Can I get the door for you, sir?

That was a video of a super funny social norm violation/prank that makes me cry with laughter every time. This is a record of me breaking a social norm for my social psych class. Nobody was hurt during this experiment. Except maybe my pride.

At first, it was hard for me to come up with a social norm that I felt sort of comfortable doing and then I realized I tend to break a lot of social norms when it comes to dating and gender roles. As we have discussed in class, there are many norms when it comes to dating and common courtesy in regard to gender. I decided to break a few very common norms while on a date with a guy I didn’t know very well. Chivalry is not dead, folks.

It was a pretty typical situation: we met at Gold’s Gym, he asked me to dinner, I said sure and we planned it for the next day. I decided then that I was going to be the most chivalrous girl he had ever asked out. This would mean opening doors for him, offering my jacket when he was cold, paying for the meal, making sure he was comfortable in every way, and, if the date goes well, maybe make a move. Because I'm sooooo  smooth and charming you know. Needless to say, it was an interesting ride.

It started out well. I don’t have a car so he had to pick me up but I made sure to quickly walk around to the driver’s side to open his door for him. Luckily he had to tie his shoe or something so I made there before him... He didn’t say anything as I did this but gave me a funny look, like "why the hell are you opening the driver's door?". When we were both in the car, he thanked me for opening his door in a bemused sort of way and that was the end of the matter.

When we arrived at Chili’s for dinner, I opened the door for him there too. Once again, he gave me a funny look but didn’t say anything about the incident. This portion of the date was really quite boring as far as my social experiment was concerned. We sat down, and did the normal I’m-on-date-with-someone-I-don’t-know-well question routine (where are you from, what do you do for fun, blah blah blah). I didn’t tell him I was a psychology major just in case he caught on to the fact I was basically doing an experiment on him. While we were talking, he mentioned how cold it was since we were sitting by a window. I offered him my jacket and he laughed since there was no way it would possibly fit him. It was worth a shot.

The date really got interesting when it came time to pay for our meal. The waitress came by with the check and set it on his side of the table. I, being the chivalrous man, had to "assume" it was my job to pay for the meal and I had to be quick about it. So, using my cat-like reflexes, I lunged across the table, spilling my water in the process, and grabbed the check. He had no idea what was going on since he was more concerned about the water going all over the table and his lap... My social norm violation quickly became a table manners violation more than anything else. 

It was at this point, as he was sopping up water and I was trying to get my wallet out that I first started to have doubts about what I was doing. Up until this point, I thought it was hilarious and I couldn’t wait to keep going with it even though he was not having any dramatic reactions to my actions. To be fair, he probably just thought I was weird. But in all honesty, I thought he was kind of nice and I sort felt like I was lying to him even though I do open doors for guys quite often and I do typically offer to pay on a date. The difference was this time, I was making a complete fool out of myself and I didn’t offer to pay, I just assumed I would.

At any rate, I put my VISA in the book without him noticing and the waitress took it when she dropped off some paper towels to clean up the mess. It was then that he realized what had happened and started questioning me. It went something like this:

            Him: Wait… did she just take the check?

Me: yeah

            Him: but I didn’t put anything in there…

            Me: I know, I did.

            Him: what? You paid for dinner?

            Me: yeah…

            Him: ….why? *said with a suspicious and somewhat annoyed look on his face*

Me: I just thought it would be nice… you know… I have money… I wanted to eat dinner         with you….

Him: oh? Well I have money too. Did you think I couldn’t pay? Or that I expected you to pay? *even more annoyed look on his face*

            Me: no! not at all. I just figured I’d take it, you know?

Him: no I don’t know (laughs). I kinda feel a little un-masculine now to be honest. And what’s the deal with you and doors? Who opens the door for the driver? That’s just weird…

Being the “psychologist” that I am, we explored what it meant to be “un-masculine” and how he felt about that. Turns out, he perceived me as having a strong personality anyway and, coupled with less-than-normal actions, he was very taken aback and unsure of who had asked who out. This didn’t really surprise me, but I was surprised that he thought I had a strong personality because most people describe me as kind of mellow. Maybe I was playing a role? Or maybe I was just so giddy about this social experiment I over compensated. Whatever the reason, it was enough to actually confuse him and make him feel a little bad so I figured I’d spill the beans. 

I figured telling him what I was up to would not impress him at all and I prepared for the worst... The worst being no second date (which I didn't expect anyway) and an awkward silence for the rest of the night. Neither of which is really all that bad but I really didn't want to hurt his feelings. I have a kind heart... just not kind enough not to play jokes on people. Anyway, I said I was really sorry I acted so weird and paid for dinner and made him feel bad but I was trying to violate a social norm for a class. I was quite surprised by his response: he busted out laughing and asked where the camera was. Like that TV show, Candid Camera. When I informed him there wasn’t one he asked me if spilling water was part of the assignment too. I should have said yes to that one. I did tell him, however, that I do do some of this stuff normally and that he probably shouldn’t think all my “weirdness” came from a class assignment. The rest of the night passed uneventfully, besides the constant flow of jokes he made about how I was a man.

Let the record show that, overall, this was a decent date and we have gone a few dates since. My romantic life was not totally ruined by the violation of these norms.