I am aware that you are probably not going to kill someone
But I don't know that for sure.
In fact, if you show up at the entrance to my condo building, and I've never seen you before, then I don't actually know anything at all. I think it's not exactly pro-social behaviour to start yelling at a stranger at the entrance to their own home simple because they have the temerity to deny you entrance. Or am I being overly sensitive?
Yesterday I had a friend, J, over - we ordered veggie pizza and planned to watched Sherlock (The Hounds of Baskerville). The delivery guy called, and I went down to the lobby to pay him. There were a few people waiting in the glassed in foyer of my building - one person was using the intercom system to get herself buzzed in, but there was a couple just standing there. They were probably about my parents age, casually dressed, nothing about them screamed miscreant or psychopath, but I didn't recognize them, so I figured they were visitors.
Now, I don't know everybody in the building. We aren't massive, but there are probably about 60 independent units spread over 15 floors, and we live in an area where people will buy a condo - live there while they go to med school, or grad school, or law school, or whatever, then move out. About 20% of the units are rented, and there is enough turnover that I can't claim to recognize every face by sight. But, having lived there nearly 2 years, I do recognize a lot of residents.
This visiting couple tried to follow my pizza guy through the door. I stepped in front of the entrance way and asked if I could see their key. The woman told me that 'she was just going to visit her daughter'. I handed my credit card to the pizza guy, pointed at the intercom system, and suggested that they buzz up to get her to let them in.
They told me that her daughter wasn't listed on the directory, did I know anything about that? At this point the tenor of the woman's voice had ratcheted up an octave and she was starting to sound strident and demanding, and was I feeling a) incredibly embarrassed, and b) a strong desire to do the pro-social thing and let these people in - it's just a case of parents visiting their daughter right? My dad's visiting this weekend, I'm incredibly excited about that, and I wouldn't want him standing out in the heat.
I told them that it could take the building manager a couple of weeks to do the updates, but for now they should just call their daughter. They said they didn't have a phone. The pizza guy (who got a good tip BTW, I felt bad for him being in the crossfire) offered his phone, which they pushed back at the guy saying that they didn't have her phone number. That was the point where I started to get a niggling fear about the entire thing.
Another man, lets call him D. I don't really know D, but I know that he lives a floor above me - we had a perfectly cordial elevator conversation coming back from the condo AGM about 2 months ago about building security. So D came through the door, and the woman immediately challenged me on why I let him through, when I wouldn't let her through to visit her daughter.
D stopped, and looked, and a small smile was playing on his lips and I know that he was thinking about the conversation we had back in May. Anyway, the woman addressed herself to D, and lowered her voice a little bit, making herself sound reasonable again. And she asked D to take her up to her daughters place on XXX. XXX happened to be on my floor, and D knows what floor I live on, he looked at me, and I make a face and shrug my shoulders. I'd never seen them there before.
Of course the woman caught the exchange, and demanded to know what that was all about. D just walked away, leaving me holding the bag. So I just repeated that I didn't want to be responsible for letting them in. The pizza transaction finished, and I took a step forward as I accepted the pizza, trying to force them farther into the foyer so that I could close the door on them.
We had a bit of an exchange then. I shouldn't have engaged, I know.
"Do we look like the sort of person who would steal stuff," As if that was the only sort of damage they could cause if I let them in.
"I'm not making any judgement's about you," I replied.
"You quite clearly are," she snapped back. And you know, she was right there, which made me feel a little guilty. Not guilty enough to let her in. It was just enough to fluster me and put me at a bit of a loss. Yes, I had judged her as an self-important, over-entitled asshole.
"I just don't know you," I tried to say it in a calming voice, but I suspect I just came off as weak.
"Well we don't know you either," the woman responded, as if she were trying to reason with me. It seemed like she thought our situations were perfectly symmetrical and because we don't know anything about each other, the socially acceptable thing to do was to take her statements at face value and let her in. And again, she might have been right. Standing in the doorway arguing with her was socially awkward, and the thing I had been socialized to do was kindly step out of the way and let her in.
Except. "I'm not trying to be admitted to your home," I pointed out. "This is my home that you're trying to bully your way into." And yes, I used the word bully, I know it's the 'mot du jour', and that people are mis-using the term all over the place now, but you know what, when you're flustered, you speak in cliches, because that's what's familiar and comes to mind first.
"What's your unit number?" The woman decided to demand personal information from me and it took me totally off guard.
"What?"
"What's your unit number? I want to tell the building manager about your aggressive behaviour." I looked at her like she had some sort of personality disorder, which I was starting to suspect she did.
D reappeared as I was trying to get the door closed, the man had wedged his foot in it. D just jumped in a took control. 'If you don't leave now I'm going to have to call the police'. The woman, of course, protested that she was only here to see her daughter.
D kept going though, he said that he spoke to the woman in XXX, and she did't know anything about your visit, and that you aren't welcome. Unless you have some other reason to justify your presence here you are trespassing, and need to get off our property (D is on the condo board and has a lot more confidence about these things than I do).
The building manager appeared with some cleaning stuff and started to putter around the lobby, on the inside of the security doors. (presumably to make sure that they left). D and I went back to the elevator It turns out that XXX has been being harassed by these people for a while.
J was wondering what took me so long, and I'm still a little pissed off.
There was a thank-you card shoved under my door this morning from the woman in XXX, and there's now a printed sign in the entrance way about how it's very important for the safety of everyone in the building that you do not let strangers into the building, even if they look like Brad Pitt - I guess that speaks to the age of the people in the building.
Of course I'm a bit of a hypocrite. I still don't have any problem with me taking advantage of a door held by someone else, because I know I'm not going to do any damage.
Still, I'm not offended if someone asks me to wait until my host buzzes me in. They don't know me, I don't know them, for all they know I could be a homicidal maniac. I've been told they look just like everyone else.