I had the best experience in an elevator I can remember.
It started as I approached my work building from the outside. There was someone a bit behind me (I could see the shadow on the sidewalk) and a man walking towards me. I reached the door first – barely. So I held the door.
The man walking towards me was a little older and I somewhat expected him to balk. Nope. He smiled and sailed through. The young man (probably about 5 years my junior) balked. Stopped and said “No, I was trying to get here. I can’t.”
“Yes you can.”
“Oh no, it isn’t courteous.”
“I promise, if a woman makes the offer to hold the door it is not rude to go through.”
He went through and all three of us got on the elevator. The doors closed and the young man said, “I just want to say. I did not want to be rude, I would have held the door for you.”
I replied with my biggest grin, “Welcome to the twenty-first century. Women can now show courtesy by holding doors too.”
The older man held out his fist to me with a giant grin (reaching across the young man’s chest) and said, “Hell yes.”
I fist bumped a ~50 year old man in front of a twenty-something man’s nose.
I feel like I won something amazing.
Dream by Day 