UNI is a great college, and a friendly one to say the least. Often times if you follow someone into a building, they’ll hold the door open for you. Today, as I was entering my dorm, I looked back to see if there was anyone behind me to hold the door open for. I saw a guy and a girl, what appeared to be a couple, approaching the door. They were a fair ways back, enough that holding the door open would have been awkward. Yes, I could have taken a few extra seconds to hold the door open for them, but I had a lot to do today. So, I carried on my way and headed up the stairs.
On my way up the stairs, I heard a bang on the door. I turned around and looked, but continued my way up the stairs. As I got to the next level of my dorm, I heard the door below open. A girl then proceeded to yell “Asshole!” throughout the stairway. I was caught off guard, but I hurried through the doorway on my way towards my hall. I didn’t want to have to deal with a pissed off person, especially someone who was mad that I didn’t hold a door open for them.
Now, after texting my friends about being called an asshole for the day, I started thinking about the girl and what she said. I started thinking about what exactly her actions meant.
She called me an asshole, presumably because I didn’t take time out of my day to hold the door open for her, and assumingly her boyfriend/guy friend. Now, she probably wanted me to hold the door open so she could get out of the cold 2 seconds faster than if she had to open to the door. Yes, me holding the door would have been a random act of kindness, but it also would have made me be forced to deal with the cold for longer. That is exactly what she was trying to avoid and end quicker. So what entitles her to call me an asshole for extending my time with the exact factor that she wanted to minimize her time with?
Also, if she really wanted me to hold the door open for them, why? If she wouldn’t have been able to open the door with her student ID, then that meant she wasn’t suppose to get into my dorm anyway, and I would have violated a regulation of my dorm. Secondly, if holding the door open was so important to her, why wouldn’t she have yelled, “Hey! Can you hold the door?” while I was entering the building? That seems like the logical thing to do, doesn’t it? But no, I suppose calling me an asshole was the winner in her mind.
What baffles me most about this encounter is why she did what she did. Really, you’re that upset about a door? Really? She is so upset that I didn’t do a random act of kindness that she called me an asshole? Don’t get me wrong, I know random acts of kindness are endorsed by Ellen DeGeneres, and I know they are one of the greatest things to exist in society. However, I try my best to do them whenever I find myself in a position to perform a random act of kindness. So, the fact that I decided to not do a minor random act of kindness for once, that makes me an asshole? Over holding a door open? You are that upset over a door?
It doesn’t bother me, it honestly doesn’t. But what if it did? This makes me worry about society. You don’t punish people for not doing random acts of kindness. Instead, you reward the hell out of them when someone does do one. Punishing people for not doing one is just going to make them never want to do one, because they had a bad experience with it.
But let’s look at this from a different perspective. How many times have you cursed someone out while driving for one of their actions? Their actions didn’t hurt you, or anyone else driving, but it just annoyed you because it wasn’t what you wanted them to do. My door situation is very similar to that situation. It didn’t call for me to be cursed out, but I was. What is that person who spoke the curse word gaining? Satisfaction in expressing distaste?
What really gets me is that the girl didn’t have the slightest clue to the kind of day I was having. What if something tragic happened earlier, and I was in a hurry to get to the hospital? What if my sibling was having a baby, and I was going to become an uncle? Or what if I had 10 minutes to change and get to work? She never even considered my actions in not holding the door open, she just thought I was being an asshole. Maybe I was, because I didn’t have an excuse for not holding it open except for I had a lot of work I wanted to get done. But that is what bothered me the most, is that she didn’t even consider my actions and my choices. I’m not saying she had to, I’m just saying she missed her opportunity to perform her random act of kindness for the day.
Who knows, maybe something happened outside and they just so happened to yell “Asshole!” at someone outside right as they were opening the door. Maybe it was never intended for me, and I just assumed given my circumstances that it was directed at me. Either way, I think it is a good reminder to think about others and be considerate of them. You never know what kind of day the person next to you is having. And sometimes, the greatest act of kindness is to think about how others around you might be feeling.