🔗 Share this article

Just before the festive season, I had an extraordinary situation. I think it did me good. This took place at a get-together of some old friends, who are incidentally dental professionals, but this isn't pertinent. The attending group were all blokes, which is significant.

A Novel Predicament

The location was a bar and eatery experiencing a roaring trade. A forgotten session was enjoyed by everyone. Good fare, fine libations and unexpectedly amusing anecdotes about dentistry. As expected, the time arrived for visits to the gents. Those who went, I vaguely observed, seemed to be away a considerable while. I didn't ponder why this was, but when it was my turn, all became clear.

Rounding the corner, and what did I discover but a sizeable procession for the men's restroom. Not a single person waiting for the women’s toilet, but a great long one for the men’s. What strange new world was this? This wasn’t a world any of us in this line knew.

An Experience of Common Reality

For the avoidance of doubt, I do not seek or anticipate empathy from any female reader here. I am fully cognizant that, for females, needing to line up to use a public toilet is an everyday occurrence. How many times have I seen women standing in a row while men in the identical venue have to do no such thing?

Apart from the annoyance of standing in line to use a toilet, there’s a tinge of indignity about lingering there, anticipating something that men usually don’t have to endure. It was truly sobering to experience a dose of it myself, seeing the women walk straight through the entrance while I was compelled to stand solemnly in line with my mates, fiddling at anything we had in our jackets and checking our phones.

The Practice of Toilet Queue Chitchat

There’s a whole style of dialogue here – toilet queue chitchat – of which men have scant experience. Females, I imagine, have become adept to be rather good at it, sharing pleasantries and an engaging observation or two.

Regarding this I’ve polled some women of my circle. The general agreement is that queue-based communication is limited to the rare weary glance and the utterance: “Fuck this, I’m going to use the gents'.” A workmate mentioned it’s exclusively at the washbasins later that conversation tends to start up.

If I was a woman, I’d not spend a moment on both small talk or quiet. If I was forced, repeatedly, to stand in a common queue merely for the privilege to relieve myself, I’d express my fury like crazy at the sheer inequity of it. A useful benchmark for any modern community would be gender parity in urination lining-up periods. I’m researching studies on this.

Male Chat in the Line

Back in my line, I attempted to spark some friendly chat going about this novel situation of ours. I clicked my tongue a bit, gave a weary look and remarked something along the lines of: “Ah, this makes an disagreeable change, doesn’t it chaps?”

One person chuckled, a second looked blank, a third individual seemed awkward. Another rolled his eyes as if this was a further example of broken Britain, cultural decline etc. Otherwise, quiet reigned. A man exited, zipping up. The queue shuffled up a place. A couple more men took a place at the end of it. I exhaled.

A Knowing Exchange

A female wafted out of the next-door facility, all clean and at ease. It was perfectly okay for some. I beamed bashfully at her, trying to communicate an understanding of this topsy-turvy situation. Her response was: “Don't turn to me for support, you blighter. Come back when you’ve endured this another hundred times and at that point I may give you the courtesy.”

Truthfully, she did not utter that. She didn’t say anything. But I believe that’s what she was implying. And I honestly wouldn’t censure her.