🔗 Share this article

Shortly before Christmas, I experienced an unusual incident. I feel it did me good. This occurred at a gathering of a group of longtime companions, who are, as it happens tooth doctors, but this isn't relevant. The present party were exclusively male, which turns out to be significant.

A Strange Predicament

The establishment was a bar and eatery doing a roaring trade. A wasted afternoon was shared by the group. Good cuisine, fine beverages and surprisingly amusing anecdotes about dentistry. As expected, the point arrived for trips to the men's room. Those who departed, I half-noticed, appeared to be gone a long time. I didn’t dwell on the reason this could be, but when it became my go, the mystery was solved.

I turned the corner, and what should I find but a lengthy line for the gents' lavatory. Not a single person waiting for the female facilities, but a considerable queue for the men’s. What bizarre turn was this? This was not a reality any of us in this line recognised.

A Sample of the Norm

To be perfectly clear, I do not seek or anticipate empathy from any female reader here. I am obviously cognizant that, for females, having to queue to use a public toilet is standard practice. How many times have I witnessed women waiting in a line while men in the same establishment have to do the opposite?

Apart from the annoyance of needing to wait to use a toilet, there’s a whiff of embarrassment about lingering there, anticipating something that men usually don’t have to experience. It was profoundly sobering to get a taste of it myself, seeing the women walk straight through the portal while I was forced to line up dutifully in queue with my fellow fellas, fiddling at anything we had in our jackets and scrolling through our mobile devices.

The Genre of Lavatory Queue Conversation

There’s a complete form of small talk here – lavatory line banter – of which men have scant familiarity. Females, I presume, have become adept to be quite proficient at it, engaging in polite remarks and an notable insight or two.

Regarding this I’ve polled some lady acquaintances of my acquaintance. The prevailing view is that within-the-line interaction is restricted to the rare exasperated look and the utterance: “Screw this, I’m going to use the male.” A colleague informed me it’s only at the washbasins subsequently that discussion tends to begin.

Were I a woman, I’d refrain from on both niceties or quiet. If I was forced, repeatedly, to queue in a common queue only for the privilege to use the toilet, I’d express my fury like crazy at the pure inequity of it. A valuable benchmark for any civilised society would be gender parity in urination lining-up periods. I’m seeking out research on this.

Male Interaction in the Procession

During my time in my wait, I tried to get some male camaraderie started about this new state of affairs of ours. I tutted a bit, gave a weary look and remarked something along the lines of: “So, this makes an disagreeable variation, doesn’t it lads?”

One person grinned, another seemed nonplussed, a other man appeared embarrassed. Yet another shook his head as if this was a further example of broken Britain, political correctness etc. For the most part, quiet ensued. An individual exited, fastening his trousers. The line advanced a spot. A couple more men took a place at the end of it. I let out a breath.

A Silent Interaction

A woman wafted out of the next-door restroom, all fragrant and relaxed. It was just fine for some. I smiled sheepishly at her, trying to communicate recognition of this reversed state of affairs. She remarked: “Don’t look to me for sympathy, you bastard. Come back when you’ve experienced this another hundred times and at that point I could give you the time of day.”

In reality, she didn’t say that. She didn’t say anything. But I am convinced that’s what she was thinking. And I honestly would not fault her.