Public Restrooms

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Does anyone else find being in a public restroom with more than one other person incredibly unnerving? If there is a stall present, I make a beeline for it as quickly as I can. The idea of multiple people being present while I'm doing my business makes me cringe.

To be avoided if at all possible. Not only are they socially awkward, they are also full of germs and general yuckiness. I would rather go in the woods.

I can't understand why public restroom stall doors have to open into the stalls. I hate that. I try to used the disabled one as much as possible because I don't fit in a regular one. I won't cut in front of a wheel chair but I will wait for it. And if anyone has a problem with me using one, well, hell, I am disabled. And I figured since I found out I was autistic after the age of 18, I live in the US, I will take that benefit since it's the only one I get.

Last edited by skibum on 22 Oct 2013, 4:50 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Ann, I DO go in the woods It is part and parcel of redneck privilege to get to pee on the same tree as your dogs.

LOL!! !

Just don't eat yellow snow!

I have this theory that I have held for quite a while - based on having to use the public restroom at work and even sometimes having to carry on conversations while I'm going. Mind you, I'm obsessive about pooping alone, I'll wait if I have to - but sometimes when you're peeing girls are talking to you and you have to answer or feel like you're not normal. I don't like conversing at a time like that, but I do it.

My theory is that we are all way too physically intimate with each since the advent of public restrooms and it is causing some of the social distress and general unhappiness we see in the world. I think that we Aspies are in touch with out discomfort over this issue, but non apsies like us are feeling too invaded only they don't know it because society tells them they're supposed to think that's normal.

So yes, private restrooms all around and we will be on the way to global happiness!

(I feel naughty using those words in public!)

It doesn't really bother me. Most of the restrooms today are so much cleaner than the gas station restrooms of my childhood that I don't feel bothered by that part. I got rid of any shame about natural bodily functions a long time ago, and I don't have much body modesty either. Knowing more about biology and physiology has made me find it laughable to worry much about germs.

All that said, I do prefer to use the toilets in the math and science buildings more than the ones in the business school. And for real, you kids today don't know how good you have it. Gas station restrooms thirty years ago were frequently pretty disgusting.

I compulsively clean toilets in public restrooms before I use them. People are disgusting and lack the decency (and aim) to not ruin a toilet that someone else may use.

I hate it when people talk to me while I'm peeing . . . it's like talking during sex. Sometimes there isn't a need for verbal communication. It's almost like clinginess.

I will drive miles out into the wilderness and walk a half mile into the brush before I would even attempt to use a public restroom. I can always shoot a snake, but there's nothing you can do about strangers in restrooms. My body simply will not perform those functions if there are other people standing around, or the possibility that someone might come bursting in. Another good reason to avoid bars and clubs.

I'm OK over using public restrooms. Whenever I need to go at school, there's always a single-occupancy restroom in a nearby building. IMO, single-occupancy restrooms are more private and relatively cleaner.

I was shocked, shocked I tell you, when I saw all the stalls in the bathroom of the NY Public Library had no doors. I mean, yes, there's the fear that people will do drugs in the stalls, but what about privacy?

I remember when stalls didn't have openings beneath the side walls. You could go to your heart's content without making noises that your neighbor could hear. Now, all the bathrooms have those stupid spaces. I understand why they're there - they eliminate the need to clean in nooks and crannies which harbor germs from "spillage." Privacy was the price you pay.

The worst toilet I've ever seen was the outside latrine at Arcadia National Park in Rhode Island. It was being used during some company's "dog run." When you opened the door, flies flew out. Poop was everywhere - the seat, the walls, the floor, the ceiling.

We just went in the woods. Much safer.

some of them smell really awful. (what do you expect from a room where people gather to pee?)

i remember when i was a janitor a few decades back [1980 or so], in a department store- i was cleaning out the lavatory one night when i noticed something next to the toilet in one of the stalls- i bent down to see what it was- and what it was, was a lump of feces that somebody stuck a .29 cent pricetag in the middle of it. somebody had some warped sense of humor. anyways, i generally don't have much trouble using today's restrooms with divided stalls but back in the old days [60s and 70s] in men's restrooms instead of there being individual urinals there were these wide troughs that multiple men would pee in all at the same time- i could NOT use those!

Was very restroom shy when I was younger. Never used the restrooms in high school, back then (early 1970's) the air in them was literally thick with marijuana smoke and it was a prime place to get bullied. A bout with colitis meant enough pain and pressure that I was forced to use the most disgusting of locations. A lot of shyness ended with that.

Having a conversation with a peeing person seems much more of a female phenomenon. I have had guys talk to me while I am peeing but it is pretty unusual.

I was actually mulling over the idea recently of posting a thread on this topic. I don't like using public bathrooms either if someone else is in there. I can do it, but I don't like it much. I especially hate it if someone comes up and uses a urinal right next to me, if someone else is sh***ing in the bathroom when I'm in there, or if I have to do anything other than peeing. I don't blame people for their bodily functions or anything, but it's just difficult for me to be around sometimes. I also tend to be a bit self-conscious about my own excretory processes, although, again, I don't blame myself or anything if I have to go in a less-than-ideal situation. I would just rather not.