Of Doors and Elevators

There are a lot of things I find strange about people and how they interact.

One thing I am always entertained by is the way people act in elevators. I once read part of a study about how people’s personal space constraints are violated in elevators and it makes them uncomfortable. As more people get on an elevator, everyone will move around to redistribute the amount of space allocated to each person. Even if there are only two people, they will stand at opposite ends of the elevator, ensuring the maximum possible distance between them.

In fact, an easy way to be branded an anti-social lunatic in our culture is to be the second person to get on an elevator, and stand RIGHT NEXT TO the first person who got on.

The same sort of thing happens in reverse as people get off the elevator. If the elevator stops and one person gets off, the remaining people have to shuffle around to increase their own personal space as much as possible. In fact, if I am the last person on an elevator after someone else gets off, I always catch myself moving into the direct center of the elevator, or even over into the territory that had been occupied by the other person.

I figure this must be rooted in some ancient genetic need to prove that I am the last one there, that I have conquered this small piece of ground, and the other person has been scared off. What the hell is that? It’s just a dim, grimy, flourescently-lit 4 by 6 foot space that really didn’t need to be conquered. But I do it every time.

On the other hand, I’m sure there are cultures where the definition of personal space is entirely different, and you can pack twenty people on that same elevator, and they will ride happily up and down in it all day in a knot of twisted humanity.

The other thing is the entire holding of doors fiasco. It used to be that a man held a door for a woman, no matter what, but if there was no woman in the equation it was every man for himself.

Now say you are walking down a hallway in an office building and coming to a closed glass door. First you have to see if there is anyone coming in the other direction (good thing the door is glass). If there is, and they are closer to the door than you, than it is their job to exert the force to get the door open. This rule is subject to change if you are a younger man and the other person is an older woman, or you are an older man and the other person is a woman of any age, or your hands are free, and the other person is carrying something. In any of those cases, it may be socially important for you to walk faster and snatch the door open with a polite smile and hold it while that person comes through in the other direction, mumbling a word of thanks.

Now assuming you have gotten the door open and cleared the oncoming traffic through, you should be free to proceed. But now you are holding the door, and you have to do the all-important check of the people following behind you.

If you were aware of someone immediately behind as you were walking down the hall, you can do one of two things: you can slow down and hold the door as the other person goes through, or you can do the push-off. The push-off is when you don’t want to slow down enough to wait for the next person, so as you pass through the door, you push it all the way back before letting go – hopefully buying the extra time the person behind you needs to get to the door before it slams shut in their face. Again, your choice of action is influenced by several factors involving age and sex (and in corporate America, business position) of yourself and the person you are either holding the door for or flinging the door at.

And God forbid you look back over your shoulder and make eye contact with someone following who is too far back to use the push-off, but close enough that it would be rude to not somehow manipulate the door with their needs in mind. If that person is someone you have to be polite to, you must hold the door, while they smile an embarrassed smile and break into a jog so that you aren’t inconvenienced for too long. Unless it’s the half-crazy guy from the mailroom, in which case you are free to pretend you didn’t make eye contact at all, turn your back, and rush onward.

And scientists claim they will someday make computers smart enough to mimic the human brain. I’d like to meet the computer that can take that set of fuzzy input and variable calculations and come up with the correct action. I might even hold the door for it.