I like to think of myself as a pretty nice person. I try my best to do the right thing and display manners. Yet, there are times when, due to a bad mood on my part or some slight miscommunication, I can be rather selfish and unhelpful. The truth is “sometimes I help, and sometimes I don’t,”[1] and I am not exactly sure why that is or what that says about me. In attempts to help better understand this, I am going to analyze two daily activities that constantly give me the option to help others or not: opening doors for people and walking down the drag.
When approaching a door with others, whom I may or may not know, “I hold the door open for one behind me, or I rush through preoccupied in thought.”[2] Now, I usually open the door for people, probably more than most. However, I am not always pleased and sometimes surprised by people’s responses.
HOLDING THE DOOR: A SIMPLE GESTURE THAT DOESN'T ALWAYS GO TOO WELL.
For starters, every girlfriend I have ever had has always made it extremely difficult to open doors for them. One minute we’ll be walking side by side, and, as soon as the door is in sight, she’ll speed up. In that case, I’d have to do something really rude (like hold her back or shove her to the side) in order to do something kind of nice (hold the door open). Other times, when I would beat them to the door and hold it open, they would simply open the adjacent door, leaving me to look like a complete jackass. I can never figure out why that was. Was it pride? Was it just wanting to be the first one to the door? Or is ours a society in which girls no longer expect doors to be held open for them? Other times, people simply take advantage of the door holder. My intention will be to hold it for a friend, and I end up standing there for a minute or two while tons of people scurry off. And don’t even get me started on the awkwardness that comes with pulling out a girl’s chair for her.
PULLING OUT CHAIRS IS ALSO A FEAT THAT I HAVE YET TO CONSISTENTLY--AND SUCCESSFULLY--ACCOMPLISH.
I think I am probably 1 for 20 on that one. Maybe I am just doing it wrong. Hell, maybe girls just like deciding where to sit. These may seem like silly little instances, but they definitely discourage me from trying to help others, for “painful, then, are the moments in which we feel cut off from one another, when we reach out to help or be helped and don’t quite meet.”[3] However, I think a true test of one’s desire to help people, as well as their definition of “help”, is walking down the social experiment that is Guadalupe Street.
THE DRAG WOULD BE THE PERFECT LOCATION FOR A SOCIAL EXPERIMENT, FOR THE PEOPLE WHO WALK IT OFTEN CONTRAST ONE ANOTHER.
Everyone who has ever walked down the drag has gone through the same experience: “Up comes a stranger and asks, ‘Can you spare a quarter?’” I would say this has happened to me about five times. I have given change only one time, which was also the first time I was asked. It is always such a strange, awkward experience. Part of me feels bad and wants to help; I certainly don’t want anyone to be hungry or suffer. Yet, I can’t help but feel like these people are reaping what they sew. They are most likely homeless because of their own actions and decisions. If I gave them money, I can’t help but feel that “[I’d] only be making things worse,”[4] -- helping to feed their addictions.
AT LEAST HE IS HONEST.
However, I have found a way to avoid this type of situation entirely: I don’t look the bums in the eye, mainly because “[I] find it hard to look them in the eye.”[5] If I don’t look them in the eye, I don’t have to be faced with their pain or addiction, and they can’t see that I’m a sucker who just wants to do the right thing. At the end of the day though, no matter what you are doing, when it comes to helping people, “you do the best you can.”[6]
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