Gentleman

There's always the ongoing debate about how feminism and gentlemanly-ness don't go hand in hand. A feminist must never expect a man to be a gentleman and treat her like a lady. Well, this is never a problem for me because I'm never a feminist, although I'm not exactly the typical soft-spoken, demure, girly girl. On the contrary, I totally swoon over gentlemanly gestures.

And so, I was totally surprised when I didn't have to lift down my kneeler at church today. I'm so used to putting down and lifting back up the kneeler myself on every other Sunday. I couldn't help smiling when this teenage boy automatically did that for our row.

It certainly feels nice when a guy opens the door and lets you pass through first or offers to carry your bags of groceries for you or automatically reaches over the top shelf to get that pack of cereals for you. Those are enough. To expect a guy to open the car door for you or to offer to pump the air for your car tyres at a petrol station would be just too high an expectation. Now, we don't want to have such unrealistic expectations, do we?

Although I'm used to NOT being treated as a lady, I still find myself frowning when a guy opens the door, passes through it himself first, almost bangs into you in that process and leaves the swinging door to slam you in the face. I mean you call yourself a man?!! Like I wouldn't even leave the door swinging at my GIRLFRIENDS behind me. Or a guy who just stands beside you with his hands in his pockets while you are staggering with your books or bags of groceries beside him. This sort of guys is just incurable.

No, gentlemanly acts are never old-fashioned despite what some guys may think. I mean okay, we don't expect you to treat as as if we are cripples. And okay, maybe opening the car door is too much and unnecessary (but doing that sometimes on a special date would really melt a girl's heart). But sometimes, being gentlemanly is not a special effort that you have to muster up, it is basically just being HELPFUL, if you see it from another perspective. For instance, putting down a kneeler means that a girl would not have to bend ALL the way down (which is a long way if you are wearing heels) and risk exposing her front and back valleys in the process. Or when seeing a girl struggling to pump air into her car tyres, it would also save you the waiting time if you could just go and help her.

I have met both spectrum of the male species and I have to say, the inspontaneous, uninitiative 'gentlemen', have better buck up. This is survival of the fittest. You're at risk of becoming extinct if natural selection comes into play.