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[Pnx]

My mother always yells at me if I don't let every woman present go ahead of me, and hold the door open for them.
It's rather habit building, thing is, it's a polite thing to do, but when I do it for men they tend to be a little grouchy about it (unless they're carrying baggage, in which case I will always open the door for them, but everybody should do that).
So I do tend to feel a bit sexist, but it really plays into my urge to be accommodating, so I tend to do it anyway.
It doesn't really seem to bother anyone anyway. A couple of times I have been asked "Do you do that for guys too?" I respond, "Not usually, they give me funny looks." To which people just laugh and walk on.

[ChairmanPoo]

I do it for everyone. Polite routines are always a good thing to have. It makes you look good while taking a minimal effort.

[Vector]

I was a big King Arthur nut at the time.  My goal in life was to become a knight errant.

Gave that up after I realized I probably couldn't carry more than half my weight in armor.


*shrug*

Anyway.

[fqllve]

I've held the door open for anyone behind me for as long as I can remember and I've never had anyone bothered by it, male or female. Although I typically step inside first and then hold the door from there, so maybe therein the secret lies.

[Euld]

I've heard that in New York City, holding doors open for people can actually be offensive o_O  People will stare at you, and sometimes ask if you're trying to get paid.

[shadenight123]

really...if someone bickers wherever or not you should open a door for them is sexist or not, there's something wrong. really.
i mean...at that point, if you start thinking that men should not open womens the door because it's sexist and women can open the door just fine, then what? should we close it in their face? and if a women starts thinking it's sexist to open her the door, then really, she is not a femminist, she's just trying to make you feel miserable and or sue you. there are better ways to use brain cells than to think about the possibilities of opening or not a door as a symbol of power and "manship".
then again, humanity did come by with interesting books which go on for chapters rantling about geographical situations and how the weather is just fine before actually presenting the protagonist of said story. (russian one, can't recall title)

[ChairmanPoo]

I was a big King Arthur nut at the time.  My goal in life was to become a knight errant.

Gave that up after I realized I probably couldn't carry more than half my weight in armor.


*shrug*

Anyway.

Learn to shoot an arbalest, and show those damn holierthanthou nobles who's the boss!

[Vector]

I did spend my school periods attempting to make bows and arrows, slings, and ... lockpicks >_> <_<

[Bauglir]

I did spend my school periods attempting to make bows and arrows, slings, and ... lockpicks >_> <_<

Vector-child was best child.

EDIT: All I ever did was devise plans to conquer the world, approximately 85% of which relied on my developing magical powers.

[GlyphGryph]

I had a similar childhood, but I quickly found crossbows were sturdier and easier to build than bows (which I built and broke constantly, usually resulting in me bleeding, and I was so terrible with a sling that results were similar), and cannons of various sorts were the easiest of all to build and aim, heh.

Did you actually successfully make lockpicks? I never managed to figure it out, never got the bobby-pin+screwdriver thing to work for me. May just be because of my terrible fine motor control, though...

[Vector]

Nah.  I was trying to make them with paperclips.

It's a lot easier to make things when people give you tools, rather than baby dolls.  I remember one Christmas when my wish list was literally just "a screwdriver."

I didn't get it.

[Bauglir]

That's the saddest.

Reminds me of the paperclip slingshot I built in 6th grade, though. I could get a paper clip to penetrate entirely through 1 notebook and partially into a second. In retrospect, this was probably pretty dangerous.... Good times, though. Unless you were a notebook.

This was in class, though, and purely an improvement on a classmate's design. I used two rubber bands.

[Vector]

On the other hand, when I did woodshop in middle school my group had what was really the best little glue-and-scrapwood bridge (second-most load bearing, definitely most explosive--it was fabulous, it made a little cracking noise and then around 270 pounds the entire fucking side blew off into the audience), and I ended up building an Appalachian dulcimer, which is still hanging on my wall.  I got to do all the cutting and most of the designing, too, because I was a lot more accurate than my partner (but he was a hell of a lot better with the belt sander--that thing scares the shit out of me).

I wanna do another woodshop thing sometime.  Wish I'd had time to do auto repair in high school, or done that instead of biotech for my required "career training" course.

[Aqizzar]

I did spend my school periods attempting to make bows and arrows, slings, and ... lockpicks >_> <_<

Oh man, I'm just glad to know I wasn't the only gradeschool junk collector.  I always carried around little bits and pieces that I found, like paperclips and such to make things, or just because they looked interesting.  When I realized I was the only person I knew who did this, it kinda weirded me out a bit.


Anyway, since this thread is something of a repository of commenting on sexist statements and attitudes, I heard something earlier today that I hadn't heard in a long time.  I heard a woman giggle the phrase "testosterone poisoning" after seeing a man do something she thought was stupid.  I'd forgotten just how much that phrase chaps my ass, but I had always put it out of my mind before.  I always figured that, being male, it's my (and any other man's) job to take any such joke thrown at me (us) as back-payment for any and all misogyny in history.  I don't know if it's the right lesson, but a lesson I've learned from this thread, even if I don't speak up much, is that I am allowed to feel a little insulted by that.

[eerr]

Lockpicks eh? as long as you could bend it about in half, and jiggle it in the lock...

You just wanted something durable.

Slightly moreso than a rebent paperclip.