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Just before the festive season, I experienced an unusual incident. I believe it proved instructive. This happened at a get-together of a group of longtime companions, who are incidentally tooth doctors, but that’s not important. The present party were solely men, which turns out to be key.

An Unfamiliar Situation

The venue was a bar and eatery enjoying a roaring trade. A lost afternoon was enjoyed by everyone. Good cuisine, good beverages and unexpectedly entertaining stories about teeth. Inevitably, the time arrived for trips to the gents. Those who went, I partially registered, appeared to be absent a significant period. I didn’t dwell on why this was, but when it was my go, the mystery was solved.

I turned the corner, and what awaited me but a sizeable procession for the men's restroom. Not a single person waiting for the ladies' room, but a considerable queue for the men’s. What strange new world was this? This wasn’t a world any of us in this line knew.

A Taste of Everyday Life

To be perfectly clear, I do not seek or anticipate empathy from any lady here. I am fully conscious that, for ladies, needing to line up to use a convenience is standard practice. How many times have I seen women waiting in a line while men in the comparable place have to do no such thing?

In addition to the annoyance of having to queue to use a facility, there’s a whiff of embarrassment about lingering there, awaiting something that men usually don’t have to experience. It was profoundly sobering to experience a dose of it myself, seeing the opposite gender breeze through the portal while I was obliged to line up dutifully in queue with my companions, looking distractedly at something we had in our jackets and consulting our handsets.

The Art of Restroom Line Banter

There’s a entire form of small talk here – toilet queue chitchat – of which men have scant familiarity. Ladies, I presume, have developed skills to be rather good at it, engaging in polite remarks and an interesting observation or two.

On this I’ve consulted some lady acquaintances of my knowledge. The prevailing view is that queue-based dialogue is confined to the odd eye roll and the utterance: “Fuck this, I’m going to use the men’s.” A workmate told me it’s only at the hand-washing stations afterwards that discussion tends to begin.

Had I been a female, I’d not spend a moment on both niceties or reticence. If I was forced, over and over, to stand in a common queue simply for the privilege to relieve myself, I’d vent my spleen like crazy at the sheer inequity of it. A useful benchmark for any advanced culture would be equal waiting times in toilet lining-up periods. I’m researching studies on this.

Comradely Chat in the Procession

During my time in my queue, I endeavoured to initiate some friendly chat started about this new circumstance of ours. I sighed a bit, showed exasperation and said something along the lines of: “Well, this represents an disagreeable difference, doesn’t it chaps?”

Someone grinned, another looked blank, a other man seemed awkward. A further person shook his head as if this was one more manifestation of broken Britain, cultural decline etc. For the most part, stillness ensued. An individual emerged, fastening his trousers. The group moved forward a place. Two more men took a place at the end of it. I sighed.

An Unspoken Interaction

A lady wafted out of the adjacent facility, all fragrant and unhurried. It was perfectly okay for some. I smiled apologetically at her, trying to communicate acknowledgement of this upside-down situation. She said: “Don't turn to me for support, you bastard. Return when you’ve endured this another hundred times and then I may give you the courtesy.”

Truthfully, she did not utter that. She said anything. But I am convinced that’s what she was feeling. And I truly could not fault her.