Just when you think that you've had all the epiphanies in life you could possibly have, another one pops up when you least expect it!
Now I have had many epiphanies (most of which haven't made it to this blog yet, but do stay tuned...) that have defined the way I think about life and have had a direct result in adjustments to my thinking, on how I lead my life and pick my life choices. And like all epiphanies, it's the simple ones, particularly those so subtle that you don't get it the first time, that eventually make the most impact.
I was at restaurant for lunch yesterday with my family (it was Mother's Day) and before the food had arrived my wife excused herself to go to the facilities – to ostensibly powder her nose (although her nose did NOT seem much powdered when she came back). Anyway, she came back and shared a non-information, as married couples often tend to do when they get back from the loo (or is it just us? Any way perhaps couples do this to convince themselves that the trip to the toilet was a worthy distraction above and beyond the nature call). The bit of information she shared, you should understand, had no relevance whatsoever to our lives except that it revealed the toilet habits of complete strangers.
In this case, it was the public toilet habit of NOT one but TWO women.
Apparently these women had even passed our table as they proceeded to theirs (my wife was behind them as they left the loo). As she sat down she immediately asked whether I had seen the women who had just passed – I said I had; I hadn't. To be perfectly honest, truth is I 'noticed' two people, who incidentally were probably women, pass, I did not 'see' them.
Then she continued to inform me that those two women do NOT close the door when they 'go' in a public toilet cubicle! I simply said, “just don't look” - what could I say as a follow-on to that revelation?
Immediately after I said it though, I realised that this was an epiphany staring me right in the face. Obviously this was beyond just toilet observation, but simply that people are entitled to their privacy and it is other's people's responsibility to respect that even when it seems the former has done nothing overtly to protect it.
Just because someone stands naked, doesn't mean that we have an obligation to look – it's a case of a transference of modesty. After all, just because YOU choose to have none (and this is relative) does not equate to me losing mine as a result. Now I fully understand that this might not stand as far as actual 'nudity' is concerned – if someone stands naked in front of me or around me in the general vicinity, I imagine I have an 'obligation' if not a duty to look, if only to confirm that the person is... well, naked!
If we can just get our mind out of the toilet, both meta-physically and metaphorically, this truth, that all people are entitled to their privacy and others have a responsibility to respect that even when the former do nothing overtly to protect it, stands ripe for almost everything we can imagine. It is imperative that as evolved species we must be able to “just look away.” Somehow we have this inane reasoning to rationalise that our approval is needed for other people's actions to be acceptable. Incredibly we inadvertently deem ourselves individually as the judge and jury of public social behaviour.
I can understand if the deemed 'offensive' actions interfere with the liberties or the space of people who do not wish to compromise those rights, but why are we compelled to feel that we have a 'say' when the actions do not affect us at all? For example, in the case of the actions of two women witnessed by my wife, I am sure it was not their intension to 'expose' themselves to the other patrons (after all they
were in a cubicle, and if they wanted to do that they might have tried the men's), but probably thought enough of the patrons to imagine that those patrons could look away. Some, I am sure, did but were shocked, while other simply could not.
You rarely have this sort of problem in the men's room (unless you happen to a woman in the men's room, and then its probably still the man who makes a hurried retreat!). A hard and fast rule is that men do NOT 'look' at other men when they 'go' – but then leaving the door open is NOT an option either.
Clearly just because they appeared not to do anything overt to protect their privacy, did not give anyone else the right to disregard it. There is no argument that the onus falls on the person entering a room to knock
BEFORE opening a closed door.
Ditto for everything else. Just look away.
