Men Talking in Bathrooms

Social norms are all around us and dictate the way in which we act in social situations. Social norms are not always so easy to acknowledge since they are simply just embedded into our society. Norms are not the same as laws. For example, one cannot be in trouble with the law because he/she cuts someone in line at a cinema, however, we all know that doing this breaks normal social harmony and can be quite problematic in a social setting. Another example of norm breaking is explained in a New York Times article called "Excuse Me. May I have Your Seat? Revisiting a Social Experiment, And the Fear that Goes With It". Students were given an assignment to board a crowded subway train and simply ask people to give up their seats. This may not seem problematic but New Yorkers know just how confrontational this type of situation could get.

For a young, seemingly physically fit college student to ask others on the train to give up seats to them is unheard of in this city. It's a social norm to give up your seat to an elderly, disabled or pregnant woman but to try to justify a college student demanding a seat is very problematic. As an assignment in my own class, I was asked to go out into the city and break a social norm myself. The only rules to this assignment were that I had to be sober, alone and it could not violate an actual law. The way I chose to break social norms for this assignment was to go into the men's restroom at a local music venue and use the urinal closest to other men in the bathroom, and also to try to make conversation with them.

Social norms are very clear-cut for men regarding public restrooms. There are certain rules that apply to each and every man in this country, and as far as I am concerned in at least the "western" world. If a man enters a bathroom full of urinals he is expected to take the urinal furthest away from any other person in the bathroom. You are not to make eye contact nor make conversation. This occasionally will occur if both parties know each other and/or are intoxicated but these circumstances are quite rare. In any case, I know that I have felt uncomfortable myself in the past when someone has come up to the urinal next to me when there were literally forty free urinals at a New York Yankees game two summers ago. It's a little unnerving just because it's a violation of our normal social code of conduct. I assumed that this would be a simple way for me to do my assignment. I was quite wrong.

I ended up entering the restroom at Le Poisson Rouge downtown on three separate occasions the night of Saturday, March 13^th. The first time I did not follow through with my plan to be perfectly honest. I panicked at the last minute and ended up taking the far urinal, pretending to urinate and finished by casually washing my hands making as little as a scene as possible. The guy with the plaid shirt and glasses in the bathroom had no idea that indeed I was a budding sociologist; thank G-d for that.

The second time was a little easier for me. I worked up the courage and just went for it. I had to explain to my girlfriend why I was going to the bathroom so often, and she looked at me as if I had ten heads. I knew I had to go for it though so I entered the restroom for the second time at about 9PM after the first act finished his set. This time, there were two guys doing their thing at their respective urinals. It was as if someone knew I was doing a social experiment. There were several urinals available at the back of the bathroom but there was one free between the two guys, which looked to me like a golden opportunity to break a social norm. I quickly rushed to the urinal, quickly unzipped my pants, began urinating making sure to hit the water to create a ruckus and greeted both of my brand new friends. They both returned my "Good evening" with blank stares. One looked uncomfortable while the other looked a bit angry. I was not going to give up that easily. I asked them both how they were enjoying the concert and even added in a "brother" at the end of my sentence. In that moment, the uncomfortable looking guy turned away from me, zipped his pants back up and left his respective urinal.

The guy who looked angry in the beginning gave me another hostile stare. I began to sweat and feel uncomfortable in this moment and did not know if I should push the experiment further. I decided to push a little more (well a lot more) just for the sake of writing something humorous in this paper. I looked at him and bluntly stated, "I'll show you mine if you show me yours". This was greeted with a "fuck off", and I then had to live with the fact that I got looked at as not only a deviant but a pervert as well. The guy quickly retreated to the sink, washed his hands, gave me a glare over his shoulder once more and exited the restroom. This shameful moment of my research was one of the more uncomfortable moments of my life. I suppose I felt so horrible about the situation because I knew that I had broken a social norm, which is horribly embarrassing. Not to mention the fact that we were in a small venue with a capacity of only a few hundred so it was quite possible that this man could easily find me again and give me a good talking to.

After watching an excellent set by the musician I went to see, I decided to get my wits together and go in the bathroom for a third time just to see if I could gather a little more data for the assignment. This time, there were a lot more guys in the bathroom since it was the end of the show. The level of intoxication varied greatly amongst the patrons in the restroom so I slid into a random urinal (this time I really had to go), and turned to the guy next to me asking, "Hey man how did you like the show?" I closed my eyes for a brief moment expecting a hostile reaction or even worse a knuckle sandwich. Luckily by some divine intervention I chose the most inebriated man in Manhattan that night, and he wanted to talk about the show and more! He explained to me about his night of being stood up by a potential girlfriend, his outstanding bar tab and his deep love for the music of the musician who played that night. This was all explained to me in a timeframe of about thirty seconds. Now I myself began feeling uncomfortable since this guy was turning the tables and breaking social norms when I was trying to do the same thing. I wished him a good night and quickly left the bathroom. Two times in two nights I had ended up becoming extremely uncomfortable and anxious myself when I was the one who was supposed to be in control of bending and breaking social norms.

I violated this specific social norm simply because I thought it would be easy to do without much chance for a violent end. Upon reviewing my research, it is clear that even doing this simple act can anger people greatly and result in complete strangers hating your guts. I chose it also because it would be easy to do, and I could essentially do it any place in the city. I figured this specific night was a good night since the assignment's due date was coming up soon quite simply.

The audience that I subjected to my social norms violations was rather varied in some aspects but in others pretty much all connected in one way or another. First of all, all the people subjected to my norm violation were all males. All of the guys who I wrote about in this paper were between the ages of eighteen and twenty-eight and all seemed to be the "hipster" type. As a strange coincidence, they all wore beards. The audience was men who enjoyed going to shows, drinking and possibly was subjected to people like me in the past (although it is probable that those other people were under the influence of some drug or alcohol when it occurred). All the guys I encountered during this study seemed well versed in the ways of social norms. Luckily for me, I got several different reactions during this study to show that everyone acts very differently depending on the situation. I had one guy become horribly introverted and uncomfortable, one who probably wanted to kill me and finally one who wanted to be my new best friend. I suppose I could discount the latter since he was intoxicated but in any case he did not react in a negative manner. Men expect to enter a quiet, personal place when they go into a bathroom. I interrupted everyone's expectations and assumptions about what they were getting themselves into. Had I not gone in there talking up a storm, all three men would have had a typical, normal urination and would have been able to return to their lives unscathed by my experimentation. However, I willingly interrupted the flow of social norms and discovered in real life just how important social norms are, and how they are necessary to maintain order and peace in society. I myself felt extremely uncomfortable throughout this assignment and hope to never have to do anything similar to this again in my life. I enjoy social norms and plan to conform to them as much as possible to avoid possible altercations in the future. I was anxious, sweaty, certainly embarrassed and even a little bit scared at moments during this. I know that I also made complete strangers angry, embarrassed and uncomfortable as well. If both me and the people subjected to the violation felt uncomfortable, it is clear that social norms must be upheld in society and that sometimes conformity is actually a good thing as much as I would like to say that is the problem with many aspects of society. However, in the end, conformity is necessary under certain circumstances such as what you choose to do while you urinate in public restrooms.