By: Montgomery Himpton

There are a lot things you can tell about a person when it comes to their habits in and around the bathroom. I call it my philosophy of the toilet. While it might seem inane or farcical to think of the toilet as anything other than a utilitarian device for properly discarding human waste, I have become aware of pathological patterns within individuals’ behavior when it comes to how they treat their porcelain seats.

To begin with, men and women aren’t all that different, biologically, mentally, and when it comes to their bathroom behavior. Yeah, we can make a lot of minute distinctions that might seem inherently true, but only go to distort the very prevalent similarities between the genders. And if the only differences you can find is that one gender is an innie and the other an outie, then you’re distinctions are superficial and have no core basis.

With that somewhat out of the way, I can now make sweeping generalizations to encompass not just one gender, but both. So, what does it mean to go to the bathroom? In essence, it equates to a symbolic form of civilized culture. Barbarians, animals, they go outside because they are uncivilized. When you go camping and dig a little hole fifty yards from you camp, you’re only being partially civilized because it’s not exactly an actual toilet, but a poor facsimile of one. But either way, modern culture like to celebrate the fact that they’re somehow different from other species, unique in a way, and we especially like to do it through showing how we don’t sleep in our own shit.

When I say bathroom culture, I don’t just mean what happens within the bathroom, but how we compose ourselves in relation to the bathroom, i.e. controlling what we eat to regulate bowel movements, the way we cover up farts as if they’re silly, stupid and childish, and how sometimes people use the bathroom as a social mechanism within public or for any other reason besides its designated utilitarian purpose. But the most important reason why the bathroom tells us a lot about an individual is because, at the end of the day, there’s no way to hide it. Unlike the makeup we use to hide behind, and other cosmetic features we use to enhance our appearance, and the books and knowledge we use to bolster our intelligence, the toilet it there, a necessary faculty within daily living, sharing our most intimate moments in silence.

There are three main groups of toilet behavior. It might be too long and extensive to get into the subgroups behavioral patterns, but we can go into some detail about the main groups.

The first would be the reticent character type. Those who treat the bathroom as if it’s a place of shame. These types of people generally hold in their bowel movements for hours on end and are able to do so because of years of practiced and engrained endurance caused by a pathological guilt instilled into them—essentially, people who never read Everybody Poops as a child. If you think back on it, if you can’t remember a friend, family member, or someone you know relatively well ever going to the bathroom, then they probably have a reticent personality when it comes to the bathroom.

The reticence, though, is a byproduct of vanity. The type of people that need to look good for any and all occasions because they can’t subject themselves to the grosser qualities of life, e.g. the bathroom. And I don’t mean just your traditional makeup-peroxide-eyebrows-tweezed guy or gal who stares into the mirror more than the people on Jersey Shore. This type of person can easily be your average person with an inferiority complex that stems from being told they’re no good, worthless, a pockmark on society, etc. etc. And so they attempt to hide all those qualities that make them all of the above. Essentially, though, all of the reticent character type in bathroom culture derives from an extreme solipsism, or self-absorption, of the self.

Then the second character type would be the diametrically opposite from the reticent, those who are completely open about the fact that they go to the bathroom and about their bodies’ habits. These types of people come from open homes and environments where everyone acknowledged that people go to the bathroom and its inherent quality within life. Sometimes, though, these types of people came from so repressive an environment that they rebel against it and embrace complete openness. Is there anything wrong with this approach? At its core, no, but openness can lead to some negative consequences.

When a person is too open with their bathroom dialogue it can come off as brash, rude, and puerile, which at times can be more indicative of society than it is these specific individuals. But nevertheless, their openness is often times a defense mechanism when it pervades their entire personality, i.e. when someone uses bathroom-language as a crutch in their overall rhetoric because they don’t know how else to express themselves. You know this type of person, sometimes they become comedians, like Andrew Dice Clay and Dan Cook and Carlos Mencia (if you could call any of them comedians), and base their entire career off their ability to say “dick” and “cunt” onstage and in front of thousands of people. It’s not a particularly attractive feature of their personality, but still it is indicative of their general acceptance of baser human qualities.

The last group is more of a moderate position in the spectrum, those select individuals who have found a medium within their openness and reticence. These are your more diplomatic types. They judiciously compose themselves in the right moments, but know when the right time to unbutton their skirts or loosen their belts. But it’s not easy to be moderate. There’s a certain intelligence mixed with inherent charisma that can’t always be learned.

This isn’t to suggest that moderation when it comes to bathroom behavior is great. No, it’s just another way of handling everybody’s porcelain friend. Perhaps while not as self-righteous as complete openness about what goes on while they take care of business, their moderation can come off as lecturing and pompous. These types of personalities usually buy useless, imported decorative soaps and bath salts they never use for the expressed purpose of showing off, sharing in the vanity of the reticent personality, while also glossing over the reality of what they are doing: shitting and pissing in a can.

Like I said, there are many different subgroups within these main groups, but you can probably do enough deducing for yourself to discover what these are—I’m not trying to sell you anything. But there is certainly something to how we compose ourselves within the bathroom as to how we act within a larger context, and then there’s probably even more that can be said about what individuals do in public bathrooms and how that relates to their personality as well. Ah well, another time, another place.

But as a side note: As a college student I experienced the unfortunate roommate philosophy of ‘if it yellow let it mellow, if it’s brown flush it down’, and I’d just like to add that that is absolutely not true. The smell of urine can ruin a dorm room for weeks. So next time, just flush it no matter what color it is.