One trivia I may never fathom completely is the amount of importance women give to the position of their seating in a restaurant or a movie theatre. In resturants, when offered a choice to select the seat, I happily defer it to the women, for I have always known the seating position for some reason seems vital to them. The same happens at a movie theatre too. But if I go out to eat with guys, I'm sure the last thing that will go on in any of our minds is where we sit in the restaurant. We go to eat. We eat.
Thinking about how much of importance guys attach to such situations, one thing that perplexes me is the algorithm behind the urinal selection in a men's room. That's right!
When a guy enters a restroom, among various thoughts running across his mind, there must be one complicated algorithm to select the urinal of his choice. Factors that may act as inputs to his algorith may include (but not restricted only to) distance, cleanliness, access and juxtaposition.
If there are a series of urinals, some people select the one that's right in the middle, yet having unoccupied urinals on either side. Some choose to walk to the farthest end of the restroom to begin the work. Some always select the ones closest to the hand-wash area or the exit. Some never use urinals - they directly go to the flush toilets.
I have a friend who cant pee when someone talks to him or make him laugh. Such people have their own modified algorithm, bringing more factors into consideration before taking the final decision.
One may conclude that there are a lot of such activities and calculations going in a restroom, not to forget this. Most algorithms, I guess can't be generalised, for as they say 'To each his own'.
Only if one closely observes the human behaviour, such unsolved mysteries can be attempted for a proven solution. Only if.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
12 comments:
i think finding a urinal with unoccupied ones on either sides is most common.
ps:
someones dating life is going great i guess :p
I think you think too much. I've never thought of where to sit when I go out to eat? Except mebbe something like a seat with a view or something which is also very rare!
aaen...idhu yen edam!
Grad,
I agree. And once again, whose dating life is going great?! :)
Nandini,
Yaa, I think I think too much too. And you really dont care where you sit in a resturant?! ponnaa neee?!
Prashanth,
As lame as my comment might sound, I seriously did not understand your comment :(
Urinal ALgorithm :) lols...
Hehe... For me, cleanliness comes first and secondly a sense of privacy..
I remember something i read in a magazine , I guess it was a research report on this very issue, and it was quite the same as your observation. Men prefer either to go to the middle ones or to the very ends, and usually avoid the ones in between ...
ppl tend to occupy alternate urinals.
A lot of urinals these days have a spot parts where you can aim for minimum spillage!
ippadium oru research!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
There is no algorithm, but there is an etiquette. In fact there used to be an online game where they present you different urinal configuration with some occupied and you are expected to click on the one that you'd choose. Then it will give you a feedback of your choice.
You should always avoid picking one where the neighboring one is occupied. If everything is free, you have to choose the one of the two corner ones. If you can't find anything, you should probably comb your hair until something gets freed up.
Of course, none of these rules apply when you have had one too many beers.
A fascinating topic for research. One Wolfgang Pauli studied it and won a nobel for proposing the Pauli Exclusion Principle which states that no two identical fermions can occupy adjacent urinals, unless there are no free ones with both adjacent pots empty, in which case the identical fermions must gaze steadily at a point directly in front of them for the entire duration of occupancy of that valence state.
I think another factor you left out is familiarity - if the restroom is one we regularly visit (like school, workplace, etc.), then, over a period of time, we develop a kind of ownership of the urinal. Of course, the initial reasons for having perused this urinal might be one of the reasons you listed, but after that, the sole reason becomes ownership and favouritism.
:D
Post a Comment