Must be lonely, being angry, feeling overlooked

[sovay]

So the Somerville Theatre has a gender-neutral restroom. It's on the first floor, right past the main house; it was part of the original women's lounge when the theater was built in 1914, got converted into an additional men's room during the renovations in the '90's, two years ago was reclassified gender-neutral with the sign beside the door to prove it. I am sometimes in this restroom. The other night I am in this restroom and in the next stall a guy is talking on his phone, which is already a strike against him even before I process what he's complaining about: "I just don't know why girls would want to be let into the men's room. Like, are they trans, are they perverts?" At this point my brain occasioned a slight record scratch—perverts? Dude, are you in 1963?—and I failed to open my mouth and startle him by reminding him that he could always use the actual men's room downstairs if he felt threatened by non-men using the toilets around him, since nothing about the layout of the Somerville Theatre legally obligates a dude to use the gender-neutral restroom. I feel bad about not startling him. It would have been morally good for him and maybe he would have dropped his phone down the john. But I didn't, so it's three days days later and I am still annoyed with him for his fundamental misreading of concepts of public space. The gender-neutral restroom is not some inherently male space that women are forcing their way into. "Gender-neutral" doesn't mean "men-plus," as if it were one of the languages where a mixed group always defaults to the masculine gender. I suppose it's illuminating that he thinks so and that he's territorial about it. But the concept isn't new and neither is the sign on this particular restroom and I hope nothing went right with that guy for the rest of his night.

To end on a nicer note, because I have to try to sleep somehow: I walked around this afternoon and took pictures. I got flowering trees, fire escapes, rubble heaps. Here's a steep angle on the Knights of Malta Hall, across the street from the ex-warehouse. The colors came out the way they looked.

Comments

[gwynnega]

Sheesh. I really hate when people use phones in restrooms, and perverts does seem bizarrely retro as well as clueless.

[gwynnega]

That is a great photo.

[julian]

That translates to me as if he didn't know the theater before the 90s, but has known it since and is slow to change, as many people are, so still thinks of that restroom as a male restroom and his turf. (Neither of which are true, of course, and it's not like he could treat, for example, a former coffee shop as a coffee shop if it has been turned into an absinthe bar. When a location changes, it changes.)

I sigh at him.

(Oh, nice picture! That's such a vibrant addition to the post. Thank you.)

[sovay]

I really hate when people use phones in restrooms, and perverts does seem bizarrely retro as well as clueless.

It was a really weird thing to overhear. Especially since it wasn't even like the guy had seen me come in, nor had a crowd of ladies just exited. The idea was enough to make him whip out his phone and complain.

(I recognize he may have entered the restroom while on his phone and thence remained so, but let me pretend that is not a thing people do.)

[sovay]

That is a great photo.

Thank you! I really like how the brick came out in the light.

[sovay]

(Neither of which are true, of course, and it's not like he could treat, for example, a former coffee shop as a coffee shop if it has been turned into an absinthe bar. When a location changes, it changes.)

I like your examples and you may be right about his reasons. Just, argh. Don't order absinthe and then complain about its failure to be cappuccino.

(Oh, nice picture! That's such a vibrant addition to the post. Thank you.)

Thank you! It's the kind of light I think of as Edward Hopper light and I'm really happy to have caught it. I also like the building and am faintly worried about it.

[spatch]

An occasional trend I've noticed at the theater is men using their phones while at the urinal. It's not only creepy and fraught with the danger of dropping the phone (or neglecting one's aim) but it's downright rude when there's a line. I just don't get it.

[thisbluespirit]

It's a great photo!


(The guy in the stall on the phone does not compare. <3)

[shewhomust]

I just don't know why girls would want to be let into the men's room...

Ignoring everything else that is wrong with this, has this guy never SEEN the queue for the ladies' room?

[sartorias]

You're probably better off not having spoken. A man that entitled and clueless would be more than likely to react to a female voice in a highly unpleasant manner--and still manage not to take the message.

[selkie]

First of all, ew. Ew on the most basic 'you don't know where that's been' level. Parenting has made me change my stance on talking in public washrooms, but only so far as 'Vocally confirm with me, independence-aged child, that you have not wandered off to Guam under cover of the blower dryers.' Otherwise there is a fourth wall. A fourth wall, dammit.

Guh.

Second of all, ew. Vengeful theatre ghosts should have accosted him at some less fraught point in his evening and stuck his tie in his gelato.

[sporky_rat]

It's always out the door. Everywhere.

(I finally figured out how to use a urinal without touching it for this exact reason.)

[sporky_rat]

Or asking if the other stall has paper, but that's it.

[isis]

Haha seriously.

[sandrylene]

I realize as I get older I should attempt to be tolerant, etc, but honestly humanity has not been able to stop me from just believing firmly that some people are just assholes. Maybe with a cluebat to the forehead they could be redeemable, but by default they just seem to be carelessly sauntering down Asshole Avenue and will never stop to reflect why all the people they pass there are continually bumping into them with their elbows at rib level.

Anyhow. I don't understand why the world is full of people who are convinced people are really, really interested in watching others pee (in as much as you can even do that in a normal restroom anyhow) rather than that they are just finding a restroom that matches their gender identification useful. Sigh. Unfortunately, as you probably already know, people.

[kenjari]

I don't understand why the world is full of people who are convinced people are really, really interested in watching others pee

Exactly. Most of the time, my self-consciousness and shyness motivate me to pretend really hard that there is no one else in the restroom with me at all. The other people in there and their personal plumbing are the absolutely last things I want to think about.

[julian]

"Don't order absinthe and then complain about its failure to be cappuccino."

*Exactly*.

But I'm mostly commenting just to ask -- why are you worried about the Knights of Malta building?

[sovay]

But I'm mostly commenting just to ask -- why are you worried about the Knights of Malta building?

Just because it's right across the street from the right of way of the Green Line Extension, i.e., from the rubble heaps that used to be the Reid & Murdock Warehouse, and I don't want to discover one day that it too has been sacrificed to the GLX. It's probably safe because it's too far from the tracks to compete with a station, but the warehouse was also originally slated for preservation and I've become nervous.

[sovay]

It's a great photo!

Thank you!

The guy in the stall on the phone does not compare.

Verdigris has better manners.

[sovay]

Ignoring everything else that is wrong with this, has this guy never SEEN the queue for the ladies' room?

AN EXTREMELY LEGITIMATE POINT.

Every year at the 'Thon, the twenty-four-hour sci-fi film marathon that spatch and I have been attending together since 2012, the composition of the audience skews so far male that I see multiple women taking selfies with the line for the men's room that stretches sometimes up the stairs as they breeze right past into the comparatively uncluttered women's room. I am not entirely sure why these demographics (because I know a lot of women who like both science fiction and film; it makes me worry about the welcomingness of the environment and reminds me that the one time I interacted personally with the festival director, he assumed I wasn't there for the movies but just to support my local boyfriend), but it's certainly striking to see, like one of those sex-reversal thought experiments.

[julian]

Thought that might be it, but figured there might be other reasons, like sub rosa extended warfare over neighborhood zoning issues.

I will hope that the GLX doesn't overswim its banks again, because that brickwork needs to survive.

[sovay]

A man that entitled and clueless would be more than likely to react to a female voice in a highly unpleasant manner--and still manage not to take the message.

You may be right, which, bleh.

[sovay]

Parenting has made me change my stance on talking in public washrooms, but only so far as 'Vocally confirm with me, independence-aged child, that you have not wandered off to Guam under cover of the blower dryers.'

My mother used to chirrup, like a bat. I would respond in kind.

Second of all, ew. Vengeful theatre ghosts should have accosted him at some less fraught point in his evening and stuck his tie in his gelato.

We are supposed to have some theater ghosts. One can but hope.

[batdina]

once upon a time at Grateful Dead concerts, I used the men's room as a matter of course. (Have you seen the lines, etc. from above.) Not a single person in there ever complained about my presence. And I'm talking venues all over North America here, not just California.

I'm suddenly overwhelmed with nostalgia and affection for the 1980s. And that's just WRONG.

[sovay]

I'm suddenly overwhelmed with nostalgia and affection for the 1980s. And that's just WRONG.

Yikes. I understand.

Good icon.

[pameladean]

Oh, that building is just excellent!

That GUY, on the other hand, ugh.

P.

[sovay]

Oh, that building is just excellent!

It just looks like that when you walk by it! The sign you can just see at the bottom of the photo is for the Boston Billiard Emporium, and the other tenant I know the building houses is East Cambridge Piano. I feel these are solid local businesses and should flourish.

That GUY, on the other hand, ugh.

I am not so interested in him flourishing, no.

[owl]

That happens at tech conferences too.

[asakiyume]

That guy! USE THE OTHER RESTROOM IF YOU'RE SUCH A TESTICLE-CLUTCHING BIGOT, sheesh! Protect him from the lascivious eyes of all those lecherous wimmins omg!

(Beautiful photo)

[sovay]

Protect him from the lascivious eyes of all those lecherous wimmins omg!

It was an amazing illustration of fragile masculinity, but I didn't ask for it while I was also just trying to use the restroom!

(Beautiful photo)

(Thank you.)