My dog hates for me to be out of her sight, but for the most part when I’m taking care of business she is content to watch me from the hallway.
I think part of that is: there is always a danger I may decide to close the door and give her the dreaded bath. So if she doesn’t actually come in, I can’t trick her.
If anyone else is there, I live alone, I will close the door. I’ll also close the door if I’m alone and pooping to contain any malodorous waftings from moving their tentacled fingers to other rooms.
Funny anecdote: I was 20 and dating a guy for a couple weeks and he wanted to do a roadtrip up to see his parents and 5 siblings at their farm house in Northern Wisconsin. It was a long drive up there and at no point did he warn me about the bathroom usage at the house. It turns out that if you go in for a pee, you close the door and you’re fine. But if you’re going for a poop, why that’s what the other chair is for. So someone can keep you company. :eek: Needless to say, I held it in until we had to run into town to get something.
That is quite odd. I would never consider pooping to be a social event.
Why wouldn’t you just leave the bathroom and dress in the bedroom? Or is that where the guests would be?
I usually close the door only to poop (no pets but a wife and two daughters), but lately I’ve been sitting to pee because of a bladder issue that sometimes makes it difficult to pee standing up. So if I went in just to pee, the door is open but every now and then my body decides “well, I’m sitting anyway, so I might as well take care of everything now”, even though I didn’t realize a poop was necessary. So at least 25% of the time I end up pooping even though the door’s open. If my wife happens to come in for any reason, I hold off on the depth charges until she’s gone. The only other reason to close the door is if I have to get up and shower before my wife’s ready to get up, and I don’t want to wake her.
My cat likes to come in when I’m in there, and raises holy hell if the door is closed. Banging the door with her head, clawing chips of paint off of the door, yowling. If I leave the door open, she comes in, rubs my legs, then curls up on the bathroom scale and quietly watches me do whatever. It’s a lot more peaceful if the door is open, and frankly, she’s good company.
She doesn’t behave like that if people are present. If guests are over, or a girlfriend, or whatever, the door is closed and she doesn’t react.
One that might have earned an “other” but seems so minor that I didn’t actually vote for it: if I’ve got a cleaning product soaking into stains in the tub, or have used any other product which gives off fumes or is potentially dangerous, like Drano or something, I close the door when I leave the room. She’s a former stray who still will drink water from any source, no matter how nasty, and I don’t want her lapping up some droplets in the tub. Since I’m not in the room, she’s not vociferous about gaining access.
I chose both “if I’m showering” and “only if I have guests over.” I live alone with my dog, and when it’s just me and her there’s no need to close the door when I’m using the toilet. She might wander in to say hello, but she mostly leaves me alone in there. If anyone else is in my house, though, or if I’m in someone else’s house, the door gets closed each and every time.
I like to close the door when showering, so that the room isn’t freezing cold when I’m done (using the fan prevents the mirror from fogging up). The closed door also acts as a little buffer zone for any, uh, “quality time.”
Always. Even if home alone.
Cuz walking naked down the hallway from bathroom to bedroom kinda defeats the purpose of having had the door closed to begin with. If I didn’t mind the person seeing me naked (true for a SO, not true for a platonic friend), I wouldn’t close the door to begin with, to let the steam out. And I’d walk naked down the hall to dress in the bedroom.
That’s why I have a robe. 
I chose the first option, but it’s a little different for us right now, as this apartment has a kind of long bathroom with a walk-in closet on one end, and the toilet ‘room’ has it’s own separate door.
This is a small place, but a relatively huge bathroom! I close the toilet door when using the toilet, and the closet door when in there because otherwise the cats think their dad’s clothes are just a treat to climb on and tear up.
For showers I don’t, because the kids don’t come in there <it’s off the master bath> and the cats like to come sit in between the shower curtains, daring each other to get wet or something, I dunno.
I close and lock the bathroom door anytime I enter any bathroom. If I had a baby grand piano in the bathroom I’d move it to block the door as well. This includes times when I’ve lived alone.
There are worse idiosyncrasies.
A robe still sticks to you when you’re steamy. And if I didn’t mind my bare ass hanging out, I can wrap a towel around me, too – I just feel “naked aside from the wrap/robe” is a wee bit too sexy-like for people I’m not actually having sex with.
My bathroom doesn’t have a fan, just a little window right in the shower, so while I leave it open in summer, during the winter the last thing I want to do is have 10 degree air blowing on me in my nice hot shower. It doesn’t seem to have much effect on steam build up, anyway.
At any rate, doesn’t change the fact that my preference is to just be able to walk naked to and from the shower so I don’t have to fuss with all that, so I find it irritating when I can’t.
My wife and I have no modesty when it’s just us.
I have to partially shut the door to use the john, because it’s located behind the door. Two inquisitive Boxers make sure it isn’t closed for long. I sometimes close it to take a shower to keep the bathroom warm.
Closed when pooping.
Open when peeing and The Littlest Briston isn’t in an adjoining room, closed when she is.
Open when showering in the summer, closed when showering in the winter (keep the heat trapped in there with me. Ahhhh…)
Closed for any reason if we have company.
This reminds me: Our toilet has it’s own little closet, which opens inward, so you close the door to use it anyway, as otherwise you don’t have room to sit down.
The cats, of course, entertain themselves sticking their paws under same door and trying to grab your foot. They are SO nosy about that tiny space, just because they are never in it. (Closed when not in use, else they tear up the tp)
At least twice, so far, I’ve had mom-senses start tingling…you know, the ones that tell you ‘Ok the kids are too quiet, what are they up to?’…and gone hunting for the little kitty.
She somehow manages to slide in behind while we’re slipping OUT of that same tiny toilet-room, and gets shut in.
And gleefully entertains herself shredding everything in there (tampons, tp, ear-swabs, tissue, you name it) until someone thinks to let her out.
My cats insist on inspecting any space that’s normally closed off, such as the pantry, the garage, the freezer…I have to make sure that I’m not shutting any kitties inside when I shut any door. I closed the pantry on one cat (she’s very quick) and about 10 minutes later my husband handed out canned cat food in the next room. She hollered at the top of her lungs about this, and my husband thought that she was hurt. Nope, she was just outraged that she couldn’t get to the gooshyfood.
I close it when I’m doing anything. Just habit. When I’m in there that’s “me time” and I don’t want anybody bothering me (“anybody” being the spouse or the cats). Our house has three bathrooms–if I’m using the master bath or the downstairs one, I don’t mind if a cat or two wanders in with me. I don’t let them in the upstairs non-master bath, though, since that’s mine and it’s full of stuff they could knock off counters and shelves.
Usually when I emerge from the bathroom, there are at least three cats (out of our seven) sitting patiently outside waiting for me and looking at me with these sweet accusing looks, like, “Hey, why did you shut us out?” But they don’t paw at the door anymore. Not sure why, really, since they do paw at any other closed door with a human on the other side.
My old cat used to do this. I would occasionally-- and purposefully-- brush one of her paws with my feet, or bat at it with something. I loved my cat’s obvious sense of surprise evident just from how her paw would react… it’d suddenly stop curling and moving around, as if stunned that it actually came into contact with something, then the paw would suddenly get shoved under the door even farther, frantically waving around to see if it could bat at whatever it was.
I had a cat that did that. I would keep a bottle cap from a 2-litre bottle in the bathroom for playing “grab that thing under the door” with him, too.
I just wanted to say this was a great story. 