You can barge through like a barbarian, or you can take a more civil approach. Here’s how.

There are two cardinal sins to avoid when walking through a door. The first is letting the door swing forcefully behind you, straight into the face of the poor chap following in your footsteps. The second is pushing ahead of someone heading through the same door you are – or worse still, shouldering them as you barge through. 

Committing either of these sins is the height of door-related rudeness, and all door etiquette stems from the desire to avoid them.

We’ll start with #1. Avoiding the face-slam requires first that you have some basic awareness of your surroundings – ie that you snap out of your reverie and/or drag your eyes from your phone and check whether anyone is walking behind you – and second, that you expend the effort it takes to hold the door if so. Assuming we’re dealing with a regular-shmegular hinged door, the gold medal of politeness involves opening the door and holding it while standing to the side, waiting the entire time the other person is walking through the door, and then closing it after them.

Note: This can be done whether the door is push or pull. If in doubt, the first person to reach the door in a group should end up at the back of the group once everyone is through the doorway. Few these days are so courteous: this move is the preserve of the true gentlemen (gender and class neutral) among us. 

Silver is when you walk through the door first, but hold it open behind you until the person following has caught up and you can see they will make it through safely, either because they have their hand on the door or because you’ve opened it wide enough that they can slip through without it shutting on them. Bronze is walking through the door without bothering to wait for the other person to catch up, but giving the door one little shove with the tips of your fingers as you breeze through to slightly ease the force of its backwards swing. Actually, this isn’t even bronze. It’s the participation award of decorum. 

Some FAQs before we move on to sin #2. Should men hold doors for women? No: people should hold doors for people, unless there’s a good reason not to (more on that later). What if someone is trailing quite far behind me? Do I still have to hold the door for them? The rule is that you should hold the door unless the distance is so great it would be ridiculous to do so and would make the other person feel uncomfortable. This requires judgement on a case-by-case basis, but err on the side of holding the door for anyone whose face you can see clearly, especially if you have made eye contact with them. 

On to sin #2, the door-barge. Well, well, well. Look who’s in a huge, important hurry. Instead of knocking aside all the slowpoke grannies and tiny children making their way through YOUR door, take a moment to consider what matters most in the greater scheme of things (he tangata he tangata he tangata), and let others go ahead. 

Avoiding the door-barge usually looks the same as avoiding the face-slam, ie you simply open the door and hold it while standing to the side as the other person passes through. However, there are some door scenarios that involve an unspoken but clear right-of-way. If the door demarcates an enclosed space from an open one, as with elevators and trains, people in the enclosed space have the right to exit first. If the door can accommodate multiple people moving through it at once, as with sliding doors at a mall, just walk through – here, it would be strange and counterproductive to stand around saying, “After you!” Otherwise, it is chivalrous and proper to approach doors with a “you first” mentality.

What if someone beats you to the door and holds it open for you? Don’t try to one-up them, as though you truly were a competitor in the politeness Olympics (“No, no, after you! I insist!”) Simply make eye contact, thank them, and pass through the door. 

A critical addendum. If the circumstances of your life conspire against gold-medal decorum – if you’re running late for a flight, if eye contact burns, if you have recently given birth by C-section and it hurts to stand, if you’re in a catastrophically, misanthropically bad mood – it is open to you to skip any of the directives in this guide. After all, some things are more important than politeness. 

But if politeness is what you’re aiming for, now you know what to do. Go for gold.