However, when someone is more than 10 feet ahead of me and holds the door open to the point where I feel like I need to skip into a light jog in order to relieve them of this door holding duty, well that annoys me. If the door is fully closed for 5 seconds and I need to reopen it, um, I think I can handle that and it does not make you rude. It’s a glass door, not a brick wall I’m trying to get through!

Maybe I’m just different, or have a warped view on what it means to be “treated like a lady”, but I just feel like part of being a big girl is tying her own shoes and opening her own car door. Now…if you want to buy me the shoes or buy me the car, that’s different. It’s rude to turn down gifts you know.