Do you follow proper men’s restroom etiquette? In my book, this would involve:
These have been summed up in this (now classic) video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnOaMC8KHA4
To answer for myself, the vast majority of the time I do, unless time is of the utmost essence I will use a urinal next to someone else if I have to.
I’ll give other guys a space if possible, but if it’s not possible, I’ll go ahead and take a spot next to someone else.
I won’t chat up (or make eye contact with) strangers, but I’ll carry on a conversation with a friend if we’re in there at the same time.
Of course StP, you forgot option X!
If you are drunk you can ignore most of the rules. It is perfectly fine to ramble and mutter to your buddy about some shit while you both piss into the same urinal, IF you are both drunk. You don’t even really need the urinal.
Not cool to make eye contact with each other though, unless you both just spotted a hot chick. If this is happening while you are both using the urinal then you are at a great party.
I will provide a spacer urinal if there is room, but I won’t hesitate to use one next to someone else if that’s all that’s available. In my workplace, there are only two urinals in each bathroom so it’s common to be standing next to someone.
Incorrect. Deliberately waiting for a nonadjacent urinal to become available causes more awkwardness than just going ahead and using an adjacent urinal, and is therefore a breach of the rules. That’s a rookie mistake, Swords to Plowshares.
Comprehensive urinal etiquette allows for the use of adjacent urinals, particularly during high traffic periods. Adjacency must be kept to a minimum, though. A urinal adjacent to a single occupied urinal is more acceptable than one adjacent to two occupied urinals. Furthermore, one must estimate the remaining occupancy time of urinals adjacent to a candidate urinal. For example, if there is a bank of four urinals with A and D occupied, one chooses B if it appears that the man at A will be finished before the man at D.
It is, of course, important to choose a urinal in a manner that minimizes potential adjacency. When dealing with a bank of 5 urinals with E occupied, B is unacceptable because it leaves no nonadjacent urinals, while choosing A or C would. If you see B and E chosen more or less simultaneously, the correct course of action is to choose A. This will highlight the mistake of the man at B, and shame him into not making the same mistake again.
(Forgive me if this was covered in the linked video. I got about 30 seconds in and found it unwatchable on account of the narrator’s awful voice.)
Obligatory XKCD blog entry.
I assume that, for small restrooms, a corollary to these rules is “If there are two urinals with one occupied, but a stall that’s empty, use the stall…even though you only have to pee.” I do this.
When I first saw the thread title, I had another thought as to what urinal etiquette might be. To me, there are two kinds of people in the world:
Can someone (perhaps a member) please explain to me the thought process of those in Group 2?
What in your wildest dreams would make you think that the next person who comes along really, really wants to stand with his nose a couple of feet away from your stale piss?
Is it really such a giant effort for you to push the fucking lever when you’re done?
Sorry if this has already been mentioned, but another subcategory I’ve noticed is if the urinals are in use, and there’s a regular toilet stall available, some guys will wait for the urinal to become available rather than pee in the regular toilet. I guess the sound of peeing is somehow embarrassing? Maybe a shy bladder kinda thing? Anyway, never got that.
Oh, & just to add more confusion, there are also some guys who flush the urinal while the’re peeing. Go figure! 
I use the urinal next to people if that is all there is and I have to go. But I don’t chat with people and I don’t look at them.
Race to the finish!
Yeah, I purposefully choose the most awkward urinal when I use an occupied bathroom. It’s part of my charm. Plus, seeing people squirm makes me giggle.
Me, too. At work, we only have two urinals in most bathrooms and they don’t have that little half-wall separation. I can’t do that. Our arms are practically touching, they’re way too close and it feels really awkward. If the stalls are occupied and one urinal is taken, the bathroom’s full as far as I’m concerned.
Apropos of nothing other than this is a thread of bathroom talk, one of the bathrooms on my campus was converted from a womens bathroom to a mens. Or I assume so because there is a large glass mirror and shelf on the wall perpendicular to the two urinals, the far one of which is a childrens urinal. It is surprisingly funny watching people try to decide which urinal to use: the real one but be that close to a mirror that might reflect things you don’t want reflected or the kids urinal that requires a more adept touch to use. In either case, it makes me glad I don’t have a strict and complicated bathroom usage policy.
You should really break this poll down into gay vs. straight.
When my (gay men’s) chorus is on break, half of the guys have to use the men’s room. We’re talking among ourselves, joking with each other, and generally act the same as we do anywhere else. Straight guys, for some unknown reason, think that they’ll catch teh gay if they even acknowledge anyone’s presence.
It’s not just a gay v straight issue. Also gay here and hate when people converse while I’m trying to piss.
Well, just to round our the gay v. straight aspect: I’m straight, and I usually pull up next to a guy, ask how he’s hanging, then look over to see if he tells me the truth.
I generally follow the rules, but I have been to known to violate the talking rule from time to time… Oops.
There is also the optional corollary of whether to spit before peeing or not. A psychological ‘kick-start’ for those with stage fright.
don’t take a wide stance. no that’s toilets. no wait that should be both.
at a concert since there is a line out the door you take whatever urinal comes next. feel free to talk about the tunes to people on both sides about what tunes are good.
OK, you’ve given me leave to tell my own campus story from years and years ago.
My girlfriend of the time lived in a dorm that had been converted at some point from a men’s to a women’s building. Hence, the bathrooms had urinals. As it was an older dorm, they were the old-style bowl urinals that projected out from the wall.
The story that went around (and it could well have been an urban legend – but a good one!) was that a somewhat naive student – upon seeing these devices for the first time in her life – wondered what they were for.
She was told they for washing your hair – so that’s what she did.