One Door Closes, Another Opens

‘YOU know the situation – you’ve just opened the door to a shop or a restaurant and you see a pretty woman coming the other way. What do you do?

An easy solution to a common dilemma

Do you a) stand aside and let her walk past, do you b) move slightly to one side so she has to brush up against you as she goes past (and say ”Nice hooters, love” as she does so), or do you c) barge her out of the way and walk through yourself?

It’s a tricky business being a man in the post-feminist age, as the Daily Telegraph recognises. A survey by the Future Foundation found that, while only 22 per cent of women are happy for a man to pay for dinner and most find it ridiculous that a man would stand up if a woman walked into a room, 90 per cent expect him to hold open a door.

But even that’s not clear-cut, as the foundation’s Melanie Howard observes. ”Although the figures for holding doors open for women seem pretty non-contentious,” she tells the paper, ”it still means that every tenth woman a man steps aside for is probably going to take offence.”

So, in other words, the advice to men is to keep count – stand aside for nine women and then punch the tenth one in the gob.

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Posted: 7th, August 2002 | In: Broadsheets Comment | TrackBack | Permalink