Okay so like imagine in your mind that there is a public men’s room that you are about to use in a place that gets a reasonable amount of traffic. The men’s room has two urinals and one toilet stall. When you walk in to take a leak, there is one guy, using one of the urinals.
What is the proper etiquette here? Is it to obey the unwritten rule of “pee as far away from other guys as possible,” and use the toilet for your business? Or is it to obey the rule of “if you don’t have to do a number two, don’t take up the toilet in case somebody rushes into the bathroom because it’s an emergency” and use the urinal, even though it means peeing right next to the other guy?
I am not gonna say which I did. I’m just gonna say that I ended up getting a dirty look from somebody.
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Answer: Stop looking at his dick.
If you need to go to a public place for number 2, then you shouldn’t wait until the very last minute anyway. If the guy using the toilet is peeing, you can just hold it in for one more minute.
After 11 years of all-male private boarding schools, I’m firmly in the habit of always peeing in a locked cubicle, regardless of what’s going on in the rest of the toilet. There’s no sense in making yourself needlessly vulnerable.
Alternative answer: Use the cubicle, unless you’ve got a visibly larger penis than him.
I always use the toilet cubicle if possible, even when there’re thousands of empty urinals. I have a shy cock but its not just that: I also try to avoid touching anything public with my dick, and urinals are dangerous.
I like to keep it private and personal.
I’m going to swim away from the crowd and say urinal. You’re clearly comfortable enough with your own sexuality that peeing next to a guy isn’t a big problem for you, and you’re right–the stall might be needed by the next person-or he might not be as secure as you.
I’m a girl, so I don’t really know, but I’m going to guess that the correct answer is actually “Wash your hands, pretend that’s the only reason you were there in the first place, then leave and wait for the guy already in there to leave before re-entering”.
Why the urinal-fear? I thought being able to pee while surrounded by vaguely threatening figures was a universal male skill.
Or maybe that was a dream I had.
I’d use the urinal; courtesy to them what might need a toilet is more important than maintaining proper inter-penile distance.
I go to the urinal every time. The whole “OMG, don’t stand near me when I have my dick out!” public restroom etiquette thing just annoys me to no end. Grow a Goddamn pair and realize that everybody is just there to relieve their bladder.
When I use the men’s washroom, I always use the stalls, but that’s because a) I don’t have a penis, which makes using the urinals problematic, and b) and I really just like to use the men’s room to fuck with people.
I use the toilet because I like to keep it private. I’m very secure in my sexuality/masculinity, thanks for asking, it’s just how I roll.
If need be I can use the urinals but it requires more effort from my part than using the toilet so I avoid it.
Hmm, I thought this was beginner’s stuff: urinal selection only matters when you actually have a choice, not when there’s only one left, or many equally “bad” options left. Otherwise how would everyone relieve themselves after a crowd gets out of the movie theatre?
zurn’s got this one right, I think. But to clarify: standing next to another man to pee and using a private stall to pee are not equally bad options, however. It is assumed that men who need to or chose to urinate in a private stall are less-than-men or sissys, who probably sit down to pee (!) or are ashamed of their own manhood. The guys in the thread above strike me as obsessive about cleanliness, secretive, and squeamish.
In a situation in which lots of dudes have to pee in a hurry, it’s okay to use the stall, but make sure you’re standing up, and don’t close the door.
The clear choice is to stand impatiently behind the guy at the urinal in use, your stare burning holes into the back of his skull, coughing/clearing your throat at increasingly shorter intervals until he’s done.
“If you need to go to a public place for number 2, then you shouldn’t wait until the very last minute anyway.”
Tell that to some one with Crohn’s disease. Leave the stall free for the disabled and medical emergencies.
Reminds me of “A Private Function”.
Eyes forward, soldier! You got a job to do and no man alive should stop you from doing it!
Everyone knows you go to the furthest away URINAL. Thats a simple code of conduct. Anyone giving you a glance for not using the stall is a man in serious breach of the guy code.
Besides, if its a bar, we all know the stalls are reserved for throwing up in. That is something that requires no wait and some privacy.
Ahhh, but is there any kind of partition between the two urinals? The men’s room where I work has only two urinals, but there is a partition between them that sticks out about eighteen inches from the wall, so this adds some sense of…security from peeking, I guess.
Dear Pe(e)rplexed,
Blah blah bad puns. Blah blah penis pun, hee hee! Blah blah no answer to your question.
-Prudie, tinklingly
Are you sure you’re a girl? I’m gonna start using this one.
Use the urinal and stare directly ahead at the wall. Do not make eye contact or even glance over. The meaning of life is written on that wall as far as you’re concerned. But at the same time, you’re a man, and it is your gods-given right to piss standing up and you will do so lest we all question your manhood.
The correct answer is to pee in the sink.
Does anyone else just have difficulty starting in semi-public, especially if there is noise? I’d go with the stall or waiting, depending on mood and how badly I must urinate. I will even usher others towards the urinal, saying “shy bladder.”
Any shyness vanishes when full-to-bursting, however.
For God’s sake, man, just use the urinal. The whole “ZOMG, I use the stall because my man-thing is secret and personal!” thing is just embarrassing.
Stick with a “narrow stance” and you’ll be fine.
I was raised thinking anybody who -doesn’t- use the farthest stall away is a rude jerk. And I’m not the only one out there….
Ultimately, being considerate of someone else’s modesty counts for something too. But when in doubt, yeah, just wash your hands and leave.
And when visiting truck stop restrooms, just go pee behind the building. It’s often more sanitary that way, and for good reason.
The only wrong choice is to take a long amount of time to make a decision.
Or to start breakdancing. Sadly, I can see Flapjack choosing either option.
I’m awfully late to the party, but here’s another vote for urinal. You’re supposed to pretend the stall does not exist until such time as you need its particular services. I’m really quite surprised there’s so much contention on this.
I’m with McGale and zurn. It’s good to give as much space as possible to your fellow man but the stall should be kept free for emergencies. Ideally the stall should be used for urination only when there is a line, or when someone wants an excuse to go in and give the bowl a much needed flushing.
My girly-bits say “yes”, Jim. And you’re welcome.
Well, if you choose the urinal, remember:
DON’T CROSS THE STREAMS.
Urinal, definitely.
Stalls should be reserved for those in Dire Need, be it bowel-related or simply an absence of available urinals.
In addition to all the reasons given by right-thinking individuals above: the increased height differential means that most guys splash when they use the stalls. Guys also tend to be even less scrupulous about little things like aim and cleaning up stray drops in public than they are at home. Nothing worse than needing to have some serious sit-down time and finding yourself confronted with stall after stall of fine yellow sheen.
From personal experience – pee in the stall.
I wonder about this almost every time I pee at work: Two stalls, one urinal, leading to the urinal almost always being in use — so I go to a stall and wonder ‘should the door remain open or not?” There seems to be no clear consensus among the few people I’ve discussed the ever-so-pressing matter with … so what’s the rationale behind door-open?
You never take a cubicle for peeing if a urinal is free. That’s just the basic law of the Men’s Room!
I don’t think using the stall is inappropriate. I know most people are saying you should save it for poopers, but it’s not like it’s going to take long to pee or anything. I also think in this situation that using the urinal, as long as you go as far away as possible is acceptable. So getting a stare for either of these options I think is just the other guy being an ass
The only thing that would be unacceptable I think, is if you stand right next to the guy and pee, or the urinal is so small that even being as far as possible away means you are in close proximity. In that case I would go stall.
Unless you’re trying to use the exact same urinal that the other guy is already using (and seriously, don’t ever do that), I can’t see how it possibly makes any difference at all. Choose whichever one you’re personally more comfortable with. If you get a dirty look, oh well. It’s the other guy’s bathroom hangup, not yours…you are under no obligation to pee elsewhere just so he doesn’t feel emasculated by how close or far away you are from him.
You use the urinal next to the to guy and ask politely if he wants to race.
All the urinals have to be in use to use the stall. It’s a rule.
At a bar, anything goes. I have seen people pee in sinks and vomit in urinals. A vicious cycle.
If you have to pee, it usually doesn’t take long (unless you’ve been drinking gallons and gallons of water or something). By that rationale, you can use the stall quickly and be in and out of there before any sort of mythical “toilet emergency” takes place.
If you do piss in the stall, however, please just sit down to do so or, failing that, put the seat up and back down again when you’re done. Nothing makes a “toilet emergency” worse than piss on the seats (okay, plenty of other unflushed biological functions can make it worse but I don’t care to list them).
The correct answer is to pee on the guy’s back. When he turns around to ask what the hell you’re doing, tell him you didn’t see him standing there.
The answer is obviously to take the urinal next to the guy and start chatting with him while you’re both doing your business.
Or that seems to be what EVERY FUCKING GUY choose to do when I’M the guy using the urinal. Fuck.
If there is a partition the clear choice is urinal. Only if there is no partition would I think this is open to debate.
In that case I’d say stall. Lack of partition demands a buffer – either a skipped urinal or stall wall.
Trough urinals are another story. I consider that anyone peeing in a trough enters an unwritten social contract of acceptance. Except that douche that stands next to the guy on the end and tries to cover the distance by arcing the stream because he can’t wait for a space to open up. That guy deserves suffering.
Walk right up next to the guy and pee in the same urinal. Tell him you don’t want to waste a perfectly good flush. Then kiss him. Kiss him savagely and tenderly at the same time, like a lion taking a gazelle but apologizing the whole time and not making too much of a mess with the entrails.
Wow. This is an issue? Seriously?
I’ve never heard of the “far away as possible” rule. When more than two urinals are present there’s a natural human tendency to spread out. But I’ve never heard any rule, unwritten, generally understood or otherwise that says you’d need to take a stall when a perfectly good urinal is available.
Some guys really spend brain cells worrying about this stuff?
If you were a woman, you’d be all afraid to touch your delicate ladyfingers to any gross filthy public lavatorium, so you would hover above the toilet seat and piss all over it. Then you wouldn’t want to touch your delicate actualfingers to anything dirty either, so you would use the bottom of your shoe to flush the toilet. And I would HATE you.
http://gamescene.com/The_Urinal_Game_game.html – this is relevant to my interests.
“If you were a woman, you’d be all afraid to touch your delicate ladyfingers to any gross filthy public lavatorium, so you would hover above the toilet seat and piss all over it. Then you wouldn’t want to touch your delicate actualfingers to anything dirty either, so you would use the bottom of your shoe to flush the toilet. And I would HATE you.”
Whoa. The phrasing makes it sound like you’re a guy, but then when do you ever use the ladies’ room that this would bother you that much?
Actually, I’m a girl and I sit on public toilet seats. (I never understood what diseases my upper thighs could catch that would be stopped by a layer of toilet paper squares.)
“I am not gonna say which I did. I’m just gonna say that I ended up getting a dirty look from somebody.”
Man, you got all confused, panicked, and pooped in the urinal, didn’t you.
Treat this as a learning experience, I guess.
urinal, yes. if a urinal is free (as long as it’s not surrounding by guys so big you’d have to rubshoulders with to squeeze in) you use it. unless it’s like a super-empty venue/office that seems like it might not be used for another few hours.
but yeah, using the stall makes you look like a sissy. sorry sissies, but it’s true.
Urinal. It’s important to assert your dominance into the other guy’s personal space. Using the stall is weak, saying you are intimidated. If you got a dirty look, then you did it right.
While walking in the door, announce loudly that you have to piss like a racehorse. Pull your cock out while still by the sink, then stand a foot from the urinal and say to the guy, “I had to piss so bad I got a ‘semi’.” Then glare at his ‘junk’ and say, “How ’bout you?”