Urinal Rules

I don't think woman could ever understand the male bathroom situation. Whereas most of the time woman get their own little "private" cubby hole to do their business, a lot of times men are practically rubbing elbows when standing at the urinal. This leads to some interesting situations, of which I will take note.

The first place I really started noticing personal and societal Urinal Rules was at my fraternity. We had two bathrooms for males, one upstairs and one downstairs, each with 3 urinals and 4 stalls. There was an immediate unspoken rule that you don't take the center urinal if you are alone. That way if someone else needed to come in to drain the lizard, you both had your space. Around my junior year I had the wherewithall, or gumption if you will, to experiment with the rule. What would happen if I used the center urinal? I would only use it if no one else was using one of the three. What I found was pretty humorous... my fraternity brothers would wait for me to finish. Most were pretty clever about waiting: sifting through magazines, washing their face, checking the stalls, etc. But one brother, Karl, always made me laugh because he would stand behind me as if in line. When I was done and turned around, his head would be down, not wanting any eye contact as we dosey-doed.

The second place was at sports events, like Cardinal's ballgames. Alcohol definitely affects the Urinal Rules (this was further substantiated with adult use of alcohol at the fraternity). The Rules no longer matter. Guys talk to one another like they would anywhere else. Guys contact one another - rubbing elbows no longer matters and I have even seen a guy pat another on the back while both were facing the urinal. Back at the fraternity I noticed only with alcohol would people choose to take the middle urinal right away...whether or not someone was at the side urinals.

The third place was where I had the weirdest experiences was in law school in the "busy" bathrooms. Rhere were two urinals and two to four stalls in those bathrooms. What I noticed was that almost half the time, the guy would go to a stall rather than a urinal even if the bathroom was empty. I had one experience where I was sitting on the pot reading a newspaper (school has stacks of free ones) and I was alone in the bathroom. A guy comes in gets in the sole other stall next to me, locks it, only to pee. I really don't understand that behavior at all.

Oh, I just have to say that all these urinals don't have partitions. Partitions make such a different to Urinal Rules.

I am no sociologist, but I really believe that you can tell a lot about someone just from how where they choose to pee. I almost wish I didn't notice the other guy's choice of things, but I do. And now you might too.