Earlier today I picked up my neice at a nearby school, she was at a forensics meet and she came out and said I immediately needed to take her home because she couldn’t go to the bathroom there because all the bathrooms only had three stalls and she couldn’t ever go in the first three stalls.
“huh?” I responded with my customary brilliance.
“I just can’t, that’s all.”
“Is this normal?” I queried
“Oh yeah. A lot of girls feel that way.”
I was so stunned I didn’t even ask about situations where there were fewer than three stalls. Now I know of a guy who claims he only goes in odd numbered urinals like the first third or fifth one (not counting the lower/handicapped urinal), but he’s just strange. Is my neice the female version of this guy or worse possibly?
There was a poster here a while back who was quite offended if other people in a public restroom made typical BM noises during their bowel movements while he was also in the bathroom. He felt they should have the courtesy to wait for him to leave.
Surprisingly, I think he actually got some support for that opinion. Not much, but some.
Toilets with no doors on the stalls. :eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek: I’m fine with urinals, but shitting in front of people?! I learned how to use the grown-up potty and wipe myself for a reason and that wasn’t to do that. None of the toilets in the boys’ lockerroom at my HS had doors on them; neither did the boys’ bathroom next to the band room & behind the auditorium. All the other bathrooms did. I’ve seen setups like that a few other places; mainly the odd highway rest area when I was a kid. And one campground. Even places with communal showers still had doors on the toilet stalls. Even summer camp where we lived in tents, and we had one big shower made of wood there were still doors on the stalls.
A lot of women skip the first stall. Maybe subconsciously they think it’s used the most and thus the dirtiest but iirc there was some study (or maybe an Oprah episode) done where they tested the germs and the first stalls were actually the cleanest because everyone assumed everyone used the first ones so no one really did if they had a choice.
It could be related.
Me, I have trouble going to the bathroom in the dark but that’s a holdover of being afraid of Bloody Mary or Candyman or whomever along those lines. Too many boogieman tales at Guide camp.
I can’t even comprehend this. I know it’s true because my spouse told me the same thing (he said the stalls in his school growing up didn’t have doors–and worse, they were in two rows facing each other!) :eek:
If things had been that way when I was in school, I probably would have had all sorts of medical problems because I would have refused to go to the bathroom at school.
I wonder if this is more a boy thing than a girl thing, sort of like swimming naked in gym class–any women out there who experienced doorless stalls?
The only time I’ve ever seen anything close to a doorless stall has been here in the US at a club I frequent. The club used to be a restaurant and the new owners (presumably to bring it up to code or something) had to add an extra stall, which is squeezed into a corner of the ladies’ bathroom. The only concession to privacy is a curtain where the door should be. That you really really have to hold closed! But other than that, never ever seen a doorless stall.
I think so. Not only did the girls have doors on all their stalls, their lockerroom also had individual shower stalls with curtains (not that they showered after gym) instead of the big communal shower (not that we showered after gym). No sofas, but all the girls bathrooms had full lengh mirrors (only the boys’ lockerroom had one). They also got soap dispensers in their bathrooms; the school eventually took them out of the boys’ because of vandalism and didn’t replace them for over a year. Even the teachers thought that was discussing. I kept coming up with reasons to go to the nurse just so I could use her bathroom. Another bathroom phobia, not having the ability to wash my hands afterward. I carry hand sanitizer, but that only good for number one, after number two I want soap & water.
When I was in Junior High, the boys bathroom not only didn’t have doors, it didn’t have stalls. Just three toilets sitting next to each other, with one short wall between you and the door. If you stood up to wipe when someone else was coming in, you might see your Junior High crush standing in the hallway.
As to the OP, my only bathroom phobias are the same urinal phobias that most men have in that I like to have at least one buffer urinal between me and the next guy, unless it entails peeing in the kid’s urinal. I also don’t initiate conversation while using the bathroom, though I have a colleague that finds it to be the perfect time, both of us holding our dicks in our hands, to discuss the important business of the day.
I would have sworn I was free of bathroom phobias, but a few years back I was visiting a friends with a young child. The wife told me she hadn’t time to remove the soiled diaper from its soak in the toilet and to just go ahead and pee on it.
I couldn’t do it.
I had to ask her to take the diaper out of the toilet before I could use it.
I can’t and won’t poop in a restroom if there are other people present. I most certainly don’t want to be able to observe someone else pooping, either! :eek: I just can’t imagine stalls with no doors. It’s inhumane to expect anyone to do their “business” in front of strangers!
As for sound effects, I can do without those, too. I was in Target one afternoon when a woman entered the stall next to mine. She proceeded to make the most horrific noises! The noises were coming from both ends! I have never in my life heard such carrying on. She sounded like she was dying in there and she smelled like it, too. OMG!!! I do believe I said out loud “Oh my Lord!” “What on earth?” hoping that maybe she would quiet down. It never fazed her and she just kept right on with her grunting, groaning, farting and pooping… By the time I had washed my hands, I was laughing uncontrollably.
Now, I know all of us experience “problems” periodically but I feel there was just no excuse for this kind of vocalization in a public restroom. The other sound effects are sometimes beyond are control. I hurried out of there as fast as I could… The whole time I was shopping, I kept looking at everyone’s shoes to see if they were the sicko that had occupied the stall next to me.
I won’t either. At work, I will “hide” in the stall and wait for people to leave before I do my business. If somebody comes in “mid-business,” I’ll just stop what I’m doing and wait for them to leave. I’ve found myself actually getting (silently, of course) irrationally angry at people who walk in on me when I’m busy. I also prefer not to listen to other people–not because I don’t think they’re perfectly entitled to make noise, but I get embarrassed for them. I would totally hate to hear somebody grunting away in the next stall, only to find out it was my boss or coworker. So I try to avoid it whenever possible.
I remember coming across this datum in a Pop Up Video of a Jewel song. (God, my brain has the weirdest sense of what’s important to retain!) Since then, I’ve always tried to use the first stall.
I used to have the common squeamishness about using public toilets, until I went to an outdoor skills school that strongly stressed minimum impact camping. I spent a month in the Rockies sans toilet paper. What did we use, you ask? Smooth stones or a handful of snow. You’d be surprised at how well a smooth stone works - more comfortable than snow, anyway, and without the risk of untimely melting. (I trust I needn’t draw you a picture.)
After that, pooping in a public john just doesn’t seem that big a deal anymore.
Men’s room etiquette. Every man knows this instinctively, but the ladies tend to consider the restroom a social place.
You don’t use a urinal adjacent to another man. You always skip a space.
So if there are 5 urinals, you pick #1, #3 or #5. Never #2 or #4 because then you’re reducing the number of usable urinals from three to two.
I think the reasoning behind this is if a man uses a urinal adjacent to another man, one of the men might accidentally catch a glimpse of the other man’s penis, thereby making both of them homosexuals. :dubious:
There was a thread about this years ago but it still baffles me… some people STAND to wipe? Doesn’t that make your buttcheeks press together? I just don’t get how it’s even possible.
That said, I cannot poop in a public restroom with other people there. I will wait and wait and wait, and eventually give up and leave if it isn’t going to happen. I just can’t bring myself to do it. Worse, I had a humiliating experience once: I had crippling gas pain… the kind with bloating and no level of sphincter strength can hold in the farts. I went into the stall and sat down, hoping for some privacy, but no, some lady on her cell phone goes into another stall. I literally cannot hold in the gas, so, red faced and nearly in tears, I farted. Several times. Then, to my utter mortification, I heard the woman say on her cell phone that “someone in another stall is having uncontrollable gas” in an irritated voice. I nearly died. I stayed in the stall long after that person left.
Also, I always check under the toilet seat in case there are spiders. I just have this fear that I’ll be sitting there and a spider will run out across my butt! :eek:
I’ve seen doorless stalls before in a few public restrooms. I’m guessing they are (or were) gay cruising spots and the doors were removed as a deterrent.
Just came back from Costa Rica. It was a bit of a surprise to see just how clean and very private all the toilets were. Where in the US, we would likely have an outhouse type unit at a national park in the middle of nowhere. They would have a flush toilet.
I suspect it is because of the amount of rain they get. Just set up a cistern. Not sure about disposal though.
And instead of stalls, often each toilet would have it’s own little room. Much more private.