As useful and necessary and often as grateful for them as I actually am, I really don't like using the public restroom.
This is something that goes way beyond the ew factor. I wish I could pinpoint what it is exactly about it, but the only "traumatizing" childhood memory I have is in grade school when a group of girls were hanging out in the bathroom, waiting for people to pee, just so they could yell "I hear you!" and giggle incessantly. Not exactly "traumatizing," but it is the only thing that comes to mind. Since grade school, I have always held it if I could. When that didn't work, or started to make me feel ill, I learned where the least used bathrooms were on campus and would go out of my way to get to them (still do) and would purposely wait to use the restroom until after the bell had rung. Getting a hall pass and ensuring privacy.
It doesn't matter what I'm doing in there, I prefer to do it all alone. Though a very large bathroom, like the kind typically found in movie theaters, is just as well because there are so many people no one could possibly be paying attention to me or timing me or doing whatever other senseless thing it is that I'm so disturbed by.
I'm not sure where the whole "let's go together" in groups thing came from that girls are known for, but I try to avoid those if I can. If I go in a group or even if there is someone in there I know, its like I get stage fright and even if I have to really go it is difficult.
I've gotten waaaaaaaaaaaay better than I was when I was younger, but the idea of group potty trips still disturb me (what possible reason for that is there?) and as I get older, public restroom disturb me more to. So many of them are unsanitary and you never know what you're going to find in the stall or on the seat or on the toilet or on the sink or on the floor or on the wall or on the toilet paper or, if it is a gas station bathroom, what kind of substance you will be forced to use as soap. (If you are lucky enough to have soap.) Gas station bathrooms, especially ones that you access from the outside, are the WORST bathrooms. I think I was actually in one where someone had peed in the mop bucket next to the toilet.
Other common bathroom mishaps: poor locks, causing doors to swing open or allowing an intruder in the middle of it all; a general lack of supplies (toilet paper, soap, paper towels); the always clogged or unflushed toilet (and only people doing number 2 don't seem to know how to flush); the constantly flushing automatic flusher (there are articles about how these scare small children); and, perhaps the most annoying, the crooked toilet seat that slides around, usually in the direction of off the toilet, as you use it.
Few other people seem to have the strong aversion to shared toilet space that I do, but I imagine people can't actually like it. Getting rid of public bathrooms certainly is not an answer to the problem. Some at least have the decency to play distracting music. Making them cleaner and more private could help. There are some really nice public restrooms that have walls around each toilet instead of stalls and others that stay fairly clean. Though having all rest rooms cleaned more frequently isn't necessary either because it increases the likely hood of you being A. locked out for cleaning or B. being hollered at by some stranger with a mop about the status of your business so they know when to enter. If you're not ready, they just stand outside.
All I can think of is them standing out there waiting and for some reason this is distracting.
It also isn't very economical.
I don't like anyone, though particularly strangers for some reason, waiting on me though, either. This is why I prefer a large super busy restroom to a single, single occupancy.
I guess since I spend more time in there, which I inevitably do because I pick the cleanest stall, make sure there is paper, and that my seat is fully covered and DRY, and take my time because it shouldn't matter to anyone else how long I'm in there (I keep reminding myself) I also get to hear a lot of things as others will come in and out finishing before me or stopping to converse.
Things like gossip are expected. Kids are the most expectedly unexpected. They actually are curious what is going on in the stall next to them. They may even pop their head in to say hello to you. The most bizarre though was listening to a little boy fight with his mom because she wouldn't let him use the mirror in her purse to watch himself poop.
Also, there are an alarming number of people who don't wash their hands.
And while I'm interested on some sociological level what other people do and say in the public rest area, and could probably keep an amusing yet disturbing notebook on the subject matter, I'd definitely prefer my potty time sans surprises.
One last note: I cannot decide if I am happy or sad that the little person that used to sit in the bathroom and hand you towels and tidy up is no longer widely in use. If that person were there, the bathroom would likely be a much cleaner and welcoming place with less surprises, but if that person were there, I'd also have to use the restroom with them just sitting there with me, listening. And that is awkward.
I actually had that experience recently (or similar enough anyway) because I used a bathroom in a art building and there was this girl in there painting. Since I had entered it didn't make sense not to go, but all I could think about was this girl finishing her this really pretty piece of art with strangers pissing and shitting behind her. Not the type of modern avant garde I think most people are interested in. I finished quickly and was on my way but marked the bathroom off my mental list of acceptable places to do my public business.
Speaking of art and toilets. This lady made a public toilet stall on a busy (London I think it was?) city street made out of one way glass. On the outside it looks like rectangular mirror box. But you go inside, and in addition to being a nice, plumbing included single stall (think porter potty but with an actual toilet) but you can see everyone around you, basically creating the experience of doing your business out in the open on the street with everyone walking around.
I'm not sure what to think of this. Maybe I should go use it. But mostly, it just disturbs the shit out of me.
(yes pun intended.)
This is something that goes way beyond the ew factor. I wish I could pinpoint what it is exactly about it, but the only "traumatizing" childhood memory I have is in grade school when a group of girls were hanging out in the bathroom, waiting for people to pee, just so they could yell "I hear you!" and giggle incessantly. Not exactly "traumatizing," but it is the only thing that comes to mind. Since grade school, I have always held it if I could. When that didn't work, or started to make me feel ill, I learned where the least used bathrooms were on campus and would go out of my way to get to them (still do) and would purposely wait to use the restroom until after the bell had rung. Getting a hall pass and ensuring privacy.
It doesn't matter what I'm doing in there, I prefer to do it all alone. Though a very large bathroom, like the kind typically found in movie theaters, is just as well because there are so many people no one could possibly be paying attention to me or timing me or doing whatever other senseless thing it is that I'm so disturbed by.
I'm not sure where the whole "let's go together" in groups thing came from that girls are known for, but I try to avoid those if I can. If I go in a group or even if there is someone in there I know, its like I get stage fright and even if I have to really go it is difficult.
I've gotten waaaaaaaaaaaay better than I was when I was younger, but the idea of group potty trips still disturb me (what possible reason for that is there?) and as I get older, public restroom disturb me more to. So many of them are unsanitary and you never know what you're going to find in the stall or on the seat or on the toilet or on the sink or on the floor or on the wall or on the toilet paper or, if it is a gas station bathroom, what kind of substance you will be forced to use as soap. (If you are lucky enough to have soap.) Gas station bathrooms, especially ones that you access from the outside, are the WORST bathrooms. I think I was actually in one where someone had peed in the mop bucket next to the toilet.
Other common bathroom mishaps: poor locks, causing doors to swing open or allowing an intruder in the middle of it all; a general lack of supplies (toilet paper, soap, paper towels); the always clogged or unflushed toilet (and only people doing number 2 don't seem to know how to flush); the constantly flushing automatic flusher (there are articles about how these scare small children); and, perhaps the most annoying, the crooked toilet seat that slides around, usually in the direction of off the toilet, as you use it.
Few other people seem to have the strong aversion to shared toilet space that I do, but I imagine people can't actually like it. Getting rid of public bathrooms certainly is not an answer to the problem. Some at least have the decency to play distracting music. Making them cleaner and more private could help. There are some really nice public restrooms that have walls around each toilet instead of stalls and others that stay fairly clean. Though having all rest rooms cleaned more frequently isn't necessary either because it increases the likely hood of you being A. locked out for cleaning or B. being hollered at by some stranger with a mop about the status of your business so they know when to enter. If you're not ready, they just stand outside.
All I can think of is them standing out there waiting and for some reason this is distracting.
It also isn't very economical.
I don't like anyone, though particularly strangers for some reason, waiting on me though, either. This is why I prefer a large super busy restroom to a single, single occupancy.
I guess since I spend more time in there, which I inevitably do because I pick the cleanest stall, make sure there is paper, and that my seat is fully covered and DRY, and take my time because it shouldn't matter to anyone else how long I'm in there (I keep reminding myself) I also get to hear a lot of things as others will come in and out finishing before me or stopping to converse.
Things like gossip are expected. Kids are the most expectedly unexpected. They actually are curious what is going on in the stall next to them. They may even pop their head in to say hello to you. The most bizarre though was listening to a little boy fight with his mom because she wouldn't let him use the mirror in her purse to watch himself poop.
Also, there are an alarming number of people who don't wash their hands.
And while I'm interested on some sociological level what other people do and say in the public rest area, and could probably keep an amusing yet disturbing notebook on the subject matter, I'd definitely prefer my potty time sans surprises.
One last note: I cannot decide if I am happy or sad that the little person that used to sit in the bathroom and hand you towels and tidy up is no longer widely in use. If that person were there, the bathroom would likely be a much cleaner and welcoming place with less surprises, but if that person were there, I'd also have to use the restroom with them just sitting there with me, listening. And that is awkward.
I actually had that experience recently (or similar enough anyway) because I used a bathroom in a art building and there was this girl in there painting. Since I had entered it didn't make sense not to go, but all I could think about was this girl finishing her this really pretty piece of art with strangers pissing and shitting behind her. Not the type of modern avant garde I think most people are interested in. I finished quickly and was on my way but marked the bathroom off my mental list of acceptable places to do my public business.
Speaking of art and toilets. This lady made a public toilet stall on a busy (London I think it was?) city street made out of one way glass. On the outside it looks like rectangular mirror box. But you go inside, and in addition to being a nice, plumbing included single stall (think porter potty but with an actual toilet) but you can see everyone around you, basically creating the experience of doing your business out in the open on the street with everyone walking around.
I'm not sure what to think of this. Maybe I should go use it. But mostly, it just disturbs the shit out of me.
(yes pun intended.)
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