🔗 Share this article

In the run-up to the holidays, I encountered an extraordinary situation. I think it proved instructive. This occurred at a gathering of some old friends, who are incidentally dentists, but that’s not relevant. The assembled crowd were solely men, which is key.

A Novel Predicament

The location was a pub/restaurant enjoying a brisk business. A wasted session was had by all. Good cuisine, nice beverages and unexpectedly humorous stories about oral health. Inevitably, the point dawned for excursions to the men's room. Those who went, I half-noticed, appeared to be away a considerable while. I didn't ponder the reason this was, but when it was my go, the mystery was solved.

Rounding the corner, and what did I discover but a long queue for the gentlemen’s toilet. Not a single person waiting for the ladies' room, but a great long one for the men's. What bizarre turn was this? This was an unfamiliar scene any of us in this line knew.

A Taste of Everyday Life

Let me state unequivocally, I neither court nor expect empathy from any lady here. I am acutely conscious that, for ladies, being forced to wait to use a convenience is standard practice. Repeatedly have I observed women standing in a line while men in the comparable place have to do the opposite?

In addition to the inconvenience of standing in line to use a toilet, there’s a tinge of indignity about waiting there, awaiting something that men usually don’t have to wait for. It was truly sobering to get a taste of it myself, watching the other sex walk straight through the door while I was obliged to line up dutifully in queue with my companions, looking distractedly at anything we had in our jackets and checking our handsets.

The Genre of Restroom Line Chitchat

There’s a whole form of small talk here – lavatory line banter – of which men have scant knowledge. Females, I presume, have developed skills to be rather good at it, exchanging pleasantries and an interesting observation or two.

About this topic I’ve polled some women of my circle. The general agreement is that intra-queue communication is confined to the occasional exasperated look and the comment: “Fuck this, I’m going to use the male.” A colleague mentioned it’s exclusively at the sinks later that chat tends to break out.

Had I been a female, I’d not spend a moment on both small talk or quiet. If I was compelled, time and again, to queue in a common queue only for the chance to relieve myself, I’d rant angrily like nobody’s business at the sheer unfairness of it. A useful metric for any modern culture would be gender parity in toilet lining-up periods. I’m seeking out research on this.

Comradely Interaction in the Queue

Back in my line, I endeavoured to spark some brotherly banter started about this novel circumstance of ours. I sighed a bit, gave a weary look and said something like: “So, this makes an irksome variation, right boys?”

One person smiled, another appeared confused, a third individual looked sheepish. A further person rolled his eyes as if this was a further symptom of a failing society, cultural decline etc. Aside from that, stillness prevailed. A man exited, zipping up. The queue advanced a position. A couple more men took a place at the rear of it. I sighed.

An Unspoken Interaction

A female emerged out of the next-door toilet, all fragrant and at ease. It was perfectly okay for some. I smiled bashfully at her, trying to convey recognition of this reversed situation. Her response was: “Don’t look to me for sympathy, you blighter. Reappear when you’ve endured this on a regular basis and at that point I might give you the time.”

Truthfully, she never spoke that. She uttered nothing. But I am convinced that’s what she was feeling. And I truly would not censure her.