Urinal Etiquette

The way men handle themselves while standing at public urinals has facinated me for a while, and its always surprised me that I have never seen it discussed anywhere in print. The only treatment of it I've seen is in Dave Barry's Complete Guide to Guys, and he treats it more as a funny curiousity than as a topic of real interest. A quick summery for those of you who may be unfamiliar with the phenomenon: When approaching a set of public urinals a man will always choose one of the two end toilets. If they are both occupied, and there are five or more urinals, he will select the center one. The general rule is that a man always chooses a urinal as far from one in use as possible. If he must be next to another man, he will avoid having a man on both sides of him at any cost short of waiting. Men always stare straight ahead or down while pissing at a urinal. Advertisers have picked up on this, and now put ads at eye level above urinals. The reasons for our behavior are pretty obvious, I think. We don't want people to think that we are watching them do their business or to have them watch us, which is why we stare straight ahead and avoid being next to people. On the other hand, we don't want them to think that we are accusing them of being perverts, so we won't wait if we can't avoid the double team. What amazes me is how this is completely uncalculated. We never think about it at all. Whenever I bring it up to my friends, they have to think about it for a second but then they know exactly what I'm talking about. Women tend to be flabbergasted by the whole thing. They just don't understand it at all. And nobody ever talks about it. Its mystifying. Somebody ought to write a book.