🔗 Share this article

Just before the festive season, I experienced an extraordinary incident. I think it proved instructive. This occurred at a get-together of a group of longtime companions, who are incidentally dental professionals, but this isn't pertinent. The present party were all blokes, which turns out to be relevant.

A Strange Predicament

The venue was a tavern enjoying a excellent custom. A wasted daytime was shared by the group. Good food, good beverages and unexpectedly humorous anecdotes about teeth. Naturally, the point arrived for visits to the men's room. Those who departed, I half-noticed, appeared to be absent a long time. I didn't contemplate the reason this was, but when it became my go, everything was revealed.

Rounding the corner, and what awaited me but a long queue for the gents' lavatory. No queue at all for the women’s toilet, but a considerable queue for the gents'. What bizarre turn was this? This wasn’t a world any of us in this line knew.

A Taste of the Norm

To be perfectly clear, I am not asking for empathy from any lady here. I am fully conscious that, for ladies, being forced to wait to use a public toilet is the norm. On countless occasions have I observed women standing in a row while men in the identical venue have to do no such thing?

Beyond the annoyance of having to queue to use a convenience, there’s a hint of humiliation about waiting there, waiting for something that men typically don’t have to experience. It was decidedly enlightening to have a sample of it myself, seeing the women glide through the door while I was forced to stand solemnly in queue with my companions, looking distractedly at anything we had in our trouser pockets and checking our phones.

The Art of Toilet Queue Banter

There’s a complete conversational genre here – restroom waiting talk – of which men have scant knowledge. Ladies, I imagine, have become adept to be fairly skilled at it, sharing polite remarks and an engaging insight or two.

Regarding this I’ve polled some lady acquaintances of my knowledge. The general agreement is that queue-based dialogue is limited to the occasional weary glance and the comment: “Fuck this, I’m going to use the men’s.” A associate mentioned it’s only at the hand-washing stations afterwards that discussion tends to begin.

Had I been a lady, I’d waste no time on both pleasantries or reticence. If I was obliged, time and again, to stand in a common queue only for the chance to empty my bladder, I’d express my fury like nobody’s business at the pure injustice of it. A useful metric for any modern culture would be equal waiting times in urination waiting times. I’m researching research on this.

Brotherly Chat in the Queue

Returning to my queue, I tried to spark some male camaraderie flowing about this new situation of ours. I sighed a bit, gave a weary look and remarked something to the effect of: “So, this makes an disagreeable change, right boys?”

One person smiled, someone else appeared confused, a third appeared embarrassed. A further person rolled his eyes as if this was yet another manifestation of broken Britain, woke madness etc. Aside from that, stillness ensued. An individual came out, adjusting his clothing. The line shuffled up a place. A couple more men entered the back of it. I exhaled.

A Knowing Exchange

A female glided out of the adjacent restroom, all clean and relaxed. It was just fine for some. I beamed bashfully at her, endeavouring to express recognition of this reversed situation. She said: “Don't come to me for support, you bastard. Return when you’ve done this another hundred times and then I could give you the time of day.”

Truthfully, she didn’t say that. She didn’t say nothing. But I believe that’s what she was thinking. And I truly would not censure her.