Why Men Open Car Doors for Ladies (and Paris Hilton)
This is a great question, one every man should be asked or ask themselves. Why DO we open car doors for you? Clearly you have functioning arms and legs of your own, so opening it yourself shouldn’t present much of a problem. Besides, having us open the door means you have to wait while we get out of the car and run around to your side, just to open a door that you could have opened yourself in about two seconds. Seriously, does it make ANY sense?
Not much! Not much until you realize that opening car doors for you is a small gesture that opens up…a different world.
Let me explain.
Opening a car door is a manly, romantic gesture. Contrary to popular belief, men need a little romance and fantasy in their lives once in a while too. A little gesture like opening a car door, offering you our jacket, or paying for dinner makes us feel like romance is not dead, that once in a while we can act like romantic men and have it appreciated.
Why do we like this?
Maybe because being romantic transports us back to an age when (in our heads) everything was glamorous and sexy, when we got to be men and women got to be women. An age, perhaps, when the rules were fairer, and clearer, and if you wore a sharp suit and a great hat and opened car doors, you’d get a gorgeous girl who’d hang off your arm, giggle at all your jokes, and make you feel like a man.
Similarly with paying for dinner.
A lot of young, single women make as much money as men do these days, so why do men still often pay for dinner, particularly on a first date? Is it to make you feel obliged to let us cop a feel on your front step when we drop you home?
Well, that might be a small part of it…
But a bigger part of it is that, again, paying for dinner is a romantic gesture that makes us feel like men. What paying for dinner means is this: I’m powerful; I’m in control. It was my idea to have dinner, it was my idea where to go to eat, and I have the money to pay for whatever I like.
The thing is that the modern day world sometimes makes men feel like they don’t get to be men anymore. Women have important jobs too, sometimes more important than ours, and they earn money and make decisions and (sometimes) have promiscuous sex just like we do. Some of the space and some of the roles that used to be ours and ours alone now have to be shared. Overall, that’s undoubtedly a good thing, but it can make us feel like we’re more and more peripheral, without much of a real identity.
As you might have guessed by now, a simple thing like opening a car door actually reveals a lot about deep dark male psychology! And in case you were wondering, if you want the men around you to be happy and treat you well, give them a chance to act like the romantic men they secretly want to be once in a while. Let them know you appreciate it and you’ll definitely enjoy the consequences!
This post was submitted by Adam Riggs-Zeigen.