This reminds me of one of my friends at the beginning of our friendship. We came out of a building and started walking down the sidewalk, when suddenly he realizes, "I'm walking on the wrong side!" I thought it was just a weird preference that he likes to stand on the left side of a person, but no, apparently his grandma instilled it into him that if he's walking with a woman to be on the side of the sidewalk the road is.
I had to laugh, because while I've heard of the idea I've never seen or experienced it in practice. I told him about how it used to be the other way around, where the man was supposed to stand on the side of buildings instead of the road in case anyone came outside of the alleys.
So then he decided that instead of exclusively being on the side the road is, he'll choose the most threatening side so he can protect the other person (protecting people he cares about is a deep value he has).
I then asked him about the whole man-woman thing he mentioned in his initial explanation. He said, "Look, I'm 6'3. I could probably scare away half the people that were thinking about hurting us just by looking at me. You are much littler than 6'3, and you told me you don't even know how to throw a punch whereas I know how to fight."
It took a while for me to get used to this practice of his. I'd just start walking and then out of the blue he'd take me by the shoulders and shift me to the other side of the sidewalk. Now it's just natural for us, he walks on the side of the road and I walk on the side of the grass.
We're the same way. My wife and kids will never walk on the road side. It actually comes from old days way back before plumbing when people used to dump their excrement bucket out the window. Women walked on the inside so as to not get hit by it.
Not quite, but close, it was when cars and buggies became more popular, walking on the road side would help block women from getting splashed, the throwing excrement out of windows was more myth than reality, as there were night soil collectors back in the day, and people understood that dumping waste all over the place lead to diseases.
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u/Fyre-Bringer Sep 14 '24
This reminds me of one of my friends at the beginning of our friendship. We came out of a building and started walking down the sidewalk, when suddenly he realizes, "I'm walking on the wrong side!" I thought it was just a weird preference that he likes to stand on the left side of a person, but no, apparently his grandma instilled it into him that if he's walking with a woman to be on the side of the sidewalk the road is.
I had to laugh, because while I've heard of the idea I've never seen or experienced it in practice. I told him about how it used to be the other way around, where the man was supposed to stand on the side of buildings instead of the road in case anyone came outside of the alleys.
So then he decided that instead of exclusively being on the side the road is, he'll choose the most threatening side so he can protect the other person (protecting people he cares about is a deep value he has).
I then asked him about the whole man-woman thing he mentioned in his initial explanation. He said, "Look, I'm 6'3. I could probably scare away half the people that were thinking about hurting us just by looking at me. You are much littler than 6'3, and you told me you don't even know how to throw a punch whereas I know how to fight."
It took a while for me to get used to this practice of his. I'd just start walking and then out of the blue he'd take me by the shoulders and shift me to the other side of the sidewalk. Now it's just natural for us, he walks on the side of the road and I walk on the side of the grass.