A Morning Predicament

I usually hate walking into buildings in the morning.

I start every day by waking up and trudging through my standard morning routine. I try many things the night before to optimize the morning experience, like packing my gym clothes in my bag, putting my day clothes on my desk, and filling the mug for my meds with water, so that each morning step flows seamlessly into the next. Putting on my shoes, backpack, and headphones signals the end of my morning flow. Walking out the door is a multi-stepped task that involves not only coordinating my feet, but also putting in my AirPods and queuing my current favorite songs on Spotify. As my apartment door slams shut, my systematic ways are left behind, and I’m ready to start my commute.

My mind is always occupied with something on the way. Sometimes it’s thinking about the long day ahead of me, filled with a pre-filled to-do list and schedule. But most of the time, this focused mindset peacefully drifts into daydreaming. Maybe the thought is the continuation of the dream from last night, which was abruptly cut too short by my alarm clock. But often I find myself imagining a previous narrative that had been occupying my head for the past couple of days, weeks, months, and sometimes even years. Usually, it’s about the girl I can’t get over, the person (or people) I want to impress, or the aspiration I want to achieve. Every time, this narrative plays out in a subtly different way, so the narrative doesn’t get old. These narratives aren’t one-sided; often, I find myself predicting what the other person is thinking (or others are..). I can’t traverse too far into their hypothetical train of thought, as I can’t get too delusional, but it’s enough to keep my mind presently engaged.

But don’t get me wrong, I am completely aware of my surroundings on my commute. As I ride my bike around each small curve or turn–still stopping to look for cars or people walking, of course–I find myself looking at each person’s face walking by, trying to decipher what they are thinking about, talking about, or feeling. These thoughts only last so long, though, since as I’ve said, I have (kind of) more important things already on my mind. Whenever I hit a straightaway, I find myself peddling faster and faster. Usually, I’m not in much of a rush, but with the wind pushing against my skin, the visual stimulation of my surroundings passing by, and good music blasting in my ears, my preoccupied mind is soothed by all my senses.

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Usually, I’m one of many flowing into the gym, a university center, or an academic building on campus around 8am-10am. With the narrative still playing in my head and the best part of the current song still unplayed, as I open the door and do a quick peek behind me to be courteous, my morning bliss is suddenly interrupted by a predicament: do I hold the door for the person behind me?

This complex decision needs to be computed almost instantly. There is a range of places the next person can be, each bringing its own predicaments. Having gone through this experience many times in my life, my mind is rushed with prior intuition and memories of what choice to make.

Sometimes it’s an easy decision. Like if the entrance is filled with other people flowing into the funnel of the door, then a simple nudge is an easy choice to make. In fact, if I panic and do nothing, the person in front of or behind me is likely to keep the trend going. Feeling the flow of AC suddenly rushed upon me, I can continue daydreaming after entering the building without worry. The place doesn’t even have to be popping like that; as long as there’s someone right behind me, the nudge will solve this problem.

Often, it’s a bit harder. If the walkway to the door is sparsely packed, and the next person is far away, choosing not to hold the door open seems like a fair choice. But wait a minute, what if they are offended by this gesture? What if they happen to stumble into my life again, and they remember me as the self-centered piece of shit who was so uncaring that he didn’t even keep the door open? I don’t want to be the guy who thinks he’s so above everyone else that even 10 seconds of his time isn’t worth wasting on holding the door for someone else, because they are worthless or unimportant. The pressure of this possibility stands out from the rest, with its severity inversely proportional to how far away the person is. But often, if they are far enough away, I quickly choose to deal with the possibility of a bad impression and try to unpause the narrative in my mind and continue on with my day.

In the worst case, there is a dangerous middle ground. The person is far enough away that the simple nudge won’t do the trick, but also close enough that not holding the door is just being rude: no one wants a door shut in their face. In this scenario, I would have to stand there and hold the door for them. I’m not at all bothered by sitting idle for 10 seconds as they approach the door, but what I hate the most is when I eventually lock eyes with them. There is this noisy transfer of emotion from my expression to theirs, and I have no clue how they are going to receive it. They might think that I’m bothered by having to hold the door for them, like I’m some impatient baby. Or, they might think I’m being selective with my door holding, in a way to appease them. In the worst case, they feel they need to run forward so they don’t waste my time. It’s not like this is terrible for them, but I still feel bad about how often I find myself apologizing to the person I held the door for. Then the worst part of this case occurs when they finally reach the door: do I let them go past me, or transfer the responsibility of the door by pushing it to them? Again, I’m not concerned with holding the door, but there’s still an unknown of how they would receive this gesture. What if the building has an airlock, and then I put the person in the same predicament I now find myself in? It can get even worse. What if there’s someone behind them? I don’t mind waiting 10 more seconds, but eventually I have to get on with my day and give up door duty. Now, I’m really giving selective treatment to someone, as if there’s a continuous flow of people. Eventually, I have to choose someone to treat differently from the prior. How would this person feel?

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I find my mind spiraling through all these thoughts and emotions the instant I turn around and look behind me. It’s like piles of awkward instances come back to light, like embarrassingly turned around, stared at the person behind me’s eyes, and chose not to hold the door. Or what about the time I apologized four times for making that old lady speed up her walk, even though she put in the effort, her speed hadn’t increased much, and I wasn’t sure she heard me apologize each time. But each instant comes with a decision to be made and some form of regret that will likely be felt.

Every instance of this door-holding predicament builds on the last. As once I get past it, the range of possibilities or things I could have done differently occupy my mind. Sometimes I find minor parts of life like these the hardest to navigate, as they involve multifaceted scenarios and unclear rules, and no one cares enough to actually think about it (since they’re minor). The more multifaceted and extensive the span of choices to be made is, the more unknown the outcome of my decision is. The more unknown the outcome is, the more time and energy must be spent dwelling on it.

To the reader, the solution is obvious: it’s nothing. While the person may have noticed the decision I made for a second, they eventually moved on with better things to deal with. But in response, I offer an alternative line of thinking: This situation was so important that it pulled me out of the perfect trance that mornings bring me into, so why wouldn’t it do the same for others? They too have to make the same decision I do: do they speed up? Or attempt to hold the door for me? I mean, they don’t wanna waste a stranger’s time, but they also don’t want to end up in the stranger’s predicament.

With so many outcomes, I often find navigating various minor predicaments like these probably undecidable. But as you can tell, something being undecidable isn’t enough to completely leave my mind. However, as I continue my commute and eventually reach my destination, I find that I have other things to worry about, like what to do if I’m entering a room that also has a door.

– Eddie Friedman