I remember seeing a description of a men’s washroom in a skyscraper in, I think, Hong Kong. The urinal was a slab of vertical glass with a thin continuous sheet of water running down across it, and a trough at the bottom leading to a drain. The urinal was also a window on the sixtieth floor, affording a spectacular view of the metropolis. 
Were these guys on their home toilets, or on cellphones from public toilets? My brother started calling me from the pot the moment cordless phones became available, but I don’t recall hearing any cellphone calls from public toilets.
Unfortunately, it was very obvious they were in public toilets.
And I’ve had other male friends tell me about encountering guys yammering away in stalls or even at the urinals. I’ve not yet seen or heard a woman do it, although I’m sure I will eventually.
Just wrong.
It’s such a grievous violation of guy etiquette - and there really isn’t a whole lot you need to remember about guy etiquette - maybe I’ve seen or heard it but mentally blocked it from memory.
Oh dear God. First, how do you know I’m just going to “tinkle”? This makes me again thankful that we have one-person rest rooms. YAY!
As a QA rep, I have heard flushing during calls. It’s not pretty. No one should make a call to a customer service line from the bathroom: at home or at work.
One day, I also heard a horrible noise that sounded like a fart. I asked if the caller was okay: she said, “Oh, yeah. I just hit the rumble strips.” She was driving.
That was the worst part. She couldn’t see I had a book with me. When I take a book to the potty, it ain’t to tinkle.
He should hand in his man card for that. That’s just bad form. The home toilet is bad enough, but initiating calls in a public bathroom is a blatant violation of the Man Code and he should be stripped of his cell phone privileges until he learns to behave.
I think women would become suddenly less social in bathrooms if we weren’t afforded private stalls. I’d be more likely to cut the chitchat if I had to have my open girly parts peeing in front of everyone. There would be no talk, no eye contact, no acknowledgment at all of other people’s presence. Just pee, and we’ll all act like nobody’s groin is exposed.
I think these folks are on the trolley. I don’t want to talk over the sound of my pee hitting the water. I don’t want to talk to you while I’m dabbing piss off my womanly area. I suppose the reason so many women are comfortable talking in the bathroom is because all the peeing, ladies accessories changing, wiping, etc is happening behind closed doors. It’s almost like it’s happening in another room that’s technically in the same room. I talk by the sink all the time. But behind me is not a group of women with their pants down, letting it flow.
Uh, no…I do not chatter while in the bathroom. That is just weird and I’ve never understood other women’s need to do so. I go in there, take care of business, wash my hands, and get the hell out.
As to the privacy wall or stalls in women’s public restrooms, I think you’re all forgetting about a woman’s monthly visitor. No one wants to see that.
Well, they probably were not in the bathroom when they made the call. But after waiting on the line for a few hours, they needed to go. And are not about to hang up, and have to start over again on that waiting!
I flush repeatedly. Bathroom stalls are not personal phone booths; if you’re uncouth enough to treat a bathroom stall as your Superchattingroom, at the very least the person on the other end should know it.
Another one for “the sinks area is treated as public, it’s the stalls that are private.”
I let it rip, and am not embarrassed. After all, I’m using the room and area for its intended purpose, and I certainly try to avoid farting in other public areas. However, bathrooms are meant for elimination.
I’ll chat at the sink, but as a general rule, if someone’s in the stall, or I’m in a stall, or both, I only talk to them to impart vital information, such as “Your kid is crawling under the partition to my stall, and I really don’t want or need the company” or “That stall’s out of tissue, I’ll pass some under the barrier to you”, or something similar.
At home, I am Not Allowed to close the bathroom door all the way, or all three cats will have hissy fits. They want to keep Mama company and two of them want sink drinks while I do my business. But that’s in my home, and nobody else is affected by it, other than the housekeeper, because the cats also try to keep HER company when she’s working on the bathroom.
I certainly wouldn’t initiate contact with another man: not at the urinal, not at the sink, and preferably not outside the restroom either.
1.) Not just high-class joints
2.) Not just the sports – some have the Front Page
3.) Back when I was an undergrad, one of the rows of urinals at a men’s room at MIT had a blackboard (and chalk) above the urinals. That was clever. I haven’t been back to that one in quite a while, so I don’t know if it’s still there.
Don’t men have stalls/walls, too?
Men’s latrines do have stalls for the potties, but a row of urinals along the wall may or may not have a little divider wall between them. Very often, not. If the urinal is a long trough, then of course no privacy anything and if it’s busy, you’re literally peeing shoulder to shoulder with other guys.
Well, if you wanted privacy, you could just go into the potty, whether you were pissing or shitting.
No. Peeing in a stall shows weakness. You never show weakness in a room full of men with their junk out.
Yeah, men chatting at the urinals is just not proper man behavior.
I did hear this intriguing bit in an airport restroom once, though:
Man 1: “Whew…I just made this.”
Man 2: “Damn! Can you make me one just like it?”
My male coworker at an old job used to tell me when our boss would bark on his phone while taking a dump. I never socialized there, just the opposite – nervous smiles and eye rolls while waiting in line then desperate attempts to disguise whatever sounds we were making (ripping open tampons, bathroom farting, etc.)
The only friends I’ve made have also been waiting in line, but at clubs or bars or that sort of thing. Usually I sort of knew them before. But when you’re young and clubbing you just want someone to dance with. Or who has an extra tampon. Or drugs.