On the way to the parking deck after work today, the conversation turned (somehow) to how menfolk behave in the restroom. I was surprised to learn that in this area the ways of menfolk were neither well known nor well understood among my colleagues. So at the risk of redundancy, here are the rules of the restroom as they have been passed down to me.

1. The organizing principle of male restroom etiquette is the effective and efficient expression of male heterosexuality. From this all else follows.
2. If you’re not completely familiar with these rules by the age of ten, odds are you ride the “small bus.”
3. You may not look anyone in the eye or in the face except to avoid a collision.
4. You may not talk at the urinal, except to provide a rejoinder to a joke from someone using a stall.
5. You may not “look around” while at the urinal. This is considered a come on.
   • Best practice is to look directly ahead. Slightly up or slightly down is also acceptable.
   • You may look directly up only when beginning, in an unspoken expression of relief.
   • You may only look directly down when beginning or finishing. Doing otherwise would indicate an unacceptable unfamiliarity with the process.
6. If you shake more than twice you’re playing with yourself.
7. After finishing at the urinal, you may proceed immediately to the sinks or immediately out the door. Do not linger at the urinal.
   • For a short piss, some consider washing optional.
   • Among those who do wash after pissing, some consider soap optional.
8. At the sinks is the only acceptable place for conversation. Still, restrictions apply. Unacceptable conversations include:
   • “Do you have any lotion?”
   • “That’s a nice sweater you have on there.”
   • “Can I have a hug?”
9. Touching of any kind is strictly prohibited.
10. When choosing a urinal, you must choose the urinal the farthest from anyone else and farthest from the sink. (There is a highly evolved spatial calculus for this.)
    • Along that line, you may not choose the one in the middle even if no one else is there—someone could come in while you’re there and have to wait until you finished.
    • In a restroom with several urinals, if only one is available, you must wait. Or use a stall. The only exception is when there is a line.
11. In rarely heard of cases when the line extends out the door, those who are very drunk and those who are not yet old enough to legally drink may use the sink. (Opinion is divided here, but consensus leans toward this so as to avoid a “womanish” line.)
12. Persons using a stall may not have a conversation, but they are allowed to issue brief commentaries about their fecal matter, about its girth, about what caused its girth, and about whether they’d recommend it to anyone.
13. Laughing is not encouraged. A brief guffaw or grunt will suffice.
14. Along that line, noise expressing pain is prohibited. Those who cannot but do otherwise should wait until the bathroom is empty to go.
15. Noise expressing relief is acceptable only if it is brief and at the beginning or end of the process.
16. You may not sit down to piss. Or at least don’t get caught.
17. If you notice halfway through that there’s no toilet paper, it’s your own damn fault. Jesus, it’s a men’s restroom. Didn’t you check before you sat down?
18. If we knew who it was that pissed on the floor, or left the runs/floater mix in the stall, we’d all get together and kick their ass.
19. There is never any furniture because, if there was, would you sit in it?