For those not familiar with the term.

Wednesday, 04 February 2009

"It's Not Dead Yet," Why Chivalry Still Works

Sometimes walking down the street, around a college campus, or approaching your favorite drinking establishment, you might notice a woman walking the same direction.
Wonders abound; she might even be walking into the same building! As you extend your hand to the door handle you have a choice to make. How much time you spend making that choice will determine the extent to which you believe in some old fashioned ideas.
So what are these options I'm babbling on about?
1. You can open the door, go inside, and disregard the other person breathing in your valuable oxygen.(not recommended)
2. You can open the door, pause just long enough to leave the door open for the next person.(Weak!)
3. You can open the door, pause, look back and hold the door open a moment for the next person.(Acceptable if you're in a rush, like you've severed an artery and might bleed out)
4. You can open the door, stop, and allow someone else to enter before you. They won't say 'thank you kind sir' But you might get a brusque 'thanks' for your effort. (A++++)
Now, before you get mired in all the other combinations that could take place, I want to highlight that these are just a few of the most likely scenarios.
Say you just walked through the door and ignored the person, maybe that woman, behind you. Are you a jerk? Short answer: No. Long answer: Noooooooooooooo. (Sorta. You are.)
You're busy, we all are. You had somewhere to get to. It's not like you slammed the door in someone's face. But what if you did open the door for someone?
What you've done is shown respect, perhaps undeservedly, to someone else. It doesn't really matter if it was a man or a woman does it. It shouldn't. But if it was a woman you've just entered the world of Chivalry.
As a dubious wikipedia entry tells me Chivalry is related to the court behavior of knights, particularly their manners towards women.
You don't have to be court jester to figure these protocols out: Men simply put women up on pedestals. In a strange twist men saw themselves as bumbling barbarians while women remained the fairer sex. We've learned a lot since then. Women also took matters into their own hands. Which leads us to a modern conundrum:
What the hell do they really want!
They've demanded equality, but they still want to be put up on that pedestal every now and then. -To the ladies I have to say this: You can't always have it both ways. (How difficult is it to recognize women in the workplace, by paying them the same as men, but at the same time want to open their doors and kill their spiders as a sign of love and respect of womanhood? Is it really that hard to understand? Possible men are not capable of this level of understanding.)
A modern chivalrous man should have the wisdom to know when to put his jacket in a puddle of mud and when to let her figure it out for herself. Modern chivalry is not kowtowing in a whipped fashion. It is the application of intelligence, flirtation, and a measure of restraint. When you open that door for a woman, you've also opened the door to conversation.
When you let a woman in front of you in line, you've got an easy icebreaker. You don't have to be sly about it, you just have to know when it might be advantageous. I'm not advocating that chivalry is a new way to pick up a lady.
I'm saying that when you show respect for a woman, she might be more likely to notice you in a positive way (And if you DON'T, a negative way). If you just walk through that door without a second thought, you probably won't piss anyone off but you might have missed out on an opportunity.
So the next time you have an opportunity to get an edge while being nice instead of being a prick and missing out, think about it. Chivalry is not dead, it's just evolved with the times. And you know what, it works.