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Just before Christmas, I experienced an remarkable incident. I feel it did me good. This happened at a gathering of a group of longtime companions, who are, as it happens tooth doctors, but it's not important. The attending party were all blokes, which is significant.

A Novel Scenario

The location was a pub/restaurant doing a roaring trade. A forgotten session was had by all. Nice cuisine, nice libations and surprisingly entertaining tales about dentistry. As expected, the point dawned for excursions to the male facilities. Those who ventured off, I half-noticed, appeared to be away a considerable while. I didn't contemplate why this was, but when it became me next, the mystery was solved.

Upon turning the bend, and what should I find but a lengthy line for the gentlemen’s toilet. No queue at all for the female facilities, but a substantial line for the gents'. What fresh hell was this? This was an unfamiliar scene any of us in this queue recognised.

A Sample of Everyday Life

Let me state unequivocally, I do not seek or anticipate empathy from any female reader here. I am acutely aware that, for women, needing to line up to use a convenience is an everyday occurrence. Repeatedly have I seen women standing in a queue while men in the same establishment have to do nothing of the sort?

In addition to the hassle of standing in line to use a toilet, there’s a tinge of embarrassment about waiting there, awaiting something that men usually don’t have to wait for. It was profoundly enlightening to get a taste of it myself, watching the women walk straight through the entrance while I was obliged to line up dutifully with others with my companions, fiddling at whatever we had in our trouser pockets and checking our handsets.

The Genre of Lavatory Queue Banter

There’s a entire conversational genre here – toilet queue chitchat – of which men have minimal knowledge. Women, I imagine, have learned to be fairly skilled at it, sharing small talk and an interesting comment or two.

On this I’ve polled some women of my knowledge. The general agreement is that intra-queue communication is confined to the occasional eye roll and the comment: “Fuck this, I’m going to use the male.” A colleague informed me it’s only at the hand-washing stations subsequently that chat tends to begin.

Had I been a lady, I’d waste no time on either niceties or quiet. If I was forced, time and again, to queue in a shared procession only for the opportunity to use the toilet, I’d express my fury like crazy at the utter injustice of it. A handy metric for any civilised culture would be balanced access in toilet lining-up periods. I’m looking for research on this.

Brotherly Chat in the Procession

Back in my line, I tried to spark some male camaraderie flowing about this unprecedented circumstance of ours. I tutted a bit, showed exasperation and remarked something to the effect of: “Ah, this represents an disagreeable variation, doesn’t it boys?”

One person grinned, a second seemed nonplussed, a other man seemed awkward. A further person shook his head as if this was a further manifestation of a failing society, political correctness etc. Otherwise, stillness ensued. An individual exited, zipping up. The queue shuffled up a spot. Another two men joined the end of it. I let out a breath.

A Knowing Interaction

A woman emerged out of the next-door toilet, all clean and relaxed. It was all right for some. I grinned apologetically at her, trying to express acknowledgement of this upside-down scenario. Her response was: “Don't turn to me for solidarity, you jerk. Come back when you’ve endured this a hundred more times and then I might give you the time.”

Truthfully, she didn’t say that. She said nothing. But I am convinced that’s what she was feeling. And I really would not blame her.