Help, that isn’t

Trying to help people isn’t all it’s cracked up to be!

I spend half my life holding the door open for people.  After all, isn’t that the polite, even gentlemanly, thing to do?  Yet unless you judge it just right, it ends up being more of an inconvenience than a help.  If they are just that bit too far away, then there are only two possible options.  Either they start quick-stepping to the door so that they can get through without making you wait. Or, they walk at the pace they would have done anyway and you end up standing there like a lemon.  The former is making them unnecessarily rush and expecting them to show gratitude for it!  The latter means that you both end up feeling uncomfortable with the situation and yet, unable to change what you are doing.

Another example is on the London Underground where the ‘right’ thing to do is to give up your seat to the elderly or those less able to stand.  You see someone on a busy, rush-hour train out of the corner of their eye and a surge of compassion comes over you.  You gesture for them to take your place, whilst you are prepared to stand in the sweaty abyss.  What a knight in shining armour! What princely valour!  Except, of course, when the corner of your eye misjudges someone’s age.  If you actually ask a middle-aged woman to sit, you are basically saying that they look elderly and worthy of special treatment, despite the multitude of middle-aged women there!  They laugh or give a half-smile, feeling acutely embarrassed that they were asked and say “no, you’re alright”; and you sit there embarrassed watching the floor so you don’t feel compelled to be nice again.

There are just so many examples.  I’m certainly careful before trying to be a peacemaker, when often the two people would rather have a good spat and don’t want my patronising nonsense.  What’s the moral of the story?  I don’t know.