if you got a 4th in, would you consider yourselves a toilet-bowl quartet?(sp) hehe

You didn't include an answer option that covers my opinion, that being, "I'm a man. It totally depends on the context."

In all honesty, it has nothing to do with sexual identity crises.

It's just an unspoken "don't invade my space" rule, like the one that says that if there are three urinals, and someone is using the one at one end, you use the one at the other end, rather than the one in the middle.

Or the one where you skip a seat between you and another guy in a movie theater.

It's not about homosexuality, or fear thereof; it's an issue of territoriality. Barring complications (3 urinals, one dude at each end, third guy walks in) you have a personal space that is - I guess women call it a "comfort zone," although that's not really an exact parallel - sort of a "zone of logarithmically increasing hostility based on proximity."

Hmmmmm.

The more I think about that, the more accurate it seems. Regardless of the person doing it, anyone who invades your space when the option exists to do otherwise generates a hostile response, because it seems disrespectful.

I understand that this is why - for example - commuter trains and such in very overcrowded nations are so very impersonal and conversation-free; acknowledging the other people around you seems to trigger the hostile response, both yours and theirs.

The implied disrespect inherent in invading another person's space when it's not forced by circumstance certainly makes me hostile; while it's perfectly ok, for example, for one of my buddies to come up and ask what I'm reading, it's totally unacceptable for the same buddy to come up and lean over and start reading over my shoulder.

Interestingly, the reaction is less profound with women, but still there.

Maybe subconsciously we just suspect that women don't really understand the whole concept of personal space anyway, and therefore there's no point in making a big deal out of it.

I agree with that. People like to have as much room to themselves and don't really feel comfortable when someone else is in their space. But when it comes to communication I don't know why guys don't talk to people even their friends. I guess most of them feel awkward talking to someone while holding their penis. wierd

In the U.K. Men's Public Lavatories (they are never called Bathrooms here, unless they have an actual Bath in them...) are frequented after dark by Gheys looking for some action. It is called Cottaging, for some unknown (to me) reason.

I doubt many straight men would venture there unless they were desperate.

Wow! I wouldn't be caught dead in them after dark!

Now I am gonna share something that I remember back in the days when I was a fundie.
This impressed me and though I disagree now with the "agenda" that I can presume would have followed, I believe I know a man who demonstrated a true love for his fellow man in what he did.
I was a member at the time, of a fairly large church. By no means, a mega church, this being one of many in a city of about 55,000 people. But it did have about 650 congregants.
Well there was a family there that I did not know only to see their faces and not anything else about them. The man was a business man and had to travel, so was not always there for the services. Well one day, none of them came. And the next thing you know, they were gone.
All I do know is that the man had a wife and three kids. But evidently, he had begun to go to Adult Book Stores. And then he started to get involved in the type of meetings that Sphinx spoke of. There were some rather well known spots in the area that were public restrooms that became points of rendezvous for "stranger sex".
Well, one of the Pastors at the church had been approached by the wife for counsel and so he befriended this man, and not only in prayer or by counsel, but by being with him. So he actually went himself to one of these meeting bathrooms and did not concern himself with his reputation or what might happen there. He simply met the man, to say, "I know. God knows. And you are just as loved as ever. "
I only know that much of the story. I will say that I think that Jesus would not be afraid to go anywhere, to show the Love of God either.
Now that said, I am not promoting an agenda to "re-orient" gay men to a hetereosexual lifestyle. And if I am saying anything that anyone on any side of the argument about gay issues could take offense to, I am sorry.
I only mean to say that I think as much as "personal space" is a valid right to be respected, that people have some hang ups at all that keep us from seizing opportunities to just be real with one another. And that boundaries, though warranted, can also make us less in touch with one another.
And I do believe more men are afraid of even the intimacy of communication with their friends than women are. And perhaps, though I am not talking now about conversing in the men's room, but maybe if men could feel a new social freedom to demonstrate more concern and even affection for one another, there would be more happy men.

OD

What a wonderful post, OD.....and what a wonderful man that Pastor of the church was (is).

Indeed, the whole world would be such a better place for us all if we all cared about others in the way that Jesus meant us to.

Yes! Men seem horrified, terrified even, of being thought homosexual if they are not, and at a loss as to how they could deal with it.

As a woman, I would not be insulted or horrified if somebody thought I was a Lesbian (although I am not).

I would perhaps be wryly amused as to why they would think that....and that is all.

Thank you for saying so, Sphinx.

OD

Well i'm a bit uptight about my bodily functions. So on a regular day i'm just silent and go about my business.

However at a party or club or other specifically social venue, the dynamics change. I've had plenty of talks with people in and right outside the restroom.. it's fun.. Everybody s there to have fun and everybody has roughly the same agenda.. which is to have fun and meet people.. so you don't feel odd when you get talked to or when you talk to somebody else in that situation.. but on any regular tuesday afternoon.. well i'll just go about my business and move on.